So, the whole reason I created this blog last summer was to practice blogging for being abroad and since I've been abroad I've completely neglected it. From here on out, I'm actually going to try to update it so I don't forget any of the places or people that I've encountered thus far and that I will for the rest of my time in Cape Town. I cannot believe that I am already going into my third week here.
I left from Newark on January 22, and took a 6.5-hour flight to Frankfurt. We had a 10-hour layover there and although we (the 4 other girls I flew with that were in my program) decided to venture out in Frankfurt despite our jetlag. We wandered around and found a little restaurant/bar called Bull & Bear where we got some lunch and had some German beer. We then made our way back to the airport and took turns taking naps across all the airport seats. The next flight to Cape Town was almost double this flight: 11 hours. I actually did get to sleep for a while on the plane so it wasn’t as bad as I expected.
From Tuesday (January 24th) when I arrived until Saturday (28th) we stayed in the dorms at UTC (University of Cape Town) and did a lot of orientation activities. We explored Cape Town and stopped at a couple bars on Long Street, which is the main street to go out in downtown Cape Town. We also took a cable car to the top of Table Mountain, which is always in sight pretty much wherever you are in Cape Town and it’s a beautiful sight to always be seeing. On the Friday night we went to this restaurant called Moyo in Stellenbosch, which is in the wine lands, and it was so gorgeous. The food was great and there were some weird things but I actually tried Ox. It wasn’t very good, but I don’t know if this was only because it was Ox and that’s all I could think about. We also visited a couple of the sites where we can do service. We went to the largest township in the South Africa, Khayelitsha. Its government provided housing but it looks like shacks made out of tin and everyone, including little children were walking around barefoot. These kids start to be sexually active at 8-9 years old and that's why AIDS is such a huge problem. We visited a lot of places where we can do service. The disparities in income/living conditions have such an enormous gap, it's really, really sad.
Saturday, January 28th: We moved into our actual permanent houses that are not on campus! In my house there are 12 of us, 3 boys and 9 girls, and we all have our own rooms. I really like our house; it has really big common rooms and a porch outside where we spend a lot of time drinking wine. Our house is pretty much a fortress because it has barbed wire, an electric fence, and we have a security guard from 6pm until 6 am. On the first night we had a Braii, which is what they call a barbeque here and drank a lot of wine. Found out that alcohol stops being sold at 5 pm because it’s a “family night” on Saturdays. I went with my RA to go see how you get wine after hours. Basically you just stand around by the wine shelves and a guy will come over to you, knowing why you’re there. You just point to some bottles, leave a bag, and wander around the store for a while. When no one is in the store, it’s safe to go to the register and pay for it and you take your bag. It was a lot of fun drinking with everyone and getting to know each other.
Sunday, January 29th: We had to get up early to go on a bus tour of Cape Town. We stopped at some really pretty places. The second stop we took a little walk down to the beach and we saw penguins. I was a little disappointed because we didn’t get to go too close to them but I still got some good pictures. The third stop we were told was a “little hike” up to the lighthouse. It seemed a lot longer because of the extreme heat and when we finally made it to the top, we learned that we had to still take another hike to the very tip of the peninsula. This took a lot longer than we anticipated but it was really cool because we ended at the southern most tip of Africa.
Saturday, January 28th: We moved into our actual permanent houses that are not on campus! In my house there are 12 of us, 3 boys and 9 girls, and we all have our own rooms. I really like our house; it has really big common rooms and a porch outside where we spend a lot of time drinking wine. Our house is pretty much a fortress because it has barbed wire, an electric fence, and we have a security guard from 6pm until 6 am. On the first night we had a Braii, which is what they call a barbeque here and drank a lot of wine. Found out that alcohol stops being sold at 5 pm because it’s a “family night” on Saturdays. I went with my RA to go see how you get wine after hours. Basically you just stand around by the wine shelves and a guy will come over to you, knowing why you’re there. You just point to some bottles, leave a bag, and wander around the store for a while. When no one is in the store, it’s safe to go to the register and pay for it and you take your bag. It was a lot of fun drinking with everyone and getting to know each other.
Sunday, January 29th: We had to get up early to go on a bus tour of Cape Town. We stopped at some really pretty places. The second stop we took a little walk down to the beach and we saw penguins. I was a little disappointed because we didn’t get to go too close to them but I still got some good pictures. The third stop we were told was a “little hike” up to the lighthouse. It seemed a lot longer because of the extreme heat and when we finally made it to the top, we learned that we had to still take another hike to the very tip of the peninsula. This took a lot longer than we anticipated but it was really cool because we ended at the southern most tip of Africa.
The rest of the week we had some orientation activities for the University. We skipped a lot of the days because it wasn’t very important information and it meant we had to get up early. So instead, we explored and took many trips to the beach. The beach is seriously so incredible, it’s awesome to be surrounded by beautiful mountains and the sky has been blue the entire time. The water is a little cold and I’m weary to go in because of the presence of shark flags at all times. Even though it’s only really dangerous when there’s a RED flag. Red means that there has been a shark sighting. Black means it’s too murky to tell if there are sharks, white is that there has been one in the past 24 hours, and BLUE is a good sign that the water is safe. The fact that it is common enough to see a shark that they need these flags is enough to keep me out of that water. No surfing lessons for me. Muizenberg and Camp’s Bay are the two beaches I’ve ventured too. Camp’s Bay is in a little bit nicer of an area and has a lot of higher class bars/restaurants but is obviously pretty tourist-y. I also discovered a mall on one of these exploring days, and it is pretty comparable to our malls, so I’ve found my home away from home.
The only day of orientation that I had to really go to was when we registered for classes. This was an extremely long task because of the laid back mentality here that they call “Africa Time”. Everything is done on paper. If you didn’t have a class pre-registered, then you had to get a form signed by the head of the department that said that they cleared you for the class and you had to bring your transcript along to prove that you were able to take this class. This is a very tedious and frustrating task, especially because I only had to do it because it so happened that two of my classes overlapped and I didn’t know this because I wasn’t give the “handbook” until the day before. Did I also mention the list of classes is in a paperback book that you have to read through to find the classes and times? I don’t understand how they have not switched to a online listing of classes.. The first step was sitting in a line (“queue”) for an hour waiting to talk to an advisor that literally gave me no advice, just signed my paper and sent me off to the next station, then the next and the next, until I ended in a 1.5 hour line to get my student I.D., which also took only 2 minutes in the end. I’m obviously very impatient, so this will all take a little getting used to.
Yesterday some girls in my house and I took a trip to “Old Biscuit Mill”, literally heaven on earth. It was pretty much a huge flea market and lots of little shops with creative clothes, crafts, and many other things. It reminded me a little of peddler’s village except it’s all pretty much outside. There’s also an enormous tent with just about every food you could possibly imagine. Each stand specializes in a certain cuisine or sauce or anything and you can just buy whatever you’d like. I had a great chicken sandwich with some African sauce and guacamole, and also a drink called a “mule” it was so good and didn’t even taste like it was alcoholic. I also tried multiple sauces, pesto’s, cookies, etc. It was all so so so good. The atmosphere there is just so great too. There was a clothes tent and this is where I spent a lot of my time. I bought a skirt from a lady who made all of the clothes herself. I’m pretty much obsessed with it. Afterwards, we took a mini-bus to Camp’s Bay to go to the beach. It was extremely, extremely hot and we ended up only lying on the beach for 35 minutes because it was just too hot to even deal with. So then we just decided to go up to a restaurant and get some water and pita with hummus. The hummus here is so good.
So, you may be wandering where the “study” part of the “study abroad” part comes in… Well, class doesn’t start until February 13th. The students at UCT are still on summer break (since their seasons are opposite of America) and their actual semester is only 12 weeks long. This is because at the end they have 3 WEEKS for finals. The teachers are nice here and actually spread out the exams so that you don’t get completely stressed out and stay awake for a week straight (hey, Penn State.. maybe you should look into this). The downside though is that your final grade is 50% of your grade. This means if you fail the final, you fail the class. Not so great anymore, I guess. This means that I have a whole other week off this week! Perfect for some travelling..
The only day of orientation that I had to really go to was when we registered for classes. This was an extremely long task because of the laid back mentality here that they call “Africa Time”. Everything is done on paper. If you didn’t have a class pre-registered, then you had to get a form signed by the head of the department that said that they cleared you for the class and you had to bring your transcript along to prove that you were able to take this class. This is a very tedious and frustrating task, especially because I only had to do it because it so happened that two of my classes overlapped and I didn’t know this because I wasn’t give the “handbook” until the day before. Did I also mention the list of classes is in a paperback book that you have to read through to find the classes and times? I don’t understand how they have not switched to a online listing of classes.. The first step was sitting in a line (“queue”) for an hour waiting to talk to an advisor that literally gave me no advice, just signed my paper and sent me off to the next station, then the next and the next, until I ended in a 1.5 hour line to get my student I.D., which also took only 2 minutes in the end. I’m obviously very impatient, so this will all take a little getting used to.
Yesterday some girls in my house and I took a trip to “Old Biscuit Mill”, literally heaven on earth. It was pretty much a huge flea market and lots of little shops with creative clothes, crafts, and many other things. It reminded me a little of peddler’s village except it’s all pretty much outside. There’s also an enormous tent with just about every food you could possibly imagine. Each stand specializes in a certain cuisine or sauce or anything and you can just buy whatever you’d like. I had a great chicken sandwich with some African sauce and guacamole, and also a drink called a “mule” it was so good and didn’t even taste like it was alcoholic. I also tried multiple sauces, pesto’s, cookies, etc. It was all so so so good. The atmosphere there is just so great too. There was a clothes tent and this is where I spent a lot of my time. I bought a skirt from a lady who made all of the clothes herself. I’m pretty much obsessed with it. Afterwards, we took a mini-bus to Camp’s Bay to go to the beach. It was extremely, extremely hot and we ended up only lying on the beach for 35 minutes because it was just too hot to even deal with. So then we just decided to go up to a restaurant and get some water and pita with hummus. The hummus here is so good.
So, you may be wandering where the “study” part of the “study abroad” part comes in… Well, class doesn’t start until February 13th. The students at UCT are still on summer break (since their seasons are opposite of America) and their actual semester is only 12 weeks long. This is because at the end they have 3 WEEKS for finals. The teachers are nice here and actually spread out the exams so that you don’t get completely stressed out and stay awake for a week straight (hey, Penn State.. maybe you should look into this). The downside though is that your final grade is 50% of your grade. This means if you fail the final, you fail the class. Not so great anymore, I guess. This means that I have a whole other week off this week! Perfect for some travelling..
After a lot of car rental troubles we finally got a car today and 4 of us are taking off tomorrow to explore the Garden Route, which is basically all the towns along the southern coast. We’re going to an Elephant park, Monkey park, bungee jumping, and also going on a tubing tour of Storm’s river. We’re staying in a bunch of hostels along the way so it is definitely going to be an interesting adventure.
I have a lot more to write but this has been extremely long so I’ll continue to play catch up after my next couple entries. I’m obviously loving it here and can’t believe that in only 4 days I will have only exactly 4 months here. I’ve been learning so much from everyone here and I am so excited to continue learning, both in and out of the classroom. I don’t know if I’ll be able to update this until I get back on Friday so until then I just left some bullet points on the bottom of this of things I want to touch on. I tried to make them exciting so you’ll be excited to keep reading!
Stay happy, people.
Clubs/going out, transportation, food, retained credit card, Afrikaburn, FAKE ketchup, too much mayo, Internet.. or lack thereof
I forgot to warn you about the fake ketchup and avocado obsession. Live it up! So happy you are living in the Mother City!
ReplyDeleteGov Love,
Laura