O Geez

Hey friends. Haven't been up to much the last couple of days. I made it to the beach on Thursday in Camps Bay. It was really fun; that was the first time I had used the mini bus taxis without some kind of supervision from Thapz or someone from South Africa. It worked out well though. I took lots of photos which I will put on my flickr soon. The waves were enormous, and the water was sooo blue. There was a boardwalk along the beach that we walked up and down, and then went out for a snack and some drinks at this cute cafe. We also celebrated my friend Rachel's birthday that night, which was a blast. We went out to this awesome place called Rafiki's for dinner...where our waitress proceeded to come out with us after the meal.

Currently, I'm sitting in the computer lab on UCT campus. It was not easy to be able to sit in this computer lab though. I have a tutorial at 3 and was trying to send an email to figure out where it was in the library, when I was told that you are not allowed to use email in the library. It was my school email! So now I'm in a certain computer lab that I'm allowed to use...so odd.

Saturday I saw Batman, it was sweet. The movie theaters are very nice here, although you have to pick your actual seats online before you get to the theater...I'm not used to that.

Yesterday, I went to Gardens, which is a section of Cape Town. Company's Garden is there, along with Parliament, and various museums. The weather hasn't been great the last few days, but it held out long enough for us to view the garden in sunlight. We went for coffee in the garden, it was a nice relaxing day. They don't have regular coffee here...I have to get like Cafe Latte's because otherwise its just espresso, or like ...chocolate milk.

Now I'm gonna continue to try to figure out where my TBA tutorial is...they sure don't make anything very easy for you here. O well, table mountain is within my view from any point of campus...it doesn't get much better than that!

best day ever

Yesterday was the best day ever! In the morning I ate breakfast on the picnic table outside, and then around 1230 like 10 or 15 of us went to this barbecue (brae) in a township like 20 minutes away. Thapz, who is from JoBurg took us there and we all paid 40 rand for our food. It was almost like a block party, there were people all over the street, and everyone was drinkin' and loungin' and eventually dancin'. We ended up waiting like 3 hours for our food, so we went to the liquor store right down the block, inside the township in the mean time. We got some Hunter's and Sahara cider which was good; I'd never had it before...and then some beers. Since we had waited so long for the food, we were all so excited to get it because we saw other people receiving theirs. Everyone at our table was literally like drooling and freaking out. We knew that we were getting different types of meats and it came like family style for the table. We end up getting these 3 huge bowls: one filled with chicken, another with lamb, and the third with this certain type of sausage. It was kind of disgusting but also delicious. Everyone eats with their hands, and there are no plates, so at the end of the meal the table cloth is covered in the remains of our meat. I felt like a savage, but it was awesome.

Our cab driver ate with us, and he had 3 adorable kids with him, and 3 more at home. I think his name was Bobby...His cab was pimped out, painted green, red and yellow with license plates and cd's covering the walls in their entirety. They hung out with us all day, it was awesome.

After the brae, we went to another one at Moses' house. Moses is a soul mate that works for CIEE. There were a ton of peeps there, so we only stayed for like an hour. They have a sweet yard at their house...i wish we had grass!! O well.

Today was the first day of classes. I had class at 10 and 11. My 10 o' clock class was pretty cool, but my 11 o' clock was canceled until Friday. Not bad, not bad at all. I'm gonna go grocery shopping because I just heard about this bigger, better grocery store that's not too far away. They charge you for bags here...like when you are checking out, they'll ask you if you want a bag. It makes sense, but I keep forgetting to bring bags because I'm not used to it.

I wanted to do something fun today like go for a hike, but the weather is kind of yucky. Gray skies. Tonight we're going to see a play called Cissie, I'm not a big play person but I'm sure it will be something new and different.

sunny day

I'm all registered for classes and stuff; it feels good to have that over with even tho they start monday.

After registration on thursday, we went into a local township about 20 minutes away to look at this volunteering program called SHAWCO. It was kind of wild. They created a school in the town ship that specializes in arts and sports, so it offers kids something to do after actual school ends. We got a chance to meet all the kids; they're all beautiful. We had like an hour to do whatever and like chill with them; it was sweet. It looked cool, but I think I am going to end up volunteering at a similar school called the media school. It specializes in teaching kids about journalism and photography...as basic as how to use a camera and things like that. I also heard about a cool refugee program too...we'll see.

Today, CIEE got us tickets to go to the Manchester United vs. Kaizer Chiefs at the stadium really close to my house. It was a fun time.

Last night we went out for my friend Robert's 21st birthday to this ridiculous club; there was like a VIP lounge and we had a table and bottle service. It was absurd and expensive and i got lectured about how i can never come back while wearing sneakers. Soooo insane.

It's so funny because essentially it's someones birthday like every 3 days here, haha. It's my housemate Lauren's birthday tonight and everyone is going out to dinner for that, but I think I'm gonna skip it and go to my other buddy's barbeque instead, we'll see.

Tomorrow we're going to go to this open air market that I went to last Sunday too. It's pretty cool, but touristy and they sell a lot of cool african stuff; i gotta get some stuff for my walls. After that we're gonna go hang at the beach since it's like a 2 min walk from the market.

first post

ok! so i finally made a blog...and am also finally in africa!

I got here on july 9th and have been busy doing orientation for my study abroad group CIEE, and now orientation for UCT. On Monday we went on this awesome hike through Cape Hope, which is a whole path/park thing right on the water; it was amazing. I took a lot of photos that I'll put up once I figure out how. That was the first really awesome thing we did, just because everyone has been busy getting settled etc. We saw penguins, and some peeps saw a baboon mommy and baby but i missed it and am still disappointed about that...

Alright, essentially I'm living in the coolest place ever. My house is in Rondebosch, which is just a part of Cape Town, and my mansion of a house is only like a 15 minute walk from campus. It's entirely uphill which is good exercise , but we can also take the "JammieShuttle" if its raining or I'm feelin' lazy. I live with 16 other kids, one being a South African guy named Thapz, who works for CIEE. He's cool as hell, and it's cool to have someone living with you that knows everything about everything...it's like a built in tour guide. I live on the third floor of the house, in an awesome room with lotsa sunlight! There are two guys and one other girl on my floor, and one bathroom; it's perfect. We also have a gate outside of our house, and a huge wall surrounding the property with barbed wire at the top. We all have remotes to the gate, its pretty extreme; we also have a security guard that sits in a booth on our property from 6pm to 6am. That's kind of awkward and unnecessary I feel; nobody should have to sit in a booth to make sure that stupid american kids are safe and sound.

We've been doing stuff with classes for the past couple days, and tomorrow is official registration. I'm taking four classes: Religion in Africa, The Holocaust; Media, Power and Culture, and Ethics. It probably won't be so bad; one of them is a 1000 level and the rest are 2000. No classes before 10am either. Pretty sweet.

CIEE kids are scattered all around Rondebosch; all the houses are in walking distance from one another which is cool...People have been coming here to pregame before going out at night, it's fun and this place is like bar central. I've gone to long st a buncha times which is like the most well known street supposedly similar to the main street in New Orleans which I don't know the name of. There's lots of different types of clubs and bars and it's fun. There's also a bunch of local bars in walking distance that I've gone to a buncha nights too.

Overall I feel very safe here, I mean a lot of kids ask you for money and what not, but no one has ever approached me in any kind of way to make me feel uncomfortable. I've walked around at night, not alone tho. During the day it's completely fine to walk around Rondebosch alone...there's a grocery store, a market, some different stores and restaurants all real close to me which is cool. We went out to eat for every meal for the first week because we were living in a hotel right near the V&A Waterfront, which is like the most commercial area. It was kinda overwhelming tho because you're surrounded by all of these kids trying to make small talk with everyone, not remembering names, stuff like that. I can't wait to start classes only to be able to meet a lot of South Africans, I've met a lot of great people and have some awesome friends, but still, the reason I'm here is to hang with some native peeps. I like Rondebosch much better than the waterfront...and I've been making dinner and stuff every night so that's fun. Tons of wine everywhere too; everyone drinks wine with literally every meal. I try to tone it down at breakfast.

There's mini buses that you can take for 5 rand, and then cabs that aren't too expensive as long as you split em with a buncha peeps. The exchange rate is amazing, its like 1 to 8. I can go out to like a nice restaurant and get a nice meal and a couple of drinks, and including tip its like 100 rand...which is very ridiculous when you think about it.

Right now I'm sittin' outside baskin' in some sunlight on our front porch. It's beautiful; it's all really nice stone and our driveway is like a sweet cobblestone type of deal. We also get wireless in our whole house which is nice. I'll throw up some photos eventually, later friends