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Ich bin endlich zu Hause :)
And this weather is amazing.

Schoooool's out. for. WINTER! Schooool's out. for. EVER! At UCT anyway...

DONE WITH EXAMS! I am still sick, actually worse than I was before... but I took my last final and now all I have is stuff for my IES class that although it really doesn't matter that much, I still have to do. It was raining horribly today and I had my exam at five in Jameson (the building in all of the pictures... awesome), which was freezing... never have I been so cold in an exam in my life. The supervisors were even wearing winter coats. Exams here are crazy by the way... well work in general is crazy. Every time I submit an assignment I have to put it online on VULA (a much better version of Moodle or Blackboard... I really will miss it) and turn in a hard copy to the department BUT... I must also submit a signed and dated plagarism declaration that says I have not copied or plagarised or anything else.... I do this every single time hard copy and online. And for exams, we have to take a number out of a box and go sit at that desk and that desk only. We have to fill everything out on the front correctly and then fold over the corner so it is completely anonymous. We also have to have our ID and fill out an attendance sheet. In a lot of cases we also have to use multiple books for multiple answers since courses are often taught by two different professors. Once we are finished, someone has to come around and take all of the exams and we can leave. Then they are graded by the professors and then by 'external' graders, who are people that are outside of UCT. That's a lot of work for every single exam....
Also a girl in my program has Malaria. Good to know, because I don't think she went anywhere...
Only 2.5 more days in my house, and then I will officially live in Obs... This whole packing thing is really depressing.
OH. And just so you all know, I've kind of only thought about you every day, as you can see.

The Final Countdown...

It is the beginning of the end! I still have three weeks here, but this is the last week that I will be in my house... very sad to think about! We have until the 30th and then we are supposedly moving into a lodge in Observatory (and by we I mean Lizzy, Becca, Tim, Ken, and myself... Brian and Sam are going to Church Street and Gray is going to Alma... last I heard). I think this is especially funny because early on in the semester a UCT student was murdered in Observatory and a very hastily written and somewhat incorrect e-mail was written to our parents about the event, which most of us in the program don't really think was necessary... anyhow, in this e-mail, it said something to the effect of 'our students don't spend time in Obs' and it is about an 8 minute drive... FALSE. We go to Obs often enough and it is a five minute or less WALK. And now we are living there for a week? Interesting... I mean I'm not really afraid of being there for the most part, at least not more so than I would be just about anywhere else in the area, but I just think it is great that that's where we are going after all that in February...
It's kind of depressing to pack everything, even though I'm not leaving just yet. It's still weird because this is my house that I've lived in all semester and now I have to go live in Obs. And while I am looking forward to some things about going home (free internet, cell phone, food, people, summertime), it is going to be hard to leave. I think I will miss a few people here more than I thought I would, and there are so many things about South Africa in general that I will miss very much... the fact that I'm not really going home to much just makes it harder... everyone will be gone and I may or may not even have a job.
In other news, there have been several strikes lately... as usual. Apparently there is a wage dispute with the company that UCT uses in it's cafeteria and workers have been striking on campus. UCT says that it doesn't control the wages, but rather the company that they have the contract with... kind of like Sodexo at Transy I would assume. Well people don't care and they are pretty angry! They are all over the place on campus. Today I went to Tugwell on Lower Campus to take a Jammie to Upper so I could take my Xhosa exam and I was stopped and I had to show a UCT ID because a group of protesters went into some of the buildings on campus and vandalised a cafeteria and were harassing people. And since they are all striking, students don't have anything to eat so UCT has been giving them vouchers to use on and off campus. We went to Pick & Pay (a grocery store here) a few days ago and it was COMPLETE chaos.

This one is kind of all over the place... just trying to catch up I guess.

So it's been a while... I know... and I am a horrible person because I have been too lazy to write about anything, even though plenty has actually been happening... My mom came to visit. That was pretty nice... got a really nice bed and a really nice shower and real tv and free internet... it was great! And even heat and air conditioning (our house has neither... but I was happy to find out that while I was visiting my mom we got another blanket and heaters... that's sad when that is some of the best news you hear all day)! German food... also a good find. I have been missing spätzle something awful... now all I need is a knödel and I will be set! hmm.... also I took my mom up to Tafelberg/Tischberg/Table Mountain, which is something I hadn't done either and it was AMAZING! You can literally see all of Cape Town from there and all of the mountains around it. My mom really loved the Table Cloth, which is when the clouds come over the mountain and then come down the side and it's really cool looking... like it's just rolling down. I really haven't seen anything else like that that I can compare it to... I also had the final dinner for my program since exams have started now and people are traveling at different times since the exam period is THREE WEEKS here... nice and mean at the same time... lots of time for studying, but aggravating that you can't just get it over with at once. I also had my first oral examination ever (very intimidating, but even though I did terrible, the teacher was very nice about it and said I did a good job... LIES) and went to a concert at the Baxter that my friend played violin in.
Something sad! I volunteer for SHAWCO, an orgranisation that allows UCT students to volunteer in Khayelitsha and Athlone and other places, and I go to tutor third graders in Khayelitsha every Wednesday... we had our last day at the school and then we took all of the kids from the STEP program to the aquarium... They loved it but it was so sad knowing that it was the last time we were going to see them and we don't think they realised that at the time. I also got to go ice skating (YES, it is wintertime and FREEZING and constantly rainy and windy here) with another group from Athlone because that program didn't have enough volunteers.
AND we had no electricity for most of yesterday!
And that's about it I guess! Not really, but that's all I'm going to say because I am being lazy and worthless because I'm tired since I had my hardest exam today at 5...

Be careful! It's a Saturday, you know!

This weekend I had BY FAR one of the best weekends I have ever had in South Africa... My friend Stephanie found some list online that has things to do for R1-R100. So... we decided to try something out... tobogganing! HA! If you don't know what that is, you aren't the only one. Even I wasn't 100% sure what it was when she told me, but I will explain it to you now... Well... tobogganing is kind of like bobsledding, only it's just a sled more or less. But wait, there's no snow in Africa! This is true... and instead of being on a snow track, it was all steel!
So Saturday morning, Steph and I took the train to Old Biscuit Mill (kind of like a big, trendy, overpriced farmer's market for mostly white people in the middle of an underdeveloped area... a very bizarre phenomenon), which I hadn't been to since I went with my program. Although just about everything there is incredibly expensive, I will admit that they do have some good food, and the ice cream is relatively cheap :) Anyway, so our friend Emma, my roommate Lizzy, and Steph's friend from home met up with us there and we decided to try and go tobogganing for real! In order to do that though, we had to take a train for about 30 minutes from Salt River (the area where we were) to Bellville, which is just before Stellenbosch... from there, we would have to take a cab or taxi to the Velodrom (SP?... Whatever Bellville Stadium!) and this tobogganing place called Cool Runnings (haha like the movieeeee) was supposedly across the road behind an Engen Station. Well.... here's how it really happened: We waited around for the train at Salt River for literally an eternity (which I actually don't mind at all, but other people here really seem to hate), and once it came we took it all the way to Bellville like we planned. Once we got out of the train station, things looked at little different but whatever. So we were looking around and there were no cabs in sight, and some guy started talking to some of my friends... He asked if we were at the university (Stellenbosch, so no) and then we explained that we wanted a taxi (big mistake, taxi=minibus taxi, cab=taxi cab, but sometimes we forget this) and he said that there were some but we shouldn't take them, and better yet not walk around too much because it was a Saturday. Was zum? Yeah it was a Saturday... and? Apparently coming there on a Saturday was 'risky' and so was taking the train and taxis, so he told us we should ask the police what to do, and pointed towards the station (that just happened to be right outside of the train station, how convenient!). So we walked over and as we were making our way, someone was being brought out and put into a car and cops were talking and it was honestly a little weird. Then we managed to talk to one and he essentially said the same thing, but reluctantly pointed us in the direction of the minibus taxis, adding, "BE CAREFUL!" Not something you really want to hear from a cop, is it? So we decided to walk over there anyway... on a Saturday... and we finally found the least sketch looking minibus that was going to Tiger Valley (our destination, the Veledrom, was apparently located there... which was about 4 km away or something) and took it. We almost missed it because no one told us where it was, but somehow got out sort of when we needed to. We walked down some hills and through some shopping centres trying to find the toboggan place behind what we thought was the correct Engen Station... however... it was not... So, we basically walked all the way around the entire stadium (not right but beside it, but from a distance), across lots of traffic (once I got stranded on one side and no one could hear me over the traffic haha and then I almost got hit and kept going back and then in the road and then back again... Julie said it looked like Frogger... probably), shops, lots of hills and just completely random things, we somehow managed to find it! So we went tobogganing and it was cheap and great and fun and my roommate even fell off the last time she went down. Plus it was great because we were the oldest people there... and that was even more obvious because every male over the age of 20 went nuts when we came in... Stephanie had to call them several times before in order to try and figure out where we were, so everyone knew about us... They asked us how we even got there and when we told them, again... YOU DID WHAT?! ON A SATURDAY?! And there was even one girl that worked at the desk and she was completely in shock. She said she takes the train every day and even she wouldn't do that... And she carried a tazer with her... Not lying! We saw it! And we must have been so shocked about that (haha no pun intended) because she just looked at us and said What? .... I'm South African!
After some good, clean juvenile fun, we ended up getting a ride back from a guy that worked there in the back of his bakkie (I think this is the name for it I forget... but they are essentially the South African version of a truck, meaning very small and only two seats) with Julie in the front because he was kind of into her and literally no one else was even remotely interested in him. They were all just so worried about us that they refused to let us go back the same way we came... so instead we got a direct ride and FOR FREE! A very rare thing here... And it was also really nice even in the back of a truck because you could see all of the mountains better.
Later we all went to Green Point to the gay bars with some other friends, and after a while decided to go to Long Street because it's much cheaper... However... when we were getting out of the cab, I must have dropped my wallet on the floor and not realized because as soon as we got out and went to Abantu, I noticed I didn't have it, which just kinda sucked because it had my phone, camera, UCT ID, and some Rand in it... but oh well! I had my keys and I had just uploaded all my photos (other than the two I had taken that night, one of which was an AWESOME picture of Ray Van Cleve going crazy and dancing completely out of control at a gay bar... now that is the biggest loss of them all). Well anyway, my friends decided I needed to have a good time no matter what and they wanted to see me DRUNK! No choice! So they bought me lots of shots and shooters... probably the best was the Brain Hemorrhage... sounds disgusting but it was FANTASTIC! I even had fun at Baghdad, which is the smallest concrete hell hole of a bar I have ever been to, but almost always is surprisingly very fun... plus Emma goes often enough that she gets discounts! Never a bad thing... After a while though Emma got kinda sick and I just kind of wanted to go home anyway, so I came back, wrote my madre a facebook message, and for once... she actually gets on facebook chat... so we had a nice little chat while I was drunk (sort of). So yeah, if you're reading this, Madre, er yeah...! It's not like you would care anyway.
But... it gets even better! Because on Sunday, I found out that I get to live with Corinne and Bethany in the International House after all... BEST WEEKEND EVER! Minus losing all my shit.

Karte

Ok that first map is huge, but you all can deal with it. If you click on it, you can see what I'm talking about...
Also the Waterfront and Kenilworth are alright. YUP!

Location, Location, Location...

Sorry, I know it's only been a few minutes, but hey! That's the great thing about 'just now.'... You just never really know! Well the reason for the second post is that I realize I keep talking about all of these places that you all probably can't really visualize... so I'm going to help you...
This is a map of where I live and what's around me... While I do live in Cape Town, the area I am in is technically Mowbray or basically Rondebosch, since I'm not sure if Mowbray is on the map... UCT is also in Rondebosch, and it is just up the hill from where I live (although it actually has several parts...). Claremont is where I go to the movies or the mall. Green Point is also pretty fun... lots of gay bars there. Cubana is also there, which is a very nice bar and restaurant. Camps Bay is the beautiful beach that we like to go to when we can, even though the water is freezing. Langa is where I did my homestay, but it's not on there either... however, it's very close to Nyanga and Athlone and Khayeltisha, where I volunteer and where my agency-type thingy, MKI is. Gugulethu is also literally right beside Khayelitsha, and that is where Mzoli's is... I spent a lot of time there during my homestay. Khayelitsha and Gugulethu are the poorest areas here and have the highest rates of HIV/AIDS and TB. Durbanville/Stellenbosch is where I had a very interesting weekend a month or two ago... major wine area, heavily Afrikaaner...
Soweto is the SOuth WEstern TOwnships that is to the southwest of Joburg, or Jozi, or Johannesburg. Crazy Dave's was in Nelspruit, where we stayed while we were going to Kruger National Park, which was about an hour's drive northeast.
Hopefully that helps a little!

Eh?

Well recently I was talking to my lovely friend, Corinne, and I was telling her all about some of the slang/interesting things people say here, so I thought I might share...
lekker= great, good, nice
ayoba= awesome!
yebo= yeah!!
Howzit?= what's up?
Izzit?= the answer to just about everything...... really... they say that ALL the time
braai= special kind of barbecue... REALLY popular
biltong= a kind of dried meat... also everywhere
jol= a good time
pap= food kind of like grits but tastier
poes= er well you can look that up yourself it's not so nice... it's a terrible insult!
semp= similar to pap
bru= yeah I think you can figure that out
tekkies= tennis shoes
tsotsi= a gangsta!
Mzanzi/ZA= SA
ubuntu= sort of like sense of community, unitedness, humanity
robot= traffic light
shabeen= township bar
gatsby= enormous sandwich with all kinds of things, including chips (=french fries)
boerewors= sausage thing that also has chips in it...
Howzit Dorris?= Hey girl, hey... or What up baby girl? Basically something one says when holla-ing at girls.
Cheers!= See Ya.
keen= desire to do something... kind of like lust auf deutsch?
a smiley= sheep's head... found in Langa, although there are apparently variations to this as I encountered cow's head in Soweto, which is just outside of Joburg...

And the best for last- AFRICAN TIME!

just now: later, maybe soon, in a few minutes... Wiki says, "sometime in the near future, not necessarily immediately. Expresses an intention to act soon, but not necessarily immediately. (as in 20-90 minutes time)"
now now: very soon, but still not 'right now.' Wiki: "an immediate but not literal declaration of impending action, may be past or future tense. From the Afrikaans expression "nou nou". (as in 5-60 minutes)"

Eish, that's about all I got... more to come just now! :P

Vacation from Vacation

The days of Spring Break in South Africa are almost over... Tomorrow classes resume, but I had an AWESOME break. Besides, Easter Break is on Friday and lasts through Monday... How convenient? :) Anyway, break was wonderful... I got up really early Saturday morning (5 AM) to meet up with the rest of my program that decided to go on our trip together at the Alma house (I live at Welgelegen). We went to the airport and had a not so great breakfast and flew off to Joburg. After our bus finally showed up to pick us up, we headed to Soweto (SOuth WEst TOwnship), which is about a 40 minute drive from the airport. Soweto is the largest black township with over one million people living there. It is the home of Desmund Tutu and Nelson Mandela's early home (they are actually right down the street from each other... SA is the only country that can proudly say it has two Nobel Prize winners that came from the same street), and the site of the Soweto Uprisings, in which youths and others rioted against the National Party government and the unfair education reforms. On 16 June 1976, thousands of black students protested in Orlando West in Soweto and the police used violent force against them. The youngest person to be killed by police that day was a 13 year old boy. There is now a memorial there and we got to see it as well as both Mandela and Tutu's houses. We also got to see some of the hostels where there was a lot of conflict between the IFP (Inkatha Freedom Party, primarily Zulu) and the ANC (African National Congress, headed by Mandela), drank homemade beer, tried cow's head (well I didn't, but some people did!), and went to a shabeen (kind of like a bar but different). All of this we did on a four hour BIKE tour. It was actually really great and made me miss having a bike a lot... Curses, Lexington! We stayed in Soweto for two nights at a hostel right across from a park that the owner cleaned up and made for the kids in the area. They were adorable but very demanding... always wanting to play... We also went into Joburg for a day and saw some museums, including the Apartheid Museum... VERY interesting and learned a lot actually... We also went up to the 'Top of Africa,' which is the top of the highest building in Joburg. Kind of reminded me of the Radio Turm in Duesseldorf... I think that's what it was called anyway! Next we went to Nelspruit, which is right outside of the borders of Kruger National Park. We stayed in an awesome hostel type place and the owner was named Crazy Dave... not kidding! He was really nice though and they made AMAZING food. It was especially great for vegetarians because Crazy Dave is also Veg and so he always let us go first in line no matter what! Two mornings in a row, we all got up at 3.45 (before dawn!) and left to make it to Kruger when it opened. We would spend all day driving around looking for animals, which was nice! However it was extremely cold in the mornings and then by 10 or so incredibly hot. But, that was a minor sacrifice for what I got from this trip... I saw LOTS of animals, the Big 5, giraffes, elephants, bugs, lizards, hippos, zebra, impala, and tons more... Since I've come 'home,' I really haven't done hardly anything since most of my house is in Zambia, but I'm ok with that. It's nice to be lazy and take a real break for a little bit because as fun as the trip with IES was, it was exhausting.

Jammin'

I love the Jammie. I am always forgetting what I already wrote and what I haven’t, so in case I haven’t explained what a Jammie is, it’s a bus… They are big light blue buses for UCT students and faculty that come and go all over Cape Town… Forest Hill, downtown at Hiddingh, at the mall in Claremont… And sometimes they even play music! Jammies are never ‘on time,’ but they always seem to come at either the best or worst times, especially the Forest Hill Jammies, which go right by my house. Luckily I am not too lazy and will settle for anything that just goes to Lower Campus… (there is Lower, Upper, Middle, Health, and Hiddingh Campus) Anyway, Jammies are almost always crowded… it is not uncommon to have to stand or be the last person on and stand in the door (that is actually kind of fun). However, it’s really nice because most of the time if the bus is not too too crowded, a guy will stand up and give you his seat. Nice! No American male would EVER do that. Never in my life have I experienced that on a bus or subway in any American city! So that is pretty great… also, Jammie drivers ALWAYS stop for you… If they are driving right past the stop and they see you, they will always stop and let you on… it is the nicest thing ever, really. Jammies are also an excellent source of entertainment. Sometimes when drivers are nice and let you on, they start driving before you are completely inside the bus… the other day I actually witnessed a guy who got half shut in the back doors and barely managed to get inside before we drove right past another bus, which could have been potentially damaging I suppose… but all that we could all really do at that point is laugh. People also have the most interesting/odd conversations. It's kind of like the Transy cafeteria on a Saturday morning/afternoon… especially on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays because going out during the week and on Saturdays is what's popular here... Friday night, not so much surprisingly. If you ask a local what they are doing, oftentimes they will tell you studying. I'm not kidding. Also, a recent development... Jammie malfunctions! Apparently someone that works for my program saw a Jammies breaks or something (I forget what it was but some boy told me it was most likely I don't remember, transmission or something, I have no clue, I'm no mechanic or whatever) went out and the Jammie literally started to roll back down the hill and there was nothing they could do at first... And this is a very hilly place... Also, it was in the school paper that a UCT bus (but not a Jammie, I just looked at it...) basically the same thing happened right outside of my program's office/student programmes,etc. The bus rolled back and crashed into two cars, which then crashed into the building. Yes, it's all very exciting here. Another common thing that I have noticed is protesting is rampant here. Every other day I feel like I see a new poster for some protest, and before I leave, I will go to one. I'm thinking free and equal education... sounds good and justifiable to me, and it's a pretty hot issue. There was supposed to be a big demonstration last week all over SA and I read that it ended up getting kinda crazy in Joberg... setting things on fire, rocks, spraying people with fire hoses... but that is Joberg for you! Here it was pretty tame and there was even a Jammie that took people to Parliament.

Just livin' the dream...

Time seems to go by really fast here, although Africans tend to be very slow and laid back about everything... I had my homestay in Langa township last weekend and it was amazing! My family was really great and it consisted of: Patience, the momma (who was away at a funeral, but I talked to her on the phone!); Nandi, the big sisi, Bopsie, the younger sisi that just had a baby, a younger brother Andiswe, and then since the momma and her oldest daughter were away, the daughter's little boy and girl were also there. There is also an older brother that I met at Chickenland in Gugulethu (where I had my first cheeseburger in seven years or something!!! AND IT WAS GREAT!) but he doesn't live there. The house was AMAZING, especially for what I would have expected for a township, but this place never seems to be what you would expect... I am constantly surprised... and pretty much always pleasantly. I went out with Nandi and Bopsie and their super fun neighbor and Amanda, who hosted a guy in my program that I didn't really know all that well but I do now, thanks to last weekend!
I spent some time in Langa, and a lot of time in Gugulethu too because Nandi likes going there a lot more than staying in Langa. We went out to some really fun places, and it was so good to be by myself in a place that wasn't with a bunch of kids from my program. Don't get me wrong, I love a majority of them! But... I am only in South Africa for so long and I want to get as much of an actually South African experience as possible...
Oh a very interesting story from a few days ago: So my roommate went for a run on Friday after I got home around 5 or 6 and she was running up to Rhodes Memorial on top of this hill type thing and some guy behind her yelled. So she turned around and it was this random white guy that was in his late 20s-early 30s and he was wearing khakis and a polo, but he was really dirty like he had been rolling around in the dirt. So she turned around and then he took his pants off and she screamed at him and started to run away and then she turned around to see if he was coming after her (because he was only about 3 meters away from her) and he was going to town on himself and so she yelled that she was going to call the police and sprinted up the hill into the woods and was out of breath and then she ran into some Rastafarians that weren’t wearing any shoes and had walking sticks and had just come back from collecting herbs from the mountains (haha) and asked them if they would walk her down the hill and they did… what a great day for her!
Also this morning I went to Robben Island, which is where Nelson Mandela served a majority of his time as a political prisoner. The tour itself was kind of boring, but it was interesting to be there and know they history and see what it actually looked like. It was really small and very hot! And.... apparently before it was a prisoner's island, it was a leper colony! There's still a graveyard there! Great history... But anyway, on the boatride over we saw two wales and some seals! And that is pretty exciting because whale season is way into the winter and that should be after I am gone. So yeah! Still excited, still having fun...

Fun Stuff...

Well... it's been a lot longer than I thought... yet again. Sorry I am really terrible at this, but I'm trying! So... since the 12th... well there was Valentine's Day, which was highly uneventful other than I was supposed to go to Rhodes Memorial with two of my housemates and our RA, but instead we ended up trying to find a store that was open so he could get something for his girlfriend that was coming back in a matter of hours... guys are great, aren't they! So we didn't end up going, but that was ok! I was just kind of disappointed that South Africa gets really into Valentine's day because I don't particularly enjoy it. Sadly, I was let down because they love it! After that was my second week... started my tutorials, one of which BLOWS... but... it's only once a week, so not really a big deal. Also another student at my school got murdered in a place called Observatory (or Obs/Obz) that is very close to me. It is unfortunate and sad, but there is really no need to worry because I am very careful, I promise! Also there were just a few things that weren't such a good idea that this guy and his friends did, and I will not make those mistakes! I learned that there is a Jammie that goes into downtown Cape Town, so now I can take full advantage of that and go there for free all the time! Like last week... when I went to Mojito's for happy hour three different days... Oops! I also bought lots of presents and post cards while I was there, so I think that constitutes a success! Then I had a very interesting and eventful weekend. Friday I had my first language lab for Xhosa and then I was pretty much done for the day so I went back to Long Street yet again and later I met up with 5 guys from my program who had just finished climbing Table Mountain only to find it was too windy for them to take the cable car down and the restaurant was closed... yeah they were pretty hungry... So I walked to Rondebosch and met them at the nicest place in Rondebosch (not saying a whole lot, but still it was great! And definitely cheaper than what it would have been in the States) and had dinner with them, even though they were sweaty and gross and all got some variety of steak... and then there was me with my fish, which was AWESOME and I was VERY excited about because somehow, I just don't know where to get fish around this place... weird, but it's not available like meat is, even though it's right on the ocean. I hear I just need to know where I can go and buy it, but I have yet to be informed of where that is! Then Saturday I went to Muizenburg (a warm beach that is different from Camps Bay) and after I came back... I went to Stellenbosch. And it was fun. Very fun.... weird Afrikaaner dancing, "howzit dorris?", beach at 5 am, something with metal objects rolling the wrong way on a hill, and a lot more.
Oh also... funny story... so one of the RAs knows I have a love for Germans and so he has made it his goal to find me a German-speaking friend so he gives my number out to random German-speaking peoples... Well one guy was really weird and he was texting me and I was like eh... he's kinda creepy, so I'm not going to respond to him! Well... Friday I was at Mojitos like I said, and as soon as I walked in, a text from this random guy comes on my phone saying, We're at Mojitos what are you up to? Well, I had not seen this person yet, but my roommate and I were able to figure it out based on a mutual friend this person was with. Very strange guy, in no way attractive, and had no idea that we were also there. Needless to say, this was pretty amusing to us. So yeah... I had a nice weekend and I am certainly enjoying my time here...

...

Also, you all can comment on stuff on here if you would like... :)

UCT: Week numero uno

I made it through the first week at UCT and it seems like it is going to be a good semester, although I'm disappointed that my program class is going to be more difficult than I had anticipated. I dropped my German class, but whatever... it was not going to be a good class at alllll. Terribly boring topics, readings, and it was half in English. The schedule was horrible and conflicted with another class on Mondays and it was definitely not worth being on campus at 8 AM three days a week... So instead, I'm just keeping my poli sci classes and Xhosa, a South African language with CLICKS! It's so fun! Also difficult because it is completely foreign to me... I mean obviously it would seem foreign because it's a language from another country that I don't speak, but even though I know no French or Spanish or Russian, it doesn't sound strange or new to me. BUT... it will be really cool when I come back and I am a pro. Kentucky will not know what to do! My poli sci classes are pretty interesting too it seems like... comparative politics and then political economy, which is taught by a German woman.
So tonight I'm going to see a film about Mandela at a theater called the Labia... REALLY! It's not that type of theater.... it's actually kind of like the Kentucky Theater in Lexington (sorry all of you Germans reading this that have no idea what I mean... for those of you in Heidelberg, it's kind of like the Kamera or whatever it's called I can't remember). But yeah, it is about Mandela because yesterday was the 20th anniversary of his release from prison. Yesterday was also the opening of Parliament this year for it's duration in Cape Town (it meets part of the year here, part in Pretoria, and part in Johannesburg) and there was a parade... and the President, Jacob Zuma drove through in a thing sort of like what the Pope drives around in. So... yes, I saw the president of South Africa yesterday... Woo! And a parade!

Dramarama

Well it was a long and interesting week followed by an even longer and more interesting weekend in Cape Town… After the Peninsular Tour with UCT, IES took us on a three day trip of what is called the Garden Route (Google it. It’s pretty sweet.). We met up at the local Seven-Eleven at 7 AM and drove several hours until we stopped for lunch at a traditional Xhosa (which is the language that I’m studying and it has clicks!) restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Then we went to an ostrich farm, and I got to hug an ostrich. It’s name was Betty… Some people in my group got to ride them, but only a few because they supposedly don’t have sweat glands but I think maybe the guy giving us the tour just was tired of us. We also went into some caves. They weren’t super impressive and they sure as hell had nothing on Mammoth Cave, but it was fun to go with everyone in my program. We stayed at a campsite-type place and I finally got a full size bed for a night (some people in one house have them)! Even if I did have to share with Stephanie… no worries. The next day we got to go shopping and kayaking. It was really great because I finally got a pair of flip flops… just what I needed. All of the climbing and hiking and kayaking and going to the beach and everything else we do all of the time is really not so great in flats… The kayaking was awesome, especially because where we went to was a private beach that was really warm for a change. We drove a lot more and stayed that night and the next day in the Tsitsikama National Park, which was AWESOME. We stayed in some really amazing houses that were right on the beach… literally… we could hear the waves alllll night. And we had fish for the first time! You all know I was pretty excited about that… although surprisingly, they have all been incredibly accommodating to vegetarians and have lots of good stuff for us. I think since I’ve been here I’ve actually become even more vegetarian, but I have had some meat since I’ve been here. Anyway it was really beautiful there and it was so clear! Everyone in our program was spazing (sp?) out (ok and maybe I was too…) because it was completely dark walking back and there were so many stars and we are in the southern hemisphere, so it looks completely different. The next day we could go hiking or to the biggest bungy jump in the world. I chose to sleep… My roommate and I and some of our guy friends had originally planned to do some type of hike but we overslept a little… oh well. And maybe I will do the bungy jump later… We’ll see… So after all of that, we left and eventually made it to lunch, several hours away (and very late thanks to people who went on the early, organized hike and people that went on the bungy because the minibus taxi they took broke down). Unfortunately, when we were ready to leave, the bus wouldn’t start… so we waited around for a while… Eventually they got it working and it was very impressive because a bunch of the guys in my program at one point pushed the HUGE bus in an attempt to get it started. However, it failed, so they just kept playing soccer. Finally someone got it going and we made it back to Cape Town at 10 or so, but this was actually pretty nice in a way because we could see Cape Town all lit up. Nobody really did much the next day, but Friday was sort of the first day of classes, on the Tuesday schedule. I only had two classes though because apparently the Poli Sci department only does 1000 level classes on this day… go figure. So I went to German, which was incredibly awkward because the teacher called me out and embarrassed me in front of everyone since she didn’t know me and didn’t understand why I was there, and Xhosa. After all of that, there was the Big Bash, thrown by UCT itself. My friends and I ended up taking a taxi because the line for buses was TERRIBLE. Typically taxis only hold 7 people, but I kinda got thrown in on top of the people in the first row. That’s just how it is here and I am very small… so usually I get to be that lucky person! Well the Big Bash was pretty fun for me… there were a lot of people and lots of music. It ended a little early because the DJ that was supposed to go on at 11 didn’t show, and afterwards me roommate, Will, a friend that went to college with them, and one of his friends on the baseball team here all went to Long Street. Long Street is a really interesting place and it is very much alive at nighttime. We went to Stones first, and then to some unknown, very sketchy bar. The second room was essentially just concrete, and my roommate really had to pee, so we went to find the bathroom, which had no toilet paper, no toilet seat, and a broken out window that faced the whole concrete room… Yeah, it was a pretty interesting place… Then we went to Dubliner’s, where I lost my cell phone…. There were two really weird Viking guys that had apparently been in Stones (one of which did a ‘naked lap,’ which means he ran around something without any clothes on… somehow I missed that…), and they put a Viking hat on my roommate when we were at the bar. While we were walking back through a thick crowd, some random guy was grabbing at me and kissing the side of my face… Weird I know, but weirder has happened! Someone came up to Emma and licked her face. Just on the street, in the middle of the day… Well I pushed him off of course, but I would be willing to bet he grabbed my phone out of my pocket. Otherwise it must have fallen out when I was dancing, but I really don’t think so. Oh well! These things happen! Since that kind of killed everything, their friend from Grinell drove us home, where my roommate and I made pasta at 4 AM. Great stuff. The next night was even MORE eventful, even though a majority of my house stayed home and went to bed before midnight. Well 3 AM rolls around and a ruckus (one of the coolest words in the English language I think haha) was brewing outside. Then someone from my program started buzzing to let him in. We all thought they were just being drunk and stupid (which they were), but what had happened was this: one psychopathic girl got into a pointless fight with the guy buzzing away at our gate, and another guy tried to stop them from fighting, so… she thought it would be a good idea to knee him in the balls. Great idea. Long story short, he ended up punching a window in their house and so they brought him across the street to our house. At first they just wanted paper towels (oh the ideas we have when we are drunk) or someone’s shirt, but then someone had the good sense to bring him inside so they wouldn’t be loud, he could actually get it cleaned up somewhat, and oh yeah… they could call an ambulance… needless to say it was a long and dramatic night.

More Photos...!

This is my roommate at the bar... woohoo! Yeah, she was having a real good time :) And that is Brian in the background...
The other one of us was at Hemisphere, which is on the 31st floor of the ABSA building... IT WAS SO WINDY

Some pictures...

The first picture is my lovely school... This building is probably the most famous and most photographed... cause it's really cool... It's called Jameson Hall. Apparently everything (almost) has ivy on it because Cecil Rhodes (yes that British Imperial guy that there is a scholarship named after him and the former Rhodesia was as well...) put it in his will that all of the buildings had to have it or he wouldn't donate some large sum of money. Basically he wanted it to be Oxford in Africa. And as Nick Shepherd (this crazy tan white teacher that helps us out with all things academic... I wish I had a picture of him... haha) always says, we all know you can't have a serious institution without ivy on it... There are also a LOT of stairs in front of here and you can see a lot of the city from there because it is really high up.
This other picture is me and Lizzy, my lovely roommate from Wisconsin. We were at a party at a club last night and yes, that is fire in the background! There is sand on the ground too! AND the power went off a few times while we were there... but, TIA...

Already here over a week and still alive. Sounds like success to me.

I guess it has been a little longer than I realized... Well, in the past week I have had lots of very new and different experiences... I went to a few bars and to a very amazing beach called Camps Bay. It's incredibly beautiful but almost unbearably cold... You can't stay in the water for more than a few minutes because it's freezing. That beach is on the Atlantic side and the water comes from the Arctic or something, I'm honestly not really sure. All I know is that it is pretty damn cold! To get there, we've taken the train from a station nearby to downtown Cape Town. From there we usually walk outside and find a cheap mode of transportation that is what is known as a mini bus taxi and is supposed to be kind of off limits according to our program, but we always go in large groups, never just Americans, and always have your money ready. In general, I guess there are some rules that you just kind of follow, or at least I do because I think it's a good idea... such as...
1. NEVER leave your bag. Anywhere. For ANY period of time.
2. Always look like you know where you are going and pay attention to what is going on around you.
3. Don't give anyone money.
4. If you are drinking and you think it's kind of questionable, shake it and if it fizzes or gets foamy then there might be something in it (a girl at a bar told me this... I don't know if it's true, but it couldn't hurt). Just throw it out, even if you aren't sure...
5. If you take a taxi, never take it all the way home. Stop on a corner a few blocks away.
6. If you are on a mini bus or in a sketchy location, don't talk unless you have to. As soon as you open your mouth, they know where you're from.
7. Hide stuff in your rooms and never put anything next to the windows.
8. Don't talk on a cell phone in public for various reasons... you aren't paying as much attention to what is going on around you, they know you are foreign, and they know you have something that they can now steal.
There's plenty more, but that's all I can really think of at the moment...
At any rate, the bars were pretty fun. The first one I went to had dancing, which was really really fun although different. The other one I went to, called the Pig and Swizzle (sounds pretty classy, am I right?), is much more... I dunno, laid back? They have a lot of soccer games on in there and I was actually there the night of the Zambia/Nigeria match in the African Cup... pretty intense stuff! Let me tell you.... And somewhere in Nigeria, I guarantee Sakah Mahmud is celebrating a victory... Overall, most people are very friendly, although guys can be kind of creepy at times, such as when they talk to you and then proceed to stroke your face and tell you that you are the first blonde they have ever spoken to... Ah these things happen... that's why it's always good to have a guy there with you to be there in the event that you need to be removed from this kind of situation. They are also great for fending off potential creepers. For example, if a guy is near you another guy comes up and starts talking to him and then asks about you, he can always tell the creeper that he is your boyfriend or that you are actually a lesbian. Or that you are married and just had your second kid... although I feel like the first is probably the best option, although I guess that would kind of hinder any chances with any normal guys there. Regardless, South African bars are very different from what I've experienced in the US and even a little different from Germany. I think this is maybe because all of the bars I've been to in Germany have been at least somewhat classy, but I'm sure you all have your dives as well...

Surviving I suppose

So yesterday I got lost in Cape Town. Scary stuff! After we went to the mall (which we drove like halfway or something in the back of some guy’s truck, AND that mall is way better than the one in Lexington by the way AND they have Aldo, Claire’s, Timberlands, and Guess. WOW.), my roommate and I decided to the grocery nearby, which seemed easy enough. Well… apparently not for us! We got lost for maybe an hour or so, I don’t really know… and it was getting dark and windy. Also, neither of us had cell phones because hers wasn’t working and I still don’t have one because I didn’t have my credit card when the cell phone guy came (which was needed)! Even better… none of us can even pronounce our street name, Welgelegen! Yeah it’s pronounced Vehl-hel-hier-hen. Or at least that’s what it sounds like to me…

Today I went to my agency that I will be doing work with for one of my classes. It’s called the Medical Knowledge Institute and it seems like it’s going to be a really interesting class/volunteering thing. The first thing we have to do is rewrite a brochure so that the people in Khayelitsha can understand it better because not all of them understand English or are even necessarily literate. It’s really apparent here that there is a huge gap between extreme wealth and extreme poverty. It’s not uncommon to see nice, gated houses with expensive cars parked in front right next to townships, and the townships aren’t even that bad compared to other places, such as Khayelitsha. The ‘houses’ there are made of cardboard, plastic, or assorted pieces of metal and wood. You can see these shacks from the road and they seem to go on forever. It’s very different from the area in which we live and around the school. They keep telling us that UCT and Cape Town in general is a different Africa, and I can definitely see it. Cape Town has sort of a European feel sometimes because the British intended it to essentially be a little Britain where you could just kind of observe Africa from a distance or something to that effect…

Also they had us try sheep's head and homemade alcohol in the township... how did I forget about that? I honestly don't know...

And I went to the grocery and I incorrectly tried to weigh an avocado, and then I made the cashier angry because I didn't weigh the grapes, even though it had some kind of tag on it and the avocado didn't... go figure. Just have to recognize and appreciate the differences I guess...

Day ONE

So… I made it to Cape Town in one piece and I survived my first day! Sounds like a success to me… My flight from Detroit to Amsterdam was definitely interesting. We were over the ocean and then someone came over the intercom and said that if anyone was a doctor, they should go to row 10. Well, craziness ensued and then they told us we would be making an emergency stop in Shannon, Ireland, wherever that is… So we stayed there, on the plane, with the lights on, not really able to do anything, for about two hours… We finally left and then I had to sit around in Amsterdam with this guy from my flight for the longest time because we were apparently the only ones from that flight that were going to Amsterdam and basically everyone else came on a second flight. Eventually I made it to Cape Town, and at first, there was no one outside waiting from my program. I freaked out because I was the first one, and CIEE was pretty huge and loud. Finally someone came and asked me if I was in IES and it turned out that she was from my program. I feel really great that I only have one underweight bag by the way because people here are insane and pretty much all of them brought two bags. Many of them even went over and paid extra… So eventually everyone from our program made it (somehow we waited for forever while CIEE left really soon, even though they were picking up about 90 people and we only needed about 20 or so…), and we went and put all of our stuff on an incredibly small bus and during the whole drive things were flying off everywhere. They dropped us off at our houses and apartments, and when I got out at my house, a whole lot of people got out. Well… it turned out that my entire house somehow got an e-mail saying we were in the wrong house. We all ended up at Alma Road, which is all single rooms, but were actually supposed to be at Walgegensomething I don’t know how to spell it, it’s crazy. Long story short, we all went to the right house and were pretty disappointed to leave, only to find that our house was even more awesome because it actually has color, an awesome backyard, a laundry building type thing, and a garage that they made into a lounge and everyone thinks it’s going to become the party house or something to that effect but I kind of hope not. Today we toured the townships and it was ridiculously long so I am really exhausted and all of them want to go out, but I’m definitely not going, especially since it’s 11 pm now and we have to be somewhere at 8.30 AM… yeah I don’t think so…

Um, test?

So I guess this is kind of a test because I don't really know anything about blogs and ok maybe I am a little bit on the technically challenged side... Mostly I just want to know what happens when I do this and if you get an e-mail or whatever... Alright! And if you want to know... here is my flight:

Mon 18JAN NORTHWEST 3882*   OK     T   LV LEXINGTON     1040A          **
                                      AR DETROIT METRO 1205P        
         *Operated by PINNACLE AIRLINES

Mon 18JAN NORTHWEST 252     OK     T   LV DETROIT METRO 400P     D     **
                                      AR AMSTERDAM     555A#        

Tue 19JAN KLM ROYAL DUTCH   OK     T   LV AMSTERDAM     1025A          **
          AIRLINES 597                AR CAPE TOWN     1100P