This is just the beginning.

PICTURES! Finally. I have been taking so many that it is really hard to narrow it down, but at the same time its hard to find even one picture that can really do justice to the experience it represents (although maybe thats speaking more to my photography skills than anything else...). 

Cape Town, South Africa

Cape of Good Hope, the most southern tip of Africa.  Debatably the most beautiful place I have ever been.  I dangled my feet off a bluff overlooking the waters where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet, feeling very much like I was at the ends of the earth. 

Jamison Hall, University of Cape Town. These are the last of the 235971200 steps I walk up every day to get to class (really only a slight exaggeration), leading to the main part of this beautiful campus. In the background Devil's Peak, the highest summit of Table Mountain, adds to the stunning setting of UCT.

The main walk in Upper Campus where I have all four of my classes. Classes started last Monday and have been fine. School is school, no matter what continent.   

African penguins on Bolder Beach in the Cape Penninsula.

This is the platter of mostly unknown meats at a braai place called Mzoli's in Gugulethu, a township on the outskirts of Cape Town. It was one big room under a tin room full of plastic tables and chairs, loud African house music, and literal buckets of meat. It was wonderful, a culture hub of the township, jam packed with vibrant people and good food.

A bar across the street from Mzoli's in Gugulethu. 

Sunset at the Waterfront. I met up with Christopher Wyatt (for those of you from LC) and his mom and we got dinner and  caught the sunset at the Waterfront, a big dutch style outdoor mall along the port. We also hit up a karaoke bar and sang and danced until at least one in the morning. It was a great time, I mean what are the chances that two old friends from home would be on the other side of the world in the same city at the same time? 

This weekend we went to the Stellenbosch Wine Festival. Stellenbosch is a little more than an hour outside of Cape Town and is an old, very dutch settlement surrounded by some of the best wine country in the world. It looks a little like central California really, rolling vineyards and big country houses. This was the only picture that captured any of the scenary, and it definitely doesn't do it justice. The festival was a day long so we stayed in a hostel and went out to the bars that night. It was a long weekend and I'm feeling the repercussions now, but it was definitely worth it. This is Adriane one of my housemates and my wine tasting partner all weekend. 

I've only been in South Africa two weeks and I already love this flag. I feel like I've been here for months, and like I've known these people for years. My bucket list just gets longer with every new place I go or person I meet. It may feel like I've been here a long time but I am always happy to remind myself, this is just the beginning. 

Lesson Learned.

Its been almost one week since I arrived now, but it feels like so much more. The last few days have been just as exciting as the first, but now that the initial whirlwind has settled I am beginning to learn a few things about this place and my place in it. 

Lesson 1: Whoever said that South Africans speak English took a very liberal approach.

Once I figured out that the robots people kept directing me towards in the streets were nothing more than traffic lights and the weefee they tried to put in our house was actually just internet, I began to realize that even between english speakers many things can be lost in translation. A bru is not a beer and black label is not whiskey, lekker is a good thing, they don’t barbeque- they braii, and the Aggies are not a school mascot but a violent South African gang (safe to say I won’t be wearing that sweatshirt again...). The accent is wonderful, and although difficult to understand at times its all very fun to learn and even more fun to imitate. My goal is to have at least one conversation with a local before I leave without them knowing I’m American. 

Aside from English, Cape Town is a rich blend of about four main languages: Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, and Sutu, and they are all much more prevalent than I anticipated. Everyone seems to speak at least two, but its still a very interesting and  influential social divide around the Cape and more broadly the country that often coincides with racial divisions. I signed up to take Xhosa (pronounced with a click), so *Enkosi Kakhulu!

Lesson 2: In a country with one of the highest rates of theft in the world, I just might be my own worst enemy.

Despite the dozen or so safety lectures and travel advice I got before leaving and upon arrival I’ve decided that the best way to avoid theft is to rid myself of everything worth stealing. Thats why I left my laptop behind at JFK security last week and also why I gave that taxi driver my wallet last night. Pure strategy. 

Lesson 3: We underestimate our luxuries. 

I don’t mean this in the “its my first time in Africa, these people have so little” way,  but rather its the unanticipated difficulties that I’ve come across that I find noteworthy. Internet is the first and most frustrating one. Did you know there are only TWO fiber optic cables coming in to the entire continent of Africa? Wifi is hard to come by, free internet is nonexistent, and all internet is limited. Its been harder than I would have thought to get used to not being able to look up a phone number or an address or check my bank account or contact my family at the  push of a button. On the bright side, it looks like I’ll be able to break my facebook addiction...

Another one I have had some trouble with independence. While living here I don’t have the luxury of walking to the store by myself or sitting in a coffee shop past dark. What I do and when I do it depends on who is around to go with me, which is a concept I never had to grasp in the states. I suddenly appreciate the safety of my neighborhood both at school and at home in ways I never did before.  

There are lots of other notable ones- printing, being eco-friendly, electricity, being germ-o-phobic, GOLD (UCSB’s online registration system), and spare pillows to name a few.

I could go on, I learn more and more on a daily basis and its truly wonderful, but these entries are already too long and I am going to lose my fan base if I ramble. Love you all!

PS. Pictures are coming soon... I have taken a good amount, but despite my earlier comments I’m not ACTUALLY trying to lose everything valuable to me on this trip and I would rather not bring my camera to the cafe. 

* Means thank you in Xhosa... makes no sense in context but its the only word I know. 

Howzit!

So I survived all three flights and arrived in Cape Town safely last Friday afternoon. Kylee, a friend from Santa Barbara/my new roommate, and I were picked up at the airport and taken to a dorm on campus where we spent one night before moving in to our permanent residence, Charlton house, on Saturday. 

Charlton is an old bed and breakfast now used as housing for international students. The electricity is glitchy (to say the least), there is no internet access, and the showers have a way of mildly electrocuting you whenever the water is on... but I absolutely love it. Its huge and old and filled with personality, partly due to it’s quirkiness but mostly due to my eighteen new house mates. We are a wide range of people from a range of countries, but so far we’ve all gotten along really well. In fact, on the second night in our house we quickly bonded over our love of the only thing we had in common at that time, the house, and decided to throw a party to celebrate being there. With no music, no food or drinks, and temperamental lighting we figured it would be low key... Turns out that word of a house party travels just as quickly in Africa as in America and within two hours we had nearly sixty international students and the police in our house. Yep. Way to go Charlton house, starting the semester off with a bang!

Since then I’ve mostly been occupied with orientation events on campus, registering for classes and exploring places to eat around town. As part of orientation al of the international students (there are about 400!) went on a day long tour of the Cape Peninsula. We drove through downtown Cape Town, hung out with penguins on the beach, saw a few other landmarks and beaches, but most notably hiked to Cape Point at the Cape of Good Hope. Everything in this city is beautiful but Cape Point was by far the most impressive sight yet. Situated at the southern most point in Africa with a view of the Indian ocean to one side and the Atlantic to the other, I felt a little bit like I was at the ends of the Earth. 

I could go on forever about the details of the first few days and the beauty of the city, but I’ll save some of that for another day. More pressingly, internet at the cafe I have been frequenting is painfully limited and expensive, and I just might run out any minute. 

Much love! 

Onward

Hello all! I've been debating over the last few weeks whether or not to start a blog. At first it seemed slightly egocentric of me to assume that there are enough people out there interested in what I am doing to warrent a public forum, but I've accepted that blogs are more like high tech travel diaries than anything else. So I bought the $8 airport internet, picked out a trendy background and I'm officially up and running. Good thing my mom alloted enough time to hit a tornado on the drive to LAX and still have an hour to spare in the terminal...

I found a great seat at the JetBlue gate, right in front of a big window, and at 7:35 PM the sun is just starting to set. It feels like an appropriate setting to say goodbye to California for the next five months as I set out on truly the adventure of my lifetime. I'm nervous- there are so many things that I am unprepared for. I'm a little sad- there are so many people I had to say goodbye to. But most of all I am overwhelmingly excited. I don't know who my friends will be, I don't know what we'll do, I don't even know if I have a ride from the airport when I get there... but I can't wait to find out!

I'll keep this short since my future posts are bound to ramble. Now all I have to do is survive a 5 hour plane ride to New York, 6 hour layover in JFK, 16 hour flight to Johannesburg, 3 hour layover at O.R. and a 2 hour flight to Cape Town... See you all on Friday, here goes nothing!