Uh oh, went to Spar today! I've been craving pasta, so I got enough food to last me four more days.
Last night was the one year anniversary party of 33 South, and I didn't feel like socializing so I sat in my (empty) room and listened to a Harry Potter audiobook and drew patterns on a notepad. I felt distinctly like my mom and Lizzy rolled into one. Including the anti-social behavior. ;_D
When I woke up (at 1am b/c of party noise) my throat hurt, but since I don't own pajamas I didn't want to get up and get water and go through the hassle of putting on clothes. I woke up again at 3:50 and dozed on and off for another hour or so while one of the guests (belligerent drunk) demanded his car keys after the owners of the hostel had locked them away. It was more amusing than annoying because by then I'd gotten at least six hours of sleep and had trouble staying in bed until 8am, when the entire house woke up ( a good two hours after they usually did ).
The rest of my day was boring enough, but I finished the audiobook, bought some more books (I know, I'm ridiculous) and got some good, cheap (R33!) red wine for dinner. Now I'm going to go make it.
One more day down.
5.12.08
TGIF
Heyo
I'm staying in Observatory for the rest of my time in Cape Town. There's a festival on the street one block up this weekend, so it might be a little loud during the day. I'm okay with that--it does suck waking up at 6am because people are talking loudly outside. Why am I such a light sleeper these days? It's ridiculous.
Most of you are already aware that my phone was stolen for the second time on this trip. I'm still beating myself up about it, because the dorm was empy when I left my phone (and Claire's) on my bed and went into the reception area to take advantage of the free internet. After two hours of talking on Facebook chat, I came back and tore apart my room trying to find the phones. While the door was locked when I left it, one of the employees had let a potential guest into the room to see it and the phone had rang so she ran into the other room to answer it, giving the guy just enough time to snag the first thing he could see. I'm just glad my iPod and camera were in the safe at the time. That would have SUCKED. As it is, I just can't contact Mappie and Smiley and Tristan and Robyn later this week....
Email it is. Sad.
I'm actually in an internet cafe right now, as the free internet is very slow and I was hoping to do a few other things (like get on aim, which is not working right now) but so far have failed to get anything done. I'm trying to catch up on the news, but I can't tell what's happened in the States other than boo hoo recession. Which is bad, of course, but not terribly interesting to me. Not until there's absolutely no business at the restaurant this winter and I have no way of recouping the cost of being here.
I've been doing a lot of shopping at the craft markets. I now own way too much jewelry.
My grades have arrived--looks like I pulled off more As than in the past, but it bothers me that the class I worked the hardest in was the lowest grade. :(
There's a party tonight at the backpackers (I'm at 33 South) as it's their one year anniversary. Pretty cool. I'm not sure how I feel about drinking as I'm still feeling the wine tour. Plus I'm not a fan of anything they bought for it (Black Label, Hunters Dry, cheap wine). Maybe I'll go for the tequila.
As for planning the rest of my time here, I need to take pictures of things, and I want to go back to the Old Biscuit Mill. At some point I should sit down and write out all my adventures before I forget (like I did in Peru).
I'm staying in Observatory for the rest of my time in Cape Town. There's a festival on the street one block up this weekend, so it might be a little loud during the day. I'm okay with that--it does suck waking up at 6am because people are talking loudly outside. Why am I such a light sleeper these days? It's ridiculous.
Most of you are already aware that my phone was stolen for the second time on this trip. I'm still beating myself up about it, because the dorm was empy when I left my phone (and Claire's) on my bed and went into the reception area to take advantage of the free internet. After two hours of talking on Facebook chat, I came back and tore apart my room trying to find the phones. While the door was locked when I left it, one of the employees had let a potential guest into the room to see it and the phone had rang so she ran into the other room to answer it, giving the guy just enough time to snag the first thing he could see. I'm just glad my iPod and camera were in the safe at the time. That would have SUCKED. As it is, I just can't contact Mappie and Smiley and Tristan and Robyn later this week....
Email it is. Sad.
I'm actually in an internet cafe right now, as the free internet is very slow and I was hoping to do a few other things (like get on aim, which is not working right now) but so far have failed to get anything done. I'm trying to catch up on the news, but I can't tell what's happened in the States other than boo hoo recession. Which is bad, of course, but not terribly interesting to me. Not until there's absolutely no business at the restaurant this winter and I have no way of recouping the cost of being here.
I've been doing a lot of shopping at the craft markets. I now own way too much jewelry.
My grades have arrived--looks like I pulled off more As than in the past, but it bothers me that the class I worked the hardest in was the lowest grade. :(
There's a party tonight at the backpackers (I'm at 33 South) as it's their one year anniversary. Pretty cool. I'm not sure how I feel about drinking as I'm still feeling the wine tour. Plus I'm not a fan of anything they bought for it (Black Label, Hunters Dry, cheap wine). Maybe I'll go for the tequila.
As for planning the rest of my time here, I need to take pictures of things, and I want to go back to the Old Biscuit Mill. At some point I should sit down and write out all my adventures before I forget (like I did in Peru).
1.12.08
Rise from the dead
I have returned!
I am back in Cape Town now! w00t!
Here's an outline of what I've done the past three weeks:
week 1 (middle of November)
finals are over, I am bored with life, I refuse to finish things that I need to do
computer breaks. I am VERY BORED
I struggle packing my room and my flatmates (and Robyn) save my life helping me get out the door in time to catch my flight. I leave for Joburg on the 13th, and then leave for the safari on the 14th (Friday).
week 2
safari! (not really, more driving and seeing the occasional elephant on the side of the road in Bots)
meet interesting and uninteresting people. it is fun
I am not quite sick of Claire yet
trip ends and we lament about how far away the airport is from everything else in joburg.
we fly to Port Elizabeth (henceforth known as PE) on Monday morning
week 3
Garden Route! We do the beach all of one day, spend way too much time wandering around and finding lunch that's within our budget (I stayed under $7 a day on food!). I got sick in Knysna, and I think I'm lactose intolerant. I plan on making appt with a doctor (you win, Mom) once Claire leaves.
week 4
I've been traveling too long! Claire is getting on my nerves a little (but she thinks we'll never see each other again, which is SAD) because she's sad about leaving and is complaining a lot. She'll probably read this eventually, so I should mention that she doesn't want to leave Africa. However, I do. This backpackers on Long Street is LOUD b/c it's outside all the clubs. UGh. I am going to stay at 33 South instead. It's in Observatory (which is the next suburb over from Mowbray). I plan on doing NOTHING the rest of my time here. There's a pretty bead store I want to go to. :_D
Except for the fact that I get to see Carrie soon soon soon! I'd like to leave soon too. I want to have a base again. I doubt I could ever travel for too long. It's a sad though.
Heh, the shortest week has the most written about it. It's Monday too.
Craziness
I miss Pomona and I miss NC and most of all I miss all the people I haven't seen for a long long time, so hello to you all, and if you still haven't gotten a postcard LET ME KNOW (i have a week left here). :_D
Later
I am back in Cape Town now! w00t!
Here's an outline of what I've done the past three weeks:
week 1 (middle of November)
finals are over, I am bored with life, I refuse to finish things that I need to do
computer breaks. I am VERY BORED
I struggle packing my room and my flatmates (and Robyn) save my life helping me get out the door in time to catch my flight. I leave for Joburg on the 13th, and then leave for the safari on the 14th (Friday).
week 2
safari! (not really, more driving and seeing the occasional elephant on the side of the road in Bots)
meet interesting and uninteresting people. it is fun
I am not quite sick of Claire yet
trip ends and we lament about how far away the airport is from everything else in joburg.
we fly to Port Elizabeth (henceforth known as PE) on Monday morning
week 3
Garden Route! We do the beach all of one day, spend way too much time wandering around and finding lunch that's within our budget (I stayed under $7 a day on food!). I got sick in Knysna, and I think I'm lactose intolerant. I plan on making appt with a doctor (you win, Mom) once Claire leaves.
week 4
I've been traveling too long! Claire is getting on my nerves a little (but she thinks we'll never see each other again, which is SAD) because she's sad about leaving and is complaining a lot. She'll probably read this eventually, so I should mention that she doesn't want to leave Africa. However, I do. This backpackers on Long Street is LOUD b/c it's outside all the clubs. UGh. I am going to stay at 33 South instead. It's in Observatory (which is the next suburb over from Mowbray). I plan on doing NOTHING the rest of my time here. There's a pretty bead store I want to go to. :_D
Except for the fact that I get to see Carrie soon soon soon! I'd like to leave soon too. I want to have a base again. I doubt I could ever travel for too long. It's a sad though.
Heh, the shortest week has the most written about it. It's Monday too.
Craziness
I miss Pomona and I miss NC and most of all I miss all the people I haven't seen for a long long time, so hello to you all, and if you still haven't gotten a postcard LET ME KNOW (i have a week left here). :_D
Later
20.10.08
Currency Update
The dollar/rand currency exchange rate is fluctuating around R10 = $1. It's AWESOME.
12.10.08
Ten Days Later...
I still have a ton of work to be doing. I have a paper due each day this week. One is done, one is halfway, and one is NOT STARTED. *dies*
But come Wednesday afternoon, I'm free except for studying for finals!
It's incredibly exciting.
Food has been really annoying though. I have about ten recipes that I rotate through; usually on a very unusual schedule. For example, I plan to make the same soup I made earlier this week again tonight because I can't think of what else to make. It's rather annoying that I can't think of very many ideas that don't involve cheese. Suggestions?
It's cool that I can start planning for the end of the semester though. With any luck I'll be accomplished enough that I can cook traditional African foods for Thanksgiving. :_D Exciting. I also found a good recipe for brownies.
Okay, I'm going to go back and work on this paper. I'm just worried about getting poor grades, which I can't afford if I want to do masters and PhD....
Plus two of my finals are on the 4th and 6th of next month. DX bad timing
So now I'm going to pretend to work until I fall asleep at 4am and end up missing my 9am tut (THE LAST ONE EVER)
I'm also listening to the 500 rock songs of all time, and it's awesome.
----------------
Now playing: Kiss - Shout it out Loud
via FoxyTunes
by the way guys, I'm out of postcards for the time being, so I apologize for those who have not received one......er....let me know if you really want one so I don't feel bad
But come Wednesday afternoon, I'm free except for studying for finals!
It's incredibly exciting.
Food has been really annoying though. I have about ten recipes that I rotate through; usually on a very unusual schedule. For example, I plan to make the same soup I made earlier this week again tonight because I can't think of what else to make. It's rather annoying that I can't think of very many ideas that don't involve cheese. Suggestions?
It's cool that I can start planning for the end of the semester though. With any luck I'll be accomplished enough that I can cook traditional African foods for Thanksgiving. :_D Exciting. I also found a good recipe for brownies.
Okay, I'm going to go back and work on this paper. I'm just worried about getting poor grades, which I can't afford if I want to do masters and PhD....
Plus two of my finals are on the 4th and 6th of next month. DX bad timing
So now I'm going to pretend to work until I fall asleep at 4am and end up missing my 9am tut (THE LAST ONE EVER)
I'm also listening to the 500 rock songs of all time, and it's awesome.
----------------
Now playing: Kiss - Shout it out Loud
via FoxyTunes
by the way guys, I'm out of postcards for the time being, so I apologize for those who have not received one......er....let me know if you really want one so I don't feel bad
2.10.08
It's October!
I was tempted to not post again until the 9th considering I don't get much response with this anyway.
This month has been uneventful--lots of class and assignments and the semester is really almost over. I'm counting down b/c it's gone on for long enough. One of my classes (Third World) is really overkill in the work department.
On the grades issue--I should be pulling Bs in everything, but dammit, that's not good enough! It makes me mad. All depends on the finals, which are at least 50% of the final grade. UGH
I'm afloat though. The biggest challenge is that my laptop power adapter is dying pretty fast and only works in specific positions. I'd like to have it looked at, but I have to wait until I'm in a country with an Apple store. I'm trying to figure out how to get a new one to hold me over for the rest of the month.
I haven't done anything at all--travelwise--since spring break, but this weekend is a trip to the West Coast to see spring flowers. Yay free lunch too!
There are three large papers I have due next Friday, then the next Monday, then the next Wednesday. The topics are fascinating and I think I know what I want to study post-grad....
If anyone has any suggestions about where to go after the semester ends, please let me know!
This month has been uneventful--lots of class and assignments and the semester is really almost over. I'm counting down b/c it's gone on for long enough. One of my classes (Third World) is really overkill in the work department.
On the grades issue--I should be pulling Bs in everything, but dammit, that's not good enough! It makes me mad. All depends on the finals, which are at least 50% of the final grade. UGH
I'm afloat though. The biggest challenge is that my laptop power adapter is dying pretty fast and only works in specific positions. I'd like to have it looked at, but I have to wait until I'm in a country with an Apple store. I'm trying to figure out how to get a new one to hold me over for the rest of the month.
I haven't done anything at all--travelwise--since spring break, but this weekend is a trip to the West Coast to see spring flowers. Yay free lunch too!
There are three large papers I have due next Friday, then the next Monday, then the next Wednesday. The topics are fascinating and I think I know what I want to study post-grad....
If anyone has any suggestions about where to go after the semester ends, please let me know!
9.9.08
Spring Break tl:dr version
SO.
For all of you who do not have the patience nor the interest to read the past two posts ( I know I don't), feel free to get all the same info right now:
Yeah, for spring break I went to Durban, Johannesburg, Kruger, and Maputo. Durban was white and creepy, Johannesburg was fantastic and full of museums, Kruger was great and I really enjoyed the safari except we didn't see lions, and Maputo was great--felt just like a third world city but the people were wonderful.
The biggest adventure was the day we took three hours to get to the beach and ended up getting there by holding onto the side of an SUV. Oh Mozambique.
For all of you who do not have the patience nor the interest to read the past two posts ( I know I don't), feel free to get all the same info right now:
Yeah, for spring break I went to Durban, Johannesburg, Kruger, and Maputo. Durban was white and creepy, Johannesburg was fantastic and full of museums, Kruger was great and I really enjoyed the safari except we didn't see lions, and Maputo was great--felt just like a third world city but the people were wonderful.
The biggest adventure was the day we took three hours to get to the beach and ended up getting there by holding onto the side of an SUV. Oh Mozambique.
Spring Break in Southern Africa: Part Two
I fail at cooking. I attempted to make chicken curry with chicken, curry powder, and rice. BIG MISTAKE. Oh well. At least I eat everything I make.
Anyway, back to my story.
I still have NO idea what we did after Soweto, so I assume we ate or something. I know we got back late and went to bed.
EDIT: We went to Greek and it was good. -Claire
So we were hungry around 3pm when we left the museum, so we wandered toward Gold Reef City which turned out to be a gaudy casino. We got Steers and KFC for lunch and then took a taxi to the airport (OR Tambo) to catch our bus transportation thing. Dawn freaked out when the first driver refused to take all five of us, but the second one did. Still, would have been very bad.
It took a while to find Citybug and we were barely on time--it turned out to be similar to a minibus, only a formal set up, so there were only about three other people on the little bus. We drove to Nelspruit and stopped once and got chocolate and chips. We got there pretty late and Adriaan from Funky Money Backpackers picked us up and explained the safari thing to us. We paid (it was around $250 per person) and then played a game of pool that took FOREVER. I also wound up owing Dawn a bottle of wine because she made a shot I thought she wouldn't. Sad. Adriaan was kinda awkward because he sat there watching us but didn't say much--socially inept or something. Oh well--it's not like we weren't weird Americans.
We went to bed pretty early.
We saw: a yellow-bill hornbill, that same rhino from earlier, more rhinos, meerkats, warthogs, a giraffe right next to the road, more farther away and also zebras, wildebeest, and an elephant right there in the road--it charged us after a while, ground hornbills, hippos at a watering hole, crocodile (far away), heron, ibis, egyptian geese, steenbok, slender mongoose, bush buck, ververt monkey, marabstock (bird), inyala, leopard in a tree!!!!, black-bellied basset, a controlled fire, lilac-breasted rol, stork, corybastard, and a line of old water buffalo crossing the road.
Jafta saw most of the animals, and bear in mind that this is all from a little notebook that I kept just to know the order of animals we saw for future reference. Spelling and names are likely wrong.
We headed back to Pretoriuskop as it got dark, the whole time hoping we'd see lions. No such luck. We went into the little gift/food shop and looked at stuff. Then we went back for dinner, which was a braai and sat around a fire making up stories. We spent a lot of time on a romantic comedy that turned out better than most that are produced these days. But everyone started going to sleep so we had to go into our tents and be quieter. We had to get up early, so we started getting ready for bed. Dawn and I were in one tent with Claire and Sally in the other. Evan was sharing with David farther down. Dawn and I heard Sally start yelling about a wave or something so we called out to see what was wrong and Claire told us to come into their tent. Sally told us that her parents had called her freaking out because of an email they had received about an CIEE student accident earlier that week. We texted Quinton to see what was up. Claire called her mom and got the detail that a student from Georgetown had been swept into the ocean. Claire started freaking out because she knew most of the kids from Georgetown and started going through them all in her head--the ones who had gone on the Garden Route were most likely, as it was the origin of the accident. Quinton called us back and Sally talked to him and told us the rumor was true. Then we asked her who it had been and she said it was Terrence. Claire broke down--she had said earlier that he had told her he would stay out of the water because he couldn't swim. We were all stunned and I definitely had the thought that this must not be real. Sally handed the phone off to Dawn, and I could hear her voice breaking as Quinton (though shaken) asked us our our trip was going. The call ended and the tent was just silent. We sat for a few minutes, then called Evan into the tent to tell him what had happened. I got up because I couldn't handle it and went to brush my teeth, trying to focus on anything but the news.
I couldn't comb my hair that night because the wind had destroyed it. I went to bed trying not to think about anything. Dawn and I heard Claire telling Sally just how close she had come to going with that group on the Garden Route. It was only because she heard about our trip first that she had come with us. I dreamt about pulling an all nighter when I got back to campus, completely enveloped in a fantasy world. Dawn dreamt about what UCT would be like when we returned.
Then we kept driving and saw more elephants, giraffes, baboons, white rhinos (by now none of these were exciting anymore).
It was a pretty awesome safari in all, and at breakfast we got ready to go and left a rather pitiful tip for Jafta (we left as much as we could, but I dunno if it was enough--about R300, and David didn't leave anything). Adriaan drove us back to Funky Monkey and we waited around for a while before heading to Intercape for our bus to Maputo. I took the time to shower and tried using lotion (thanks Dawn) to get the tangles out of my hair. It failed big time and Sally spent about twenty minutes convincing me to get dreadlocks or shave my head. I seriously considered it. Adriaan drove us to Intercape and we said goodbye to Sally, who was returning to Jo'burg and then Cape Town to go on a class field trip on Friday.
Intercape was a giant bus with two levels, and we sat on the top. They played Hancock, which is a ridiculous Will Smith movie, but we found it really stupid and it became a running joke for the rest of the trip. I ended up combing my hair out during the four hour ride, then made a braid in the hopes that it wouldn't die again. I showered the minute we got to Fatima's in Maputo while everyone else went to the ATM. Consequently, I could comb my hair (kinda) but didn't have any money for anything else. We got a cab outside Fatima's (they have 24 hour cab service) and it drove down the street where it stopped for these three police officers. The driver got out of the cab and left it idling. We sat there with no idea what to do. We gave the officers our passports (MUST carry it at all times while in Mozambique). The one male officer gave Evan a hard time, commenting on how his passport was obtained in Beverly Hills (though he lives in Arizona), then pointed to his seatbelt (which was unfastened because he had been told in another cab that "we don't do that here") and said 500.000 metical (23.000 equivalent to $1) fine. Evan thought it was best not to argue, but he pulled out his 400.000 note and said that was all he had. Apparently the fine was not legit, because the officer accepted it without question. He walked away from the car and we were like omg holy shit wtf and when the driver got back in the cab we tried to ask him what had happened. Unfortunately, the man spoke only Portuguese.
More annoyed than shaken, we were pissed when we got to the African Cafe the receptionist had recommended and it was closed. We asked the driver to take us to a restaurant, which must mean something else because he dropped us off at a bar--we asked him to pick us up in two hours, which was a fun five minutes of pantomine trying to make him understand what we were asking. For some reason I decided not to use Spanish, which would have totally worked. Anyway, the place was a bar, not a resaurant, so we walked down the street to a little place that had sandwiches and was completely deserted. It was fine and inexpensive (35.000 metical for a sandwich) but we still felt kinda weirded out. Most restaurants we went to on this trip were empty. It's strange.
Anyway, we ended up walking back about an hour early so we went to the original bar and paid the entry fee (we didn't really understand)--about 100.000 metical. The live music (which was the reason for the fee) wasn't there yet, so we paid to get into a place that played Santana and charged us for drinks. Ridiculous. Claire wasn't in a great mood and was very tired, so we waited just until the cab driver returned, then went back to Fatima's.
I guess we went to bed or something.
We took the bus for about 40 minutes and started to realize just how hot it would be that day. It was about 1pm or so when we got off and got onto the minibus that would take us to the next place (can't recall the name). Rode on that for about 20 or 30 minutes, and it was SO HOT. It dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, so we asked some guys where we could find the ferry. They pointed down a random dirt road, so we started walking. We eventually got to the ferry after walking through a village, and it was literally a concrete block floating on the water. They were repairing it, so we went into this bar and got a giant coke bottle and shared it. We were sweating through our clothes and hoping the trip would be worth it. The ferry was fixed in about 10 minutes and we got on and floated about 100 yards across the river to the other side.
Here, we discovered that the original directions weren't just off, they were WAY off. At least, there weren't taxis or chapas (minibuses) to take us to the beach, which was on the other side of the island.
So we stood and watched as one pick up truck filled up with tons and tons of people, no room for us, and tried to decide what to do. Two white people who were obviously traveling through called us over and offered to take us to the beach they were going to. They said we could hold on to the side of the 4x4. We stepped up onto that little platform below the doors and hung on to the top rail thingie for about a half an hour while they navigated across the ridiculous dirt road. It was quite an adventure. We bought the couple beers when we got to the beach in thanks, then tried to ask a waiter at the resort to help us find transportation back. By now it was 3pm and we had to get back onto a bus at least by nightfall (around 6). He understood us well enough, so we went onto the beach.
Dawn and Evan played in the water while Claire built a castle and I played with Dawn's camera and this random dog that looked like a fox and was SO friendly. Then she and her boy dog friend wouldn't leave Dawn alone when she tried to put on clothes again, so I called them over and then the one wouldn't let me put my shoes on. Kept trying to sit in my lap.
Very weird dogs. We walked back to the little resort thingie and talked to a guest who had agreed to take us back to the ferry. This time it was a pick-up, so Dawn and Evan sat in the flatbed (I was jealous) and Claire and I sat inside the cabin talking to the couple, who were Mozambiquan and spoke wonderful English. We learned that everyone speaks Portuguese there because there are so many little ethnic groups that people rarely overlap. They both knew two other languages but couldn't understand each other except in Portuguese. This time it took about forty minutes to get back because they kept turning around to talk to us and slowing down.
I calculated that we had about an hour of sunlight when we got onto the ferry to go back, but was obviously off a bit when we got to the other side and started powerwalking up the hill back to the road. It was dark in 30 minutes, and Dawn started freaking out because transportation at night is generally dangerous. But we got to the road and there were at least a hundred people standing around waiting for chapas to take them back home. We fought our way into one and headed back, all the time worried that we would miss our stop. The second bus was agonizingly slow and played ridiculous Portuguese rap. We got back about 7pm, and stopped at an Italian restaurant for dinner. I went into the bathroom and realized just how dirty I was. Gross.
We got back onto the road and realized how windy it was. Also gross, as it was windy and sandy and garbage was everywhere (poor infrastructure). We walked back to Fatima's, our feet tired from holding on to the side of that car.
Everyone went up to bed and I ended up talking to a guy from Swaziland who insisted I wouldn't be able to pronounce his name, so he gave me his last name--Dube. I guess he was there on business something something I don't recall all of the conversation, but it lasted about an hour and I distinctly remember he asked me how old I was and if I had a boyfriend (not in a sketchy way, luckily) and seemed surprised that I was twenty. (I figured out why this confused people when I wound up talking to another guy the next night--I guess I look 24? Sad.)
I headed up to bed around 10 or 11pm, situated the mosquito net around me (there weren't many though--not rainy season) and fell asleep.
Anyway, back to my story.
I still have NO idea what we did after Soweto, so I assume we ate or something. I know we got back late and went to bed.
EDIT: We went to Greek and it was good. -Claire
--Day Five--
We got up and packed up our stuff and went to the apartheid museum. We spent about five hours there and it was fascinating. Lots to do with my South African Political Thought and Traditions class. I especially liked the Steven Biko exhibit. I highly recommend the museum for anyone heading that way...So we were hungry around 3pm when we left the museum, so we wandered toward Gold Reef City which turned out to be a gaudy casino. We got Steers and KFC for lunch and then took a taxi to the airport (OR Tambo) to catch our bus transportation thing. Dawn freaked out when the first driver refused to take all five of us, but the second one did. Still, would have been very bad.
It took a while to find Citybug and we were barely on time--it turned out to be similar to a minibus, only a formal set up, so there were only about three other people on the little bus. We drove to Nelspruit and stopped once and got chocolate and chips. We got there pretty late and Adriaan from Funky Money Backpackers picked us up and explained the safari thing to us. We paid (it was around $250 per person) and then played a game of pool that took FOREVER. I also wound up owing Dawn a bottle of wine because she made a shot I thought she wouldn't. Sad. Adriaan was kinda awkward because he sat there watching us but didn't say much--socially inept or something. Oh well--it's not like we weren't weird Americans.
We went to bed pretty early.
--Day Six--
We got up at 5am or something ridiculous like that and quickly got ready to leave on the one day Safari. Adriaan drove us to Kruger and we got there around 6:30am, in time for our guide, Jafta to pick us up for the morning drive. We joined a single guy named David (Dah-veed) from Israel, who had an awesome camera and only spoke decent English--not perfect. Jafta was cool and saw all sorts of ridiculous things no one else spotted. On the morning drive (it was freezing and I wore my scarf over my head because I couldn't take the cold wind) we saw: Impala, Reed Buck, Duiker, Baboons, Kudu, Fork-tailed Drongo, a White Rhino from far away (it was asleep), and a Water Buck. We headed back to our campsite--Pretoriuskop--for breakfast, which was wonderful, and then went back out for our day drive. It gradually got warmer around mid-day, but the wind got really hard to take.We saw: a yellow-bill hornbill, that same rhino from earlier, more rhinos, meerkats, warthogs, a giraffe right next to the road, more farther away and also zebras, wildebeest, and an elephant right there in the road--it charged us after a while, ground hornbills, hippos at a watering hole, crocodile (far away), heron, ibis, egyptian geese, steenbok, slender mongoose, bush buck, ververt monkey, marabstock (bird), inyala, leopard in a tree!!!!, black-bellied basset, a controlled fire, lilac-breasted rol, stork, corybastard, and a line of old water buffalo crossing the road.
Jafta saw most of the animals, and bear in mind that this is all from a little notebook that I kept just to know the order of animals we saw for future reference. Spelling and names are likely wrong.
We headed back to Pretoriuskop as it got dark, the whole time hoping we'd see lions. No such luck. We went into the little gift/food shop and looked at stuff. Then we went back for dinner, which was a braai and sat around a fire making up stories. We spent a lot of time on a romantic comedy that turned out better than most that are produced these days. But everyone started going to sleep so we had to go into our tents and be quieter. We had to get up early, so we started getting ready for bed. Dawn and I were in one tent with Claire and Sally in the other. Evan was sharing with David farther down. Dawn and I heard Sally start yelling about a wave or something so we called out to see what was wrong and Claire told us to come into their tent. Sally told us that her parents had called her freaking out because of an email they had received about an CIEE student accident earlier that week. We texted Quinton to see what was up. Claire called her mom and got the detail that a student from Georgetown had been swept into the ocean. Claire started freaking out because she knew most of the kids from Georgetown and started going through them all in her head--the ones who had gone on the Garden Route were most likely, as it was the origin of the accident. Quinton called us back and Sally talked to him and told us the rumor was true. Then we asked her who it had been and she said it was Terrence. Claire broke down--she had said earlier that he had told her he would stay out of the water because he couldn't swim. We were all stunned and I definitely had the thought that this must not be real. Sally handed the phone off to Dawn, and I could hear her voice breaking as Quinton (though shaken) asked us our our trip was going. The call ended and the tent was just silent. We sat for a few minutes, then called Evan into the tent to tell him what had happened. I got up because I couldn't handle it and went to brush my teeth, trying to focus on anything but the news.
I couldn't comb my hair that night because the wind had destroyed it. I went to bed trying not to think about anything. Dawn and I heard Claire telling Sally just how close she had come to going with that group on the Garden Route. It was only because she heard about our trip first that she had come with us. I dreamt about pulling an all nighter when I got back to campus, completely enveloped in a fantasy world. Dawn dreamt about what UCT would be like when we returned.
--Day Seven--
We woke up in bad moods, and the fact that the sun had not yet risen didn't help. It was a quiet morning, and we climbed into the safari-car thingie much less excited than we had been the previous day. We picked up two other guests from some European country. I can't remember where. The very first thing we saw was a male cheetah rolling around on the road. Dawn got SO excited because she loves cheetahs and it was so unlikely that we would see one. Apparently there are only 200 of them in the whole of Kruger while there are 2,000 lions (which we didn't see any of). We missed the wild dogs that the two other guests had seen while driving up to the park. But still, it was an awesome thing to see. My camera battery died, so I have to depend on everyone else for pictures.Then we kept driving and saw more elephants, giraffes, baboons, white rhinos (by now none of these were exciting anymore).
It was a pretty awesome safari in all, and at breakfast we got ready to go and left a rather pitiful tip for Jafta (we left as much as we could, but I dunno if it was enough--about R300, and David didn't leave anything). Adriaan drove us back to Funky Monkey and we waited around for a while before heading to Intercape for our bus to Maputo. I took the time to shower and tried using lotion (thanks Dawn) to get the tangles out of my hair. It failed big time and Sally spent about twenty minutes convincing me to get dreadlocks or shave my head. I seriously considered it. Adriaan drove us to Intercape and we said goodbye to Sally, who was returning to Jo'burg and then Cape Town to go on a class field trip on Friday.
Intercape was a giant bus with two levels, and we sat on the top. They played Hancock, which is a ridiculous Will Smith movie, but we found it really stupid and it became a running joke for the rest of the trip. I ended up combing my hair out during the four hour ride, then made a braid in the hopes that it wouldn't die again. I showered the minute we got to Fatima's in Maputo while everyone else went to the ATM. Consequently, I could comb my hair (kinda) but didn't have any money for anything else. We got a cab outside Fatima's (they have 24 hour cab service) and it drove down the street where it stopped for these three police officers. The driver got out of the cab and left it idling. We sat there with no idea what to do. We gave the officers our passports (MUST carry it at all times while in Mozambique). The one male officer gave Evan a hard time, commenting on how his passport was obtained in Beverly Hills (though he lives in Arizona), then pointed to his seatbelt (which was unfastened because he had been told in another cab that "we don't do that here") and said 500.000 metical (23.000 equivalent to $1) fine. Evan thought it was best not to argue, but he pulled out his 400.000 note and said that was all he had. Apparently the fine was not legit, because the officer accepted it without question. He walked away from the car and we were like omg holy shit wtf and when the driver got back in the cab we tried to ask him what had happened. Unfortunately, the man spoke only Portuguese.
More annoyed than shaken, we were pissed when we got to the African Cafe the receptionist had recommended and it was closed. We asked the driver to take us to a restaurant, which must mean something else because he dropped us off at a bar--we asked him to pick us up in two hours, which was a fun five minutes of pantomine trying to make him understand what we were asking. For some reason I decided not to use Spanish, which would have totally worked. Anyway, the place was a bar, not a resaurant, so we walked down the street to a little place that had sandwiches and was completely deserted. It was fine and inexpensive (35.000 metical for a sandwich) but we still felt kinda weirded out. Most restaurants we went to on this trip were empty. It's strange.
Anyway, we ended up walking back about an hour early so we went to the original bar and paid the entry fee (we didn't really understand)--about 100.000 metical. The live music (which was the reason for the fee) wasn't there yet, so we paid to get into a place that played Santana and charged us for drinks. Ridiculous. Claire wasn't in a great mood and was very tired, so we waited just until the cab driver returned, then went back to Fatima's.
I guess we went to bed or something.
--Day Eight--
It was Friday, and not much to do in Maputo. We walked to the bakery and got some breakfast, then walked around and bought vegetables from vendors to make sandwiches. Then we went back to Fatima's and made sandwiches while Dawn asked the receptionist about beaches nearby. He told us there was one about two hours away, accessible through public transporation and a ferry across a river. Sounded good to us, so we began the trek down to the bus stop.We took the bus for about 40 minutes and started to realize just how hot it would be that day. It was about 1pm or so when we got off and got onto the minibus that would take us to the next place (can't recall the name). Rode on that for about 20 or 30 minutes, and it was SO HOT. It dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, so we asked some guys where we could find the ferry. They pointed down a random dirt road, so we started walking. We eventually got to the ferry after walking through a village, and it was literally a concrete block floating on the water. They were repairing it, so we went into this bar and got a giant coke bottle and shared it. We were sweating through our clothes and hoping the trip would be worth it. The ferry was fixed in about 10 minutes and we got on and floated about 100 yards across the river to the other side.
Here, we discovered that the original directions weren't just off, they were WAY off. At least, there weren't taxis or chapas (minibuses) to take us to the beach, which was on the other side of the island.
So we stood and watched as one pick up truck filled up with tons and tons of people, no room for us, and tried to decide what to do. Two white people who were obviously traveling through called us over and offered to take us to the beach they were going to. They said we could hold on to the side of the 4x4. We stepped up onto that little platform below the doors and hung on to the top rail thingie for about a half an hour while they navigated across the ridiculous dirt road. It was quite an adventure. We bought the couple beers when we got to the beach in thanks, then tried to ask a waiter at the resort to help us find transportation back. By now it was 3pm and we had to get back onto a bus at least by nightfall (around 6). He understood us well enough, so we went onto the beach.
Dawn and Evan played in the water while Claire built a castle and I played with Dawn's camera and this random dog that looked like a fox and was SO friendly. Then she and her boy dog friend wouldn't leave Dawn alone when she tried to put on clothes again, so I called them over and then the one wouldn't let me put my shoes on. Kept trying to sit in my lap.
Very weird dogs. We walked back to the little resort thingie and talked to a guest who had agreed to take us back to the ferry. This time it was a pick-up, so Dawn and Evan sat in the flatbed (I was jealous) and Claire and I sat inside the cabin talking to the couple, who were Mozambiquan and spoke wonderful English. We learned that everyone speaks Portuguese there because there are so many little ethnic groups that people rarely overlap. They both knew two other languages but couldn't understand each other except in Portuguese. This time it took about forty minutes to get back because they kept turning around to talk to us and slowing down.
I calculated that we had about an hour of sunlight when we got onto the ferry to go back, but was obviously off a bit when we got to the other side and started powerwalking up the hill back to the road. It was dark in 30 minutes, and Dawn started freaking out because transportation at night is generally dangerous. But we got to the road and there were at least a hundred people standing around waiting for chapas to take them back home. We fought our way into one and headed back, all the time worried that we would miss our stop. The second bus was agonizingly slow and played ridiculous Portuguese rap. We got back about 7pm, and stopped at an Italian restaurant for dinner. I went into the bathroom and realized just how dirty I was. Gross.
We got back onto the road and realized how windy it was. Also gross, as it was windy and sandy and garbage was everywhere (poor infrastructure). We walked back to Fatima's, our feet tired from holding on to the side of that car.
Everyone went up to bed and I ended up talking to a guy from Swaziland who insisted I wouldn't be able to pronounce his name, so he gave me his last name--Dube. I guess he was there on business something something I don't recall all of the conversation, but it lasted about an hour and I distinctly remember he asked me how old I was and if I had a boyfriend (not in a sketchy way, luckily) and seemed surprised that I was twenty. (I figured out why this confused people when I wound up talking to another guy the next night--I guess I look 24? Sad.)
I headed up to bed around 10 or 11pm, situated the mosquito net around me (there weren't many though--not rainy season) and fell asleep.
--Day Nine--
We woke up really early (about 7:30am) and decided to head down to the craft market. It wasn't very far away, and it was awesome. I ended up getting roped into buying some things I didn't really want (never let anyone hand you things because it's hard to give them back unless you drop them and run). The vendors were pushy and stuff, but it wasn't unmanageable. It was much easier to haggle and buy in pairs because your friend could pull you away. I helped Evan get some painting cloth thingies and he helped me get some bowls. Claire got a magnet and pulled me over to get one too because the kid didn't have change. Unfortunately, she walked away too soon and I was confused so I paid the boy as well and he ran off for about ten minutes getting me change. So we paid twice, which was stupid and annoying, but we didn't find out until later that day.
There were lots of awesome crafts that I wanted to get but didn't have money/room for. There was a great carved chest that I really wanted, but it was very impractical. And at least 10 kilos.
Evan ended up getting some ridiculous pirated movies and a guy kept bothering me to buy some jewelry from him and Dawn became very frustrated and turned her back on him. We headed back to Fatima's (and I had a purse for the first time on the trip! yay!) and just kind of hung out for a while. I wasn't in the mood to go anywhere because the soreness had just hit me from yesterday, but everyone else decided we wanted to go down to another ferry and a different beach.
I was exhausted by then, so we pretty much walked back down the street and went to a ferry, went to a beach, got proposed to because we were white on a completely black island (also a very poor one) and ended up leaving and went to dinner at the same Italian restaurant and the same waiter.
Back at Fatima's I talked to a Mozambiquan named Otelo who's a law student at the university down the road, and I remember he had me guess his age, which I did by what year he's in school, and he said I was 10 years off, then said I was only five years off. He was also surprised that I am twenty, which was another wtf for me. Very odd. Also asked me how many boyfriends I had, which I can't help thinking is a weird question, even after talking for an hour about random things.
I went back upstairs and Dawn was freaking out (yes, she's good at freaking out cuz she's always in charge) because our phones were roaming and the alarms likely wouldn't work. She arranged a wake up call for the next morning, when we would be leaving on Intercape at 7:30am.
There were lots of awesome crafts that I wanted to get but didn't have money/room for. There was a great carved chest that I really wanted, but it was very impractical. And at least 10 kilos.
Evan ended up getting some ridiculous pirated movies and a guy kept bothering me to buy some jewelry from him and Dawn became very frustrated and turned her back on him. We headed back to Fatima's (and I had a purse for the first time on the trip! yay!) and just kind of hung out for a while. I wasn't in the mood to go anywhere because the soreness had just hit me from yesterday, but everyone else decided we wanted to go down to another ferry and a different beach.
I was exhausted by then, so we pretty much walked back down the street and went to a ferry, went to a beach, got proposed to because we were white on a completely black island (also a very poor one) and ended up leaving and went to dinner at the same Italian restaurant and the same waiter.
Back at Fatima's I talked to a Mozambiquan named Otelo who's a law student at the university down the road, and I remember he had me guess his age, which I did by what year he's in school, and he said I was 10 years off, then said I was only five years off. He was also surprised that I am twenty, which was another wtf for me. Very odd. Also asked me how many boyfriends I had, which I can't help thinking is a weird question, even after talking for an hour about random things.
I went back upstairs and Dawn was freaking out (yes, she's good at freaking out cuz she's always in charge) because our phones were roaming and the alarms likely wouldn't work. She arranged a wake up call for the next morning, when we would be leaving on Intercape at 7:30am.
--Day Ten--
I didn't sleep well because I kept waking up every hour. I was the only one to hear the wake up call (a guy knocking on the dorm door REALLY softly). We got ready pretty fast, then went down to the bakery for morning food. Turns out Otelo had remembered when I was getting up and had gotten up early to exchange email addresses (I guess he's from around there because he was only at Fatima's to visit his friend, the receptionist). We had peanut butter and bread, then took a cab down the street (we didn't realize how close it was) to the Intercape stop.
There I saw the one beggar in Maputo (that I had seen). He was disfigured--his feet were sideways but he could still walk, and from what I could tell, he wasn't speaking English or Portuguese, more like just making noises. I didn't have any change or I would have given him some. But besides him, Maputo was a very dignified city regarding beggars and homeless.
We got on the bus and watched the beginning of Hancock, then it skipped and we watched some of Titanic. It skipped and Claire and Evan were sad. The bus got very hot and they were playing bad rap. SO HOT. We stopped at one place and everyone got off for lunch and the coolness of outside.
The trip was only 8 hours, and went by pretty fast. Dawn wrote in her journal about the trip, I interrupted her by talking about random things, and Evan and Claire slept with their iPods (which were not stolen--yay!).
We then took a cab (so expensive because they're about 30 minutes apart) to OR Tambo for our flight. It was about a four hour wait til the flight, so we sat in the cafeteria bit and played games.
Then we got on the plane and fell asleep/looked out the window/did work/wrote in journal until we got to Cape Town and it was cold when we got off.
It then proceeded to rain and they had moved the Liesbeeck turnstile thingie to the other side of the res. But now it's not outside my window and no longer loud. SUCCESS!!
Thus ended our spring break trip.
Nothing was stolen. No one was mugged.
Evan was extorted and that was it.
All in all, such a cool trip.
Too long: didn't read version to come.
There I saw the one beggar in Maputo (that I had seen). He was disfigured--his feet were sideways but he could still walk, and from what I could tell, he wasn't speaking English or Portuguese, more like just making noises. I didn't have any change or I would have given him some. But besides him, Maputo was a very dignified city regarding beggars and homeless.
We got on the bus and watched the beginning of Hancock, then it skipped and we watched some of Titanic. It skipped and Claire and Evan were sad. The bus got very hot and they were playing bad rap. SO HOT. We stopped at one place and everyone got off for lunch and the coolness of outside.
The trip was only 8 hours, and went by pretty fast. Dawn wrote in her journal about the trip, I interrupted her by talking about random things, and Evan and Claire slept with their iPods (which were not stolen--yay!).
We then took a cab (so expensive because they're about 30 minutes apart) to OR Tambo for our flight. It was about a four hour wait til the flight, so we sat in the cafeteria bit and played games.
Then we got on the plane and fell asleep/looked out the window/did work/wrote in journal until we got to Cape Town and it was cold when we got off.
It then proceeded to rain and they had moved the Liesbeeck turnstile thingie to the other side of the res. But now it's not outside my window and no longer loud. SUCCESS!!
Thus ended our spring break trip.
Nothing was stolen. No one was mugged.
Evan was extorted and that was it.
All in all, such a cool trip.
Too long: didn't read version to come.
8.9.08
Spring Break in Southern Africa- Part One
Hey guys, sorry it's been a while, but I've been incredibly busy.
Anyway, here's what I did for spring break last week:
Characters
Dawn- did all the planning. goes to Pomona
Sally- is quiet and goes to Pomona
Evan- is not quiet and goes to ASU
Claire- is.....odd and goes to Washington U at St. Louis
ME!
But Sally had a test right before we had to leave so Dawn called a cab and had it waiting on Middle Campus for her to run down and catch it. We got to the airport about an hour before the flight, so we sat on the ground in the terminal and marveled at the circus-tent quality of the building.
The flight was okay--only about an hour and a half. Sally's not a fan of flying, and luckily we were sitting together so we could talk about all the Pomona people we know/don't know and also don't like. It was fun.
We arrived in Durban around mid-afternoon and took a cab down to Bluff, which is on the coast. The backpackers was called Anstley's and it was nice--very tropical feeling with little cabins and wooden walkways and outside showers. The bartender was named Limbardo (which took a long time to figure out because we didn't believe it) and he claimed to be in the top 500 bartenders in the world. Ha. It was a "bar" with wine, beer, and sodas. Stupid. But he was very cute, so we forgave him for that.
We walked down to the Green Dolphin on the beach and had a hard time finding vegetarian options (Dawn and Claire are weird like that). The food took FOREVER to arrive and was definitely low quality. We also had milkshakes. Yay. We walked on the beach for a while and again marveled, this time at the fact that this is our first big trip without an adult doing the organizing (internationally at least). Of course, Dawn did all the organizing, and she did a FANTASTIC job.
It got dark and we wandered back, playing a game of pool (Evan and I won!) while Claire watched, and then we played a board game that involved teams and reading off a list of words and having people guess them. It was South African, so we didn't know all the names, but it was fun anyway. We had a bottle of wine (divided by five) and so we decided to get take out from Mr. Delivery--Nandos in particular. It was FAR too expensive and we will never do it again. But WOW spicy. Dawn almost died and it was hilarious.
We agreed to go out with Rob (another employee--the driver guy) and Limbardo and a couple other guests. They took us to Bok Town, which turned out to be the whitest and oldest (demographically) night club we'd seen since arriving in South Africa. There was live music and I sat and watched people dance and was amused by the drunken antics of Rob and Limbardo, who got increasingly sketchier as the night went on.
A little later, Rob got creepy and then he or one of his creepy friends grabbed Dawn's ass and we went searching for a cab number to get out of there. While we waited for one to arrive these two really drunk guys came by, called us terrorists and asked us not to blow up their car (but pointed it out multiple times) and called Obama a "Kaffir" (derogatory term for black person in SA). While in the taxi and later while getting ready for bed we decided that Durban was strangely segregated.
I did not sleep well that first night because Evan snores like you would not believe and I got up after an hour and took Tylenol PM. I guess I slept eventually, but good lord. GAH.
Anyway, here's what I did for spring break last week:
Characters
Dawn- did all the planning. goes to Pomona
Sally- is quiet and goes to Pomona
Evan- is not quiet and goes to ASU
Claire- is.....odd and goes to Washington U at St. Louis
ME!
--Day One--
I had a tut to go to at 10am (instead of my 11am one) so I packed my little backpack and ran up to campus, stopping to order contacts at the Shoprite down the street (still haven't gotten a call about that....). The tut was boring b/c Nash just taught us how to cite things....as if we didn't already know by now.But Sally had a test right before we had to leave so Dawn called a cab and had it waiting on Middle Campus for her to run down and catch it. We got to the airport about an hour before the flight, so we sat on the ground in the terminal and marveled at the circus-tent quality of the building.
The flight was okay--only about an hour and a half. Sally's not a fan of flying, and luckily we were sitting together so we could talk about all the Pomona people we know/don't know and also don't like. It was fun.
We arrived in Durban around mid-afternoon and took a cab down to Bluff, which is on the coast. The backpackers was called Anstley's and it was nice--very tropical feeling with little cabins and wooden walkways and outside showers. The bartender was named Limbardo (which took a long time to figure out because we didn't believe it) and he claimed to be in the top 500 bartenders in the world. Ha. It was a "bar" with wine, beer, and sodas. Stupid. But he was very cute, so we forgave him for that.
We walked down to the Green Dolphin on the beach and had a hard time finding vegetarian options (Dawn and Claire are weird like that). The food took FOREVER to arrive and was definitely low quality. We also had milkshakes. Yay. We walked on the beach for a while and again marveled, this time at the fact that this is our first big trip without an adult doing the organizing (internationally at least). Of course, Dawn did all the organizing, and she did a FANTASTIC job.
It got dark and we wandered back, playing a game of pool (Evan and I won!) while Claire watched, and then we played a board game that involved teams and reading off a list of words and having people guess them. It was South African, so we didn't know all the names, but it was fun anyway. We had a bottle of wine (divided by five) and so we decided to get take out from Mr. Delivery--Nandos in particular. It was FAR too expensive and we will never do it again. But WOW spicy. Dawn almost died and it was hilarious.
We agreed to go out with Rob (another employee--the driver guy) and Limbardo and a couple other guests. They took us to Bok Town, which turned out to be the whitest and oldest (demographically) night club we'd seen since arriving in South Africa. There was live music and I sat and watched people dance and was amused by the drunken antics of Rob and Limbardo, who got increasingly sketchier as the night went on.
A little later, Rob got creepy and then he or one of his creepy friends grabbed Dawn's ass and we went searching for a cab number to get out of there. While we waited for one to arrive these two really drunk guys came by, called us terrorists and asked us not to blow up their car (but pointed it out multiple times) and called Obama a "Kaffir" (derogatory term for black person in SA). While in the taxi and later while getting ready for bed we decided that Durban was strangely segregated.
I did not sleep well that first night because Evan snores like you would not believe and I got up after an hour and took Tylenol PM. I guess I slept eventually, but good lord. GAH.
--Day Two--
We all got up late and took showers until about 11am and then wandered down to the beach, got breakfast (they put pepper on french toast....). We decided to go to town b/c I didn't have a bathing suit and the beach was closed on account of shark sightings and they don't have nets or watchers on that particular beach. We took the bus and passed some cool streets but then ended up in an area I can't even explain. It was like a large but uninteresting market. The vendors sold all sorts of things that no one wants. We went into the natural science museum but only had about two hours there cuz it was so late in the day. There were cool taxidermy animals and then upstairs there was neat art. Oh, I got a boewoer (sausage) and it was SO GOOD but definitely meat that I couldn't place. I think it disgusted the vegetarians, but oh well.
So it closed and we went in search of some Indian market (medicines and such) but got completely lost. Dawn later said that when we walked through a tunnel (a big one--it was still part of the huge market) someone brushed against her checking her pockets. But no incidents. We saw people congregated in areas watching informal performances (not in English, of course). We had finally found all the black people in Durban! Yay!
But the Indian market was completely unfindable, and we ended up asking outside the closed Tourist Office. We got lucky, because the guy sitting in a car outside the office worked inside it, so he offered to take us to Florida Street (the major street in Durban) as a favor. We ended up giving him R60 for gas, and I think he was embarrassed. But we were very grateful, as we were SO lost before.
Florida Street was quiet and looked suburban. We walked up it, went to a little park and got stared at by parents who didn't like us there (most were Indian) and then walked up and down the street five times trying to find a place for dinner. One rejected us because three of us were wearing shorts, so we stopped at a fairly empty place for drinks. We played this game that Claire knows that's like 20 questions but unlimited. It got darker and we decided to go to dinner at the Indian restaurant down the street. We were the ONLY people in the restaurant. It was odd. We got wine and awesome food and it was a good evening. Our waiter (who I also think was the manager) called a cab for us, and we went back to Anstleys where we played pool and then watched In & Out. Limbardo left the bar and living room open for us so we could finish the movie.
So we went back on the beach and hung out for a while and I think people got burned. We had a deep conversation about race and class and decided that we're total geeks. It was a chill day, so we decided to head back to Anstleys after getting ice cream and sat by the pool (I find that I want to chronicle everything we drank on this trip just because it's all so novel). But we just sat around talking about things and doing nothing in general.
Rob drove us to the train station and proved to us just how creepy he is (a picture of his son was on his rear view mirror). We asked him something about the xenophobic attacks and he said he doesn't pay attention. Such a beach bum. No one had mentioned that we needed to pay for the trip, so we were surprised when Dawn offered him gas money and he said no, it's R100. Creepster.
The little store in the train station had cheap chocolate and we got lots. We also had stopped at a grocery store and had peanut butter, crackers, nut and raisin mix, and water. When we were about to get on the train the woman checking our tickets said we'd be in different compartments and Dawn freaked because she had been told that was not the case. Anyway, they figured it out and the train was pretty empty so we had two four-person compartments. One had three beds, the other two, and we hung out in the one without the upper bunks down. Upon first arriving in the compartment, we closed the door and hung out, then tried to leave again. But the door would not open. We all tried and started freaking out. Dawn hung her head out the window and asked a guy on the platform (it was EMPTY otherwise) to help us. He slid the door open. We did a collective *facepalm* and felt really stupid.
So we hung out in the same compartment, eating and talking, playing the questions game and then which kitchen appliance would you be? It was a fun night, and we decided to start the malaria pills. FUN!
We went to bed around 11pm or so, and it was really nice until I woke up at around 3am and it was FREEZING in the compartment. It was literally so cold that I couldn't have my head outside of the covers.
So Johannesburg was freezing when we got off the train and we huddled together on the wrong floor waiting for our ride, then felt stupid when we had forgotten the difference between the ground floor and the first floor. We got to Brown Sugar Backpackers at about 9:30am and had to leave at 10am for our Sowetan tour (that Quinton set up and paid for--yay!). Our tour guide was called Temba (sorry for botching the name, man) and he was completely awesome. We went into a bank that had a mine shaft museum room, then went to a Sharpesville museum and read about the student strike. I bought a beautiful cloth (tapestry type thing) from a vendor outside and we headed off to Soweto, which was at least an hour outside of the city. The tour was amazing and we learned a lot.
For lunch we stopped at a restaurant in Soweto and had the most incredible food. We ate so much and it was all good. Then everyone fell asleep on the way back into town and we got back in time for Evan to nap and the rest of us to shower at the hostel before dinner.
Night all!
So it closed and we went in search of some Indian market (medicines and such) but got completely lost. Dawn later said that when we walked through a tunnel (a big one--it was still part of the huge market) someone brushed against her checking her pockets. But no incidents. We saw people congregated in areas watching informal performances (not in English, of course). We had finally found all the black people in Durban! Yay!
But the Indian market was completely unfindable, and we ended up asking outside the closed Tourist Office. We got lucky, because the guy sitting in a car outside the office worked inside it, so he offered to take us to Florida Street (the major street in Durban) as a favor. We ended up giving him R60 for gas, and I think he was embarrassed. But we were very grateful, as we were SO lost before.
Florida Street was quiet and looked suburban. We walked up it, went to a little park and got stared at by parents who didn't like us there (most were Indian) and then walked up and down the street five times trying to find a place for dinner. One rejected us because three of us were wearing shorts, so we stopped at a fairly empty place for drinks. We played this game that Claire knows that's like 20 questions but unlimited. It got darker and we decided to go to dinner at the Indian restaurant down the street. We were the ONLY people in the restaurant. It was odd. We got wine and awesome food and it was a good evening. Our waiter (who I also think was the manager) called a cab for us, and we went back to Anstleys where we played pool and then watched In & Out. Limbardo left the bar and living room open for us so we could finish the movie.
--Day Three--
We woke up with the sun and ran down to the beach, where we walked down toward another restaurant. It was low tide, so Dawn, Evan, and Claire went out into the tide pools (which had pretty much been wiped out by a storm) while Sally read the Quran and I took pictures with Dawn's camera. The restaurant place had just opened, apparently, so they had NO idea what they were doing and it took a while to get our orders right. The food was okay, but I found that I really dislike mince. It's just like ground beef. Yuck.So we went back on the beach and hung out for a while and I think people got burned. We had a deep conversation about race and class and decided that we're total geeks. It was a chill day, so we decided to head back to Anstleys after getting ice cream and sat by the pool (I find that I want to chronicle everything we drank on this trip just because it's all so novel). But we just sat around talking about things and doing nothing in general.
Rob drove us to the train station and proved to us just how creepy he is (a picture of his son was on his rear view mirror). We asked him something about the xenophobic attacks and he said he doesn't pay attention. Such a beach bum. No one had mentioned that we needed to pay for the trip, so we were surprised when Dawn offered him gas money and he said no, it's R100. Creepster.
The little store in the train station had cheap chocolate and we got lots. We also had stopped at a grocery store and had peanut butter, crackers, nut and raisin mix, and water. When we were about to get on the train the woman checking our tickets said we'd be in different compartments and Dawn freaked because she had been told that was not the case. Anyway, they figured it out and the train was pretty empty so we had two four-person compartments. One had three beds, the other two, and we hung out in the one without the upper bunks down. Upon first arriving in the compartment, we closed the door and hung out, then tried to leave again. But the door would not open. We all tried and started freaking out. Dawn hung her head out the window and asked a guy on the platform (it was EMPTY otherwise) to help us. He slid the door open. We did a collective *facepalm* and felt really stupid.
So we hung out in the same compartment, eating and talking, playing the questions game and then which kitchen appliance would you be? It was a fun night, and we decided to start the malaria pills. FUN!
We went to bed around 11pm or so, and it was really nice until I woke up at around 3am and it was FREEZING in the compartment. It was literally so cold that I couldn't have my head outside of the covers.
--Day Four--
Our stop was supposed to be around 6am so we got up at about 5:45 to get ready. Turns out the train wasn't on time and we sat around being freezing until about 9am. It was INSANE and HORRIBLE and I don't like thinking about it because my room in the res right now is kinda cold and it's a bad memory. UGH.So Johannesburg was freezing when we got off the train and we huddled together on the wrong floor waiting for our ride, then felt stupid when we had forgotten the difference between the ground floor and the first floor. We got to Brown Sugar Backpackers at about 9:30am and had to leave at 10am for our Sowetan tour (that Quinton set up and paid for--yay!). Our tour guide was called Temba (sorry for botching the name, man) and he was completely awesome. We went into a bank that had a mine shaft museum room, then went to a Sharpesville museum and read about the student strike. I bought a beautiful cloth (tapestry type thing) from a vendor outside and we headed off to Soweto, which was at least an hour outside of the city. The tour was amazing and we learned a lot.
For lunch we stopped at a restaurant in Soweto and had the most incredible food. We ate so much and it was all good. Then everyone fell asleep on the way back into town and we got back in time for Evan to nap and the rest of us to shower at the hostel before dinner.
--to be continued--
I actually can't remember anything else that happened that day. Besides, it's late and my feet are freezing.Night all!
16.8.08
People Post
My Flat
Molly-- She goes to American university, and she's studying.....uh...I'll get back to you on that. She's started playing volleyball here, so she's not in very often. Oh, and she rarely cooks here. Other rooms usually. She has a group of other res people she hangs out with almost all the time.
Mapambapashi- I call him Mappie cuz it's a ton easier. He's originally from Zim, but now his family lives in Jo'burg. He's the middle child of four sisters and is studying engineering. The fun story about him is that he got a 102 in Control Engineering here (an A is an 80) and now he's tutoring the class. He's doing his honors year (see definitions post) and already has a job all set up for consulting within a company. He wants to travel and then marry ten wives and have twenty kids. Robyn got so mad at him over that. I will give him money if he can pull it over before age 50.
Tristan- I don't know much about him. He has a girlfriend (Robyn) and is also doing his honors year but in.....ugh......I can't recall......I'll get back to you on it. He's colored and originally from East London but now his family lives in Jo'burg. He's also going to graduate this year.
Me- I am considering changing my major to politics and just doing a lot of stuff on the side, but for now I'm taking four courses which add up to 22 credits. I definitely won't get them all on my Pomona transcript though. Sad.
Other Flats
Smiley (Sicelo)- He's also from Zim and doing his honors year. Friend of Tristan and Mappie. He's doing computer science and works on campus in one of the labs, so he's either around all the time or not at all. He has a girlfriend (Natasha) and lives three floors above us, with Megan, another CIEE student.
Sally- She's also from Pomona, and lives two floors above me and is studying....AHH....how do I not know these things??.....I know she's taking a zoology class here, but I think bio in general.....ugh, I should know this. I didn't know her before our first orientation on campus. She's very quiet and she's part of the Spring Break group. Yay group!
Claire- She goes to Washington at St. Louis but she's from Conneticut and apparently has never seen a homeless person.....it's kind of a problem when we walk places cuz she talks to them. Also a Spring Break person!
Molly's posse: Ben (Washington at St. Louis), Grant (I have no idea), Lauren (she lives next door and goes to....uh....another school), and Allen (Georgetown?) I talk to Ben cuz he's in my Anthro class, but he always sound distracted, which is kind of odd
David- Friend of Tristan, Mappie, and Smiley. Kind of odd. Likes anime. I know nothing else about him except that he pops in and out and sounds extremely British.
Other residences
Robyn- Tristan's girlfriend. They've been dating for four years. She's doing English and in her second year. She lives in her own flat off campus and also has a car. She's from East London but now her family lives in Bloemfontein.
Natasha- Dating Smiley, lives in Variety, which is a really nice res elsewhere.... She's from Sri Lanka but apparently went to school in Zim....I can't remember. I think she's doing her second year in film. I haven't seen her for a while.
Dawn- goes to Pomona, was originally Public Policy Analysis- Politics like me, but we're both reconsidering. She's in two of my classes, and is also taking an environmental science course. She lives in one of the CIEE houses down the road (Alma), and so it's hard to get back late at night. Another Spring Break person!
Alma house residents:
Ruth, Derek, Courtney, Aaron, Dawn, Ken (the SOLmate)
Evan- from Arizona State, he is very talkative and already know waay too many people here. He's in a homestay, and his family is cool. He lives down the road from the res, so pretty convenient. His parents didn't want him to come here, but it didn't matter as he's paying his own way. He reminds me of Simon from Enloe, but he's not quite so out there.
Derrick- lives at Evan's homestay but he's not related (as far as I know). He's extremely ridiculous and tells crazy stories. He was originally going to go to Jo'burg to have heart surgery but decided against it (???). He's odd, but very amusing.
CIEE people
Quinton- in charge and really awesome.
Felicity- second in charge and also awesome. She has helped me out a lot. I need to stop needing help.
This post will update frequently as I mention additional people I'm too lazy to describe.
Work-week!
Sup sup guys
It's been almost a week since my last post.
It's Saturday and I woke up at 11h30 even though I was up at 7h30 but decided to go to bed. I must put a sign above my bed that reads "YOU WILL REGRET NOT GETTING UP NOW". Because I always do. Now it's late and I still have a ton of stuff to do.
So what's new....
I got a replacement phone. I keep forgetting to take it with me when I go to class though. Weird.
I went out to Thai on Wednesday with Dawn and Sally, then on Thursday went to all you can eat pizza with a huge group of people. The place is fantastic.
I rearranged my entire room later that night instead of doing work. It was nice.
Then yesterday I woke up rather late, went to my tut, then came back and worked on my paper because the computer labs were either full or closed. Very frustrating. Then I stopped getting work done and Dawn was bored so she came over and we got Sally and made pancakes with dark chocolate. SO GOOD. Then we watched Planet Earth.
We have the most exciting Friday nights.
So I have more homework to do this week and Robben Island is Sunday. Rugby is today, but I skipped out on it b/c I have stuff to do.....like post......:( I should go do work. Later guys.
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Now playing: Lisa Stansfield - When Are You Coming Back?
via FoxyTunes
It's been almost a week since my last post.
It's Saturday and I woke up at 11h30 even though I was up at 7h30 but decided to go to bed. I must put a sign above my bed that reads "YOU WILL REGRET NOT GETTING UP NOW". Because I always do. Now it's late and I still have a ton of stuff to do.
So what's new....
I got a replacement phone. I keep forgetting to take it with me when I go to class though. Weird.
I went out to Thai on Wednesday with Dawn and Sally, then on Thursday went to all you can eat pizza with a huge group of people. The place is fantastic.
I rearranged my entire room later that night instead of doing work. It was nice.
Then yesterday I woke up rather late, went to my tut, then came back and worked on my paper because the computer labs were either full or closed. Very frustrating. Then I stopped getting work done and Dawn was bored so she came over and we got Sally and made pancakes with dark chocolate. SO GOOD. Then we watched Planet Earth.
We have the most exciting Friday nights.
So I have more homework to do this week and Robben Island is Sunday. Rugby is today, but I skipped out on it b/c I have stuff to do.....like post......:( I should go do work. Later guys.
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Now playing: Lisa Stansfield - When Are You Coming Back?
via FoxyTunes
10.8.08
I've been here a month
Let's see, so what's been going on in the past week? Good question.
My classes are definitely going to kill me with work. I am definitely going to have to dip into my savings. We will probably not have to use Portuguese during our three day trip to Mozambique. In any case, I know enough Spanish that I could get by in Portuguese.
Things close really early on Sunday. But the unofficial shop vendors sell the coolest stuff. But they are very pushy and you have to be good at walking away if you really don't intend to buy the item.
Ethiopian food is FANTASTIC. So is being able to order a bottle of wine for the table. Oh how I'll miss that when I come back (my wallet sure won't).
Everyone is obsessed with safety here. So no worries.
In terms of plans for the four weeks after the semester ends, there's a huge trip up to the equator and back down, but I still need to find out about that. Otherwise I can travel with my roommates and their friends. Yay!
We found another person to go with us on spring break. The plan is essentially to fly up to Durban, spend two days there, then go to Kruger for a two day safari, then take a bus to Maputo (capital of Mozambique) and stay there for three days and do all sorts of fun beach stuff. Then we'll take a bus back down to Johannesburg and spend a day there, then fly back to Cape Town. And have a ton of deadlines waiting for us. But yeah, it'll be awesome and way too expensive. Oh well.
My only worry is if I can get my assignments done in time for it. I'm not used to having strict deadlines like this.
I'll post some pictures once people put them online.
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Now playing: Backstreet Boys - Not For Me
via FoxyTunes
My classes are definitely going to kill me with work. I am definitely going to have to dip into my savings. We will probably not have to use Portuguese during our three day trip to Mozambique. In any case, I know enough Spanish that I could get by in Portuguese.
Things close really early on Sunday. But the unofficial shop vendors sell the coolest stuff. But they are very pushy and you have to be good at walking away if you really don't intend to buy the item.
Ethiopian food is FANTASTIC. So is being able to order a bottle of wine for the table. Oh how I'll miss that when I come back (my wallet sure won't).
Everyone is obsessed with safety here. So no worries.
In terms of plans for the four weeks after the semester ends, there's a huge trip up to the equator and back down, but I still need to find out about that. Otherwise I can travel with my roommates and their friends. Yay!
We found another person to go with us on spring break. The plan is essentially to fly up to Durban, spend two days there, then go to Kruger for a two day safari, then take a bus to Maputo (capital of Mozambique) and stay there for three days and do all sorts of fun beach stuff. Then we'll take a bus back down to Johannesburg and spend a day there, then fly back to Cape Town. And have a ton of deadlines waiting for us. But yeah, it'll be awesome and way too expensive. Oh well.
My only worry is if I can get my assignments done in time for it. I'm not used to having strict deadlines like this.
I'll post some pictures once people put them online.
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Now playing: Backstreet Boys - Not For Me
via FoxyTunes
3.8.08
I fail as a documentarian
I did not bring my camera with on the winetasting trip on Saturday (which was good, by the way) and thus I missed getting this shot (which I stole from Molly's facebook album):
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Now playing: Seal - If I Could
via FoxyTunes
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Now playing: Seal - If I Could
via FoxyTunes
1.8.08
People keep asking about my map....
Today I woke up at 7am to Skype with Clintone and consequently get bombarded by IMs asking why I'm awake so early. I asked myself the same question.
Didn't get up to campus until around 10am when I proceeded to the library to do research for my impendingdoom paper. While I'm inside picking out books it starts raining outside. Great. I'm wearing just a wool sweater, which I would prefer not to get wet. So I pick out some books and sit down to do research.
....there's not really a story here so I'll skip ahead.....
Around 4pm, Sally (other Pomona kid I mentioned in another post) wanders into the library where we had previously decided to meet. It's not raining now apparently, so it's a good time to go to the grocery store. Woolworths is a higher-end store kinda like Whole Foods or any of those frou-frou places. It's too expensive so I just pick out a bunch of fruit, etc and go to pay. I ended up with 2 kilos of potatoes, at least a kilo of bananas, a kilo of oranges, 500 grams of carrots, and four ears of bicolored corn (hee) and it comes out to R55.70. That's roughly $7. DUDE.
It was totally not fun walking back with that because I was also carrying my bag with my laptop and cables and four books from the library (for those who are conversion-virginal, a kilo is roughly 2.5 pounds). I just about DIED. Not really. Because then we went shopping again because the place was just too expensive and I needed pasta. So we stopped at the res then walked up to Shoprite, which is just like Winn-dixie or Stater-bros or something low-end like that. So I get waaay too much food and now my back hurts a lot. Stupid.
Another point. The library closes at 6pm on Friday, then is open 10am to 2pm on Saturday, and not at all on Sunday. We have been told that we ought to print earlier rather than later because of technical problems being commonplace. So I have this paper due in my tutorial at 9am on Monday, but the print shop area opens at 8am. Problem much?
Apparently Smiley is going to let me into one of the computer labs in another faculty (I think he does computer science or something) on Sunday. Woo! But no more procrastination. Boo.
Tomorrow is wine-tasting so I had to turn down my roommates (who are going out to bars in Claremont) in favor of finishing this paper (which is totally not close to done and I need to go to bed soon...) and not having a hangover in time for drinking tomorrow morning.
This trip is actually organized by CIEE (the program organizers) so there is no direct fee. Awesome. At least they know to feed us first. But it's all the way in Stellenbosch, which is an hour away.
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Now playing: Everything But the Girl - Missing (Remix)
via FoxyTunes
Didn't get up to campus until around 10am when I proceeded to the library to do research for my impending
....there's not really a story here so I'll skip ahead.....
Around 4pm, Sally (other Pomona kid I mentioned in another post) wanders into the library where we had previously decided to meet. It's not raining now apparently, so it's a good time to go to the grocery store. Woolworths is a higher-end store kinda like Whole Foods or any of those frou-frou places. It's too expensive so I just pick out a bunch of fruit, etc and go to pay. I ended up with 2 kilos of potatoes, at least a kilo of bananas, a kilo of oranges, 500 grams of carrots, and four ears of bicolored corn (hee) and it comes out to R55.70. That's roughly $7. DUDE.
It was totally not fun walking back with that because I was also carrying my bag with my laptop and cables and four books from the library (for those who are conversion-virginal, a kilo is roughly 2.5 pounds). I just about DIED. Not really. Because then we went shopping again because the place was just too expensive and I needed pasta. So we stopped at the res then walked up to Shoprite, which is just like Winn-dixie or Stater-bros or something low-end like that. So I get waaay too much food and now my back hurts a lot. Stupid.
Another point. The library closes at 6pm on Friday, then is open 10am to 2pm on Saturday, and not at all on Sunday. We have been told that we ought to print earlier rather than later because of technical problems being commonplace. So I have this paper due in my tutorial at 9am on Monday, but the print shop area opens at 8am. Problem much?
Apparently Smiley is going to let me into one of the computer labs in another faculty (I think he does computer science or something) on Sunday. Woo! But no more procrastination. Boo.
Tomorrow is wine-tasting so I had to turn down my roommates (who are going out to bars in Claremont) in favor of finishing this paper (which is totally not close to done and I need to go to bed soon...) and not having a hangover in time for drinking tomorrow morning.
This trip is actually organized by CIEE (the program organizers) so there is no direct fee. Awesome. At least they know to feed us first. But it's all the way in Stellenbosch, which is an hour away.
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Now playing: Everything But the Girl - Missing (Remix)
via FoxyTunes
Words you likely don't know...
It has been brought to my attention that I use vocabulary people are not used to. Therefore this is a pinned post that will explain everything I will ever say that someone does not understand. And slang. Because slang is fun.
res- residence hall
Jammie- big blue buses that run to campus every fifteen minutes from the res and other locations
flat- apartment
oh my word- hilarious expression people here say all the time
chode- do I really need to explain this?
just now- expression of time; roughly equivalent to any word regarding time that you can think of
to be updated at a later date...
Updates:
tut- tutorial, kinda like having a discussion based class in addition to lectures
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Now playing: George Michael - Freeek! '04
via FoxyTunes
res- residence hall
Jammie- big blue buses that run to campus every fifteen minutes from the res and other locations
flat- apartment
oh my word- hilarious expression people here say all the time
chode- do I really need to explain this?
just now- expression of time; roughly equivalent to any word regarding time that you can think of
to be updated at a later date...
Updates:
tut- tutorial, kinda like having a discussion based class in addition to lectures
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Now playing: George Michael - Freeek! '04
via FoxyTunes
30.7.08
Why so serious?
'Lo
I've been too lazy to bring up this link and tell you guys about what's going on. When was my last post?
Friday
Went to Cavendish and got more warm stuff. Now all I have to do is start checking the goddamn weather before I leave in the morning (it rained today :( ). Then I watched some movie in the afternoon and went to bed....probably...
Saturday
Went with a group of people from various residences down to Fish Hook, a beach on the....I dunno what side of Cape Town...ocean side. We had lunch and took funny pictures. It was fun.
Sunday
Woke up late and read/took notes all day. I probably watched a movie or something, but I can't remember.
Monday
Had class 9am to 5pm. Five hours. Was late (<5minutes) for every tutorial. So fun. Attempted to cook with meat for dinner.
Tuesday
Had class noon to 5pm. Walked down from campus to Pick and Pay, went grocery shopping, walked to Alma Road house and met up with Dawn (from Pomona), Ruth (she goes to Oxy), and Ken, the SOLmate who lives in the house with them. We walked to Cavendish to see Batman at around 8pm. BATMAN RULES THE WORLD. Then took a taxi back.
Today (Wednesday, for those of you keeping track)
Class from 9am to 5pm. Three hours. Alarm didn't go off, was almost late for tutorial because I didn't know where it was. Rain. Took Jammie back for shower b/c omg shower. People came to fumigate the beds. Wtf mate. Went back to campus for second class. Talked to Dawn and Evan (Arizona State) about spring break plans. Tried to rope Sally (also Pomona) into it. Think it worked. Felt sick from sandwich while doing reading for last class. Went to last class. Took Jammie back. Found out milk is spoiled. Am out of milk. Made peanut butter sandwich and banana on the side. Turned on computer...
And thus the week drew to a close. Tomorrow I only have two hours of class (after 2) but I do have a big assignment that I need to get started on. I have SO MUCH WORK this semester.
Oh well.
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Now playing: Billy Ocean - Caribbean Queen
via FoxyTunes
I've been too lazy to bring up this link and tell you guys about what's going on. When was my last post?
Friday
Went to Cavendish and got more warm stuff. Now all I have to do is start checking the goddamn weather before I leave in the morning (it rained today :( ). Then I watched some movie in the afternoon and went to bed....probably...
Saturday
Went with a group of people from various residences down to Fish Hook, a beach on the....I dunno what side of Cape Town...ocean side. We had lunch and took funny pictures. It was fun.
Sunday
Woke up late and read/took notes all day. I probably watched a movie or something, but I can't remember.
Monday
Had class 9am to 5pm. Five hours. Was late (<5minutes) for every tutorial. So fun. Attempted to cook with meat for dinner.
Tuesday
Had class noon to 5pm. Walked down from campus to Pick and Pay, went grocery shopping, walked to Alma Road house and met up with Dawn (from Pomona), Ruth (she goes to Oxy), and Ken, the SOLmate who lives in the house with them. We walked to Cavendish to see Batman at around 8pm. BATMAN RULES THE WORLD. Then took a taxi back.
Today (Wednesday, for those of you keeping track)
Class from 9am to 5pm. Three hours. Alarm didn't go off, was almost late for tutorial because I didn't know where it was. Rain. Took Jammie back for shower b/c omg shower. People came to fumigate the beds. Wtf mate. Went back to campus for second class. Talked to Dawn and Evan (Arizona State) about spring break plans. Tried to rope Sally (also Pomona) into it. Think it worked. Felt sick from sandwich while doing reading for last class. Went to last class. Took Jammie back. Found out milk is spoiled. Am out of milk. Made peanut butter sandwich and banana on the side. Turned on computer...
And thus the week drew to a close. Tomorrow I only have two hours of class (after 2) but I do have a big assignment that I need to get started on. I have SO MUCH WORK this semester.
Oh well.
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Now playing: Billy Ocean - Caribbean Queen
via FoxyTunes
24.7.08
23.7.08
My Address Here
Sarah Ruiz
c/o Quinton Redcliffe
CIEE
IAPO
Lovers Walk, Lower Campus
University of Cape Town
Private Bag
Rondebosch, 7701
South Africa
yeah, pretty intense...
c/o Quinton Redcliffe
CIEE
IAPO
Lovers Walk, Lower Campus
University of Cape Town
Private Bag
Rondebosch, 7701
South Africa
yeah, pretty intense...
21.7.08
First Day of Classes!
So my schedule of classes looks like this so far:
The classes are divided into lectures and tutorials. I've only gone to my politics classes today because the anthro class is Tuesday through Thursday. I guess we sign up for tutorials later on, because I've only gotten one so far. But they start either next week or the week after anyway.
It was cold today. The classes aren't too different. The biggest one was around 60 or so students, which was interesting because the professor said 140 students had registered into it at the beginning of the year.
I got a doughnut today from one of the food places on campus. SO GOOD.
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Now playing: Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
via FoxyTunes
The classes are divided into lectures and tutorials. I've only gone to my politics classes today because the anthro class is Tuesday through Thursday. I guess we sign up for tutorials later on, because I've only gotten one so far. But they start either next week or the week after anyway.
It was cold today. The classes aren't too different. The biggest one was around 60 or so students, which was interesting because the professor said 140 students had registered into it at the beginning of the year.
I got a doughnut today from one of the food places on campus. SO GOOD.
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Now playing: Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
via FoxyTunes
20.7.08
Tampons are tiny here
I have been sitting inside this weekend and working on stuff/watching LOTR b/c it's awesome.
The second roommate got back yesterday. His name is Mapamba and he's also Zimbabwean.
CLASSES TOMORROW!!!! *jumps up and down like a stupid fangirl*
The second roommate got back yesterday. His name is Mapamba and he's also Zimbabwean.
CLASSES TOMORROW!!!! *jumps up and down like a stupid fangirl*
18.7.08
I am such a geek
I registered for classes today, got my ID card, password for the school system, and found out where my classes are. All in all a pretty successful day.
5 - 12:00 to 12:45 - South African Political Thought and Traditions - four lectures, one double period tutorial per week
6 - 14:00 to 14:45 - Third World Politics - three lectures, one tutorial per week
7 - 15:00 to 15:45 - Urban Politics and Administration - three lectures, one tutorial per week
8 - 16:00 to 17:00 - Anthropology of Power and Wealth - three lectures, one tutorial per week
At 13:00 is Meridian, which is essentially lunch.
Each week is called a lecture series. The tutorials are essentially supplements to class (but required) where they split up the class into smaller groups of about 20.
They overrode the class limit on Third World Politics and I'm so excited that I get to take it now.
I can't wait for Monday.
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Whatever Senele is playing loudly while Smiley does the dishes.
5 - 12:00 to 12:45 - South African Political Thought and Traditions - four lectures, one double period tutorial per week
6 - 14:00 to 14:45 - Third World Politics - three lectures, one tutorial per week
7 - 15:00 to 15:45 - Urban Politics and Administration - three lectures, one tutorial per week
8 - 16:00 to 17:00 - Anthropology of Power and Wealth - three lectures, one tutorial per week
At 13:00 is Meridian, which is essentially lunch.
Each week is called a lecture series. The tutorials are essentially supplements to class (but required) where they split up the class into smaller groups of about 20.
They overrode the class limit on Third World Politics and I'm so excited that I get to take it now.
I can't wait for Monday.
----
Whatever Senele is playing loudly while Smiley does the dishes.
17.7.08
16.7.08
Homesickness? More like just missing it
I wrote the last post after going out for ice cream with Robyn, Tristan, and Dave. Tristan lives in the room across the hall from mind, Robyn is his girlfriend, and Dave is one of their friends. He lives on the fifth floor.
It was cool; Robyn seems to like international students as they lived with ones last semester and seemed to get pretty close. I'm excited.
I also wanted to post real fast and let you guys know that I'm lonely and I miss you. :(
----------------
Now playing: Lisa Stansfield - It's Got To Be Real
via FoxyTunes
It was cool; Robyn seems to like international students as they lived with ones last semester and seemed to get pretty close. I'm excited.
I also wanted to post real fast and let you guys know that I'm lonely and I miss you. :(
----------------
Now playing: Lisa Stansfield - It's Got To Be Real
via FoxyTunes
The Flat
This is after I went to the R5 store and got an additional power strip. It's shitty.
This is the inside of the res. It's nighttime, as you can see. The thing at the bottom is actually just the roof of the parking garage.
This is the hallway. Notice the double lock. The upper one is the same key as the one that unlocks the outer door. Hence, we have our own locks as well.
Messy! I need to clean.
This is my SA cell phone.
This is the Rand. Pretty, eh?
This is the bathroom with the tub.
This is the one with the shower (it's behind the door).
The outer door. The big thing in the kitchen is the water heater. The ugly face attached to it is Angelina Jolie.
The kitchen. Very basic.
And very messy.
People pictures to come!
------
मुआहहः थिस ऑटो ट्रांसलेटर इस रेअल्ली कूल, मन। सिल्ली लिवेजौर्नल
बेत यू कैन'टी रीड थिस!
ही ही ही
लेट'स सेट उप अ कोन्वेर्सशन फॉर नेक्स्ट वीक, प्लेस
ये
----------------
Now playing: Genesis - Follow You, Follow Me
via FoxyTunes
------
मुआहहः थिस ऑटो ट्रांसलेटर इस रेअल्ली कूल, मन। सिल्ली लिवेजौर्नल
बेत यू कैन'टी रीड थिस!
ही ही ही
लेट'स सेट उप अ कोन्वेर्सशन फॉर नेक्स्ट वीक, प्लेस
ये
----------------
Now playing: Genesis - Follow You, Follow Me
via FoxyTunes
Then he killed the crocodile...
I've been having weird dreams ever since I got here.
First night: Creepy alien person staring at me
Second night: (I apologize in advance for any emotional distress revealing this may cause) I woke up crying because I had dreamed that Carrie had died but my main thought was, oh, now I have reason to get a tattoo. Also had to do with driving on the wrong side of the street.
Third night: Definitely had some kind of Peter Pan dream that probably had to do with peanut butter and I know there was a van in there somewhere and we were in a parking lot and there was also a thief....but then there was a waterfall with a little cavern and there was a crocodile and we killed it with a knife after scaring away the bad guys so they'd never come back....and it was a gymnastics building parking lot.....
All in all it was a VERY strange dream.
Since then I've just been waking up at 7 or 8am every morning, which is strange enough.
First night: Creepy alien person staring at me
Second night: (I apologize in advance for any emotional distress revealing this may cause) I woke up crying because I had dreamed that Carrie had died but my main thought was, oh, now I have reason to get a tattoo. Also had to do with driving on the wrong side of the street.
Third night: Definitely had some kind of Peter Pan dream that probably had to do with peanut butter and I know there was a van in there somewhere and we were in a parking lot and there was also a thief....but then there was a waterfall with a little cavern and there was a crocodile and we killed it with a knife after scaring away the bad guys so they'd never come back....and it was a gymnastics building parking lot.....
All in all it was a VERY strange dream.
Since then I've just been waking up at 7 or 8am every morning, which is strange enough.
I finally found a fifty cent piece!
The way the internet works is this:
There are three routers on each side of the dorm (apparently). We connect via the wifi and have to buy credits in order to access the internet. It's calculated by megabyte, essentially equaling out to R.30 per megabyte. It feels like I've been using a lot of credits, but I paid $77 for internet as it's discounted the more you buy, and I've only spent a couple dollars of the credit. Kinda nice. Facebook eats up megs, as does looking at pictures. Video is out of the question.
I miss Family Guy and regret not downloading all the seasons. Poor judgement.
I'm currently charging my camera battery so I can take pictures of the flat.
----------------
Now playing: Darren Hayes - The Sun Is Always Blinding Me
via FoxyTunes
There are three routers on each side of the dorm (apparently). We connect via the wifi and have to buy credits in order to access the internet. It's calculated by megabyte, essentially equaling out to R.30 per megabyte. It feels like I've been using a lot of credits, but I paid $77 for internet as it's discounted the more you buy, and I've only spent a couple dollars of the credit. Kinda nice. Facebook eats up megs, as does looking at pictures. Video is out of the question.
I miss Family Guy and regret not downloading all the seasons. Poor judgement.
I'm currently charging my camera battery so I can take pictures of the flat.
----------------
Now playing: Darren Hayes - The Sun Is Always Blinding Me
via FoxyTunes
15.7.08
The fire alarm has a tendency to wake me up in the morning....
Oh, here's a pic of the outside of the res. Unfortunately I don't have a Mac equivalent of MS paint, but my room goes out to the balcony on the left side of the picture, third floor up. It faces north.
...which I suppose is a good thing. But then again the fire alarm in Liesbeeck (my res) doesn't mean much b/c they have the alarms situated right outside the kitchen and students tend to burn things/create smoke. Hence the fire alarms go off with alarming frequency (oh puns).
So my afternoon off (today--see previous post) I watched Bridget Jones's Diary and hung out in the kitchen while Smiley attempted to cook. It's weird, the students here find meat to me a staple. I guess in my month of summer I cooked meat what, never? Yeah, never.
However! I did cook meat today. I bought chicken nuggets at Shoprite and then just heated them up. Yay. Then I boiled milk for makeshift hot chocolate using Nesquik. It's a rather crude recipe, that I hope I will not be trying again (but likely will). Actually, I might go make some right now b/c at this rate I won't be in bed until 11pm. Damn. I've been so tired lately. It's depressing.
Oh, so after it was windy this afternoon I heard more noises and peaked out my window to see torrential downpour. It was fantastic because I was inside and thus nice and dry.
Apparently I missed African drumming, but it came with at least an hour of sitting through more UCT people talking at us so I really don't think I missed much. Plus people walked back. At like 7 or 8. Ha ha.
I'll have pictures of the flatmates eventually.....Snele doesn't like photographs so I'll wait for a more lubricated night. :_D
----
No music ever since I heard playing iTunes uses up internet quota.
I'm skipping out on orientation
So it's insanely windy today so walking back from UCT (about a fifteen minute hike down the mountain...yay) was fun.
There's a five rand store in Mowbray that sells all sorts of ridiculous things। Of course it's run by some kind-of-Asian family that doesn't speak English. Speaking of English, we had this really fun standardized test scheduled for today.
It's to gauge our English proficiency, but it's really just like the stupid questions on the reading portion of the SAT. SO STUPID. I finished in under an hour and when one of the proctors freaked out about a few people leaving (she wanted to make sure that we were COMPLETELY DONE) I just got pissed and walked out. They were doing a shitty administration of the test. Who gives pencils without erasers with a bubble sheet? *headdesk*
Anyway, todays orientation was boring and they just talked to us about safety and stuff. I doodled in order to stay awake.
(O.o I can feel wind and my windows are closed. Bad sign. *gets up to close curtains*)
Oh, so last night Snele, Smiley, and Natasha tried to persuade me to take tequila shots with them. It was really funny to watch them though. Snele looked to be in more pain that I usually am. Weird.
Anyway, I get the impression the drinking culture (while legal) is about the same here as in the states. At least in the universities.
I have not taken advantage of my age yet (except once to try a Long Island Iced Tea) but it's kind of weird being old enough to drink here.
We had a barbeque (called a braai) a couple days back and I was tired of socializing so I was just standing around watching everyone else (I swear, people watching is hilarious) when the head of the residence hall--I dunno what else to call him--started talking to me. I just remember he asked me if I wanted to try the beer (Castle tastes kinda like Nattie Light.....ugh) and then if I drink and go out. So strange. Oh, the rule here about alcohol is that you can't have it in glass containers. Because it's glass. Not a drug. I find it hilarious.
Oh, and the smoking age is 16. weird huh? Apparently South Africa has the third largest population of adult smokers in the world. Go figure. Makes me feel like I'm in a NC university after all.
I was walking back to the res after food and R5 store shopping with another CIEE kid just now and he (Ben) made a comment about how the area feels more African than others have. I mean, yeah, the Waterfront felt very upscale American, but African? Honestly, Mowbray feels almost exactly like if I had actually gone shopping or lived in downtown Raleigh (like where Enloe is). Right down to the black people. Go figure.
Oh, on the standardized test they had a place for filling in your race. Still had White, Black, Coloured, Indian, and Other. I checked "other".
At this rate I'll post again later tonight if I don't end up falling asleep. This internet coverage is shitty, so I apologize if I cut out on your during IM conversations. :( Not much I can do.
If you have a request about what you want to hear about, I'll be happy to write about it, I just need prompting.
And thank you for the responses! I miss you guys.
There's a five rand store in Mowbray that sells all sorts of ridiculous things। Of course it's run by some kind-of-Asian family that doesn't speak English. Speaking of English, we had this really fun standardized test scheduled for today.
It's to gauge our English proficiency, but it's really just like the stupid questions on the reading portion of the SAT. SO STUPID. I finished in under an hour and when one of the proctors freaked out about a few people leaving (she wanted to make sure that we were COMPLETELY DONE) I just got pissed and walked out. They were doing a shitty administration of the test. Who gives pencils without erasers with a bubble sheet? *headdesk*
Anyway, todays orientation was boring and they just talked to us about safety and stuff. I doodled in order to stay awake.
(O.o I can feel wind and my windows are closed. Bad sign. *gets up to close curtains*)
Oh, so last night Snele, Smiley, and Natasha tried to persuade me to take tequila shots with them. It was really funny to watch them though. Snele looked to be in more pain that I usually am. Weird.
Anyway, I get the impression the drinking culture (while legal) is about the same here as in the states. At least in the universities.
I have not taken advantage of my age yet (except once to try a Long Island Iced Tea) but it's kind of weird being old enough to drink here.
We had a barbeque (called a braai) a couple days back and I was tired of socializing so I was just standing around watching everyone else (I swear, people watching is hilarious) when the head of the residence hall--I dunno what else to call him--started talking to me. I just remember he asked me if I wanted to try the beer (Castle tastes kinda like Nattie Light.....ugh) and then if I drink and go out. So strange. Oh, the rule here about alcohol is that you can't have it in glass containers. Because it's glass. Not a drug. I find it hilarious.
Oh, and the smoking age is 16. weird huh? Apparently South Africa has the third largest population of adult smokers in the world. Go figure. Makes me feel like I'm in a NC university after all.
I was walking back to the res after food and R5 store shopping with another CIEE kid just now and he (Ben) made a comment about how the area feels more African than others have. I mean, yeah, the Waterfront felt very upscale American, but African? Honestly, Mowbray feels almost exactly like if I had actually gone shopping or lived in downtown Raleigh (like where Enloe is). Right down to the black people. Go figure.
Oh, on the standardized test they had a place for filling in your race. Still had White, Black, Coloured, Indian, and Other. I checked "other".
At this rate I'll post again later tonight if I don't end up falling asleep. This internet coverage is shitty, so I apologize if I cut out on your during IM conversations. :( Not much I can do.
If you have a request about what you want to hear about, I'll be happy to write about it, I just need prompting.
And thank you for the responses! I miss you guys.
14.7.08
My converter's about to fall out of the wall
Quick description of the past week.
We did orientation for CIEE and got cell phones. That's about it.
Now on to today's post!
--
So my luggage is somewhere in the states, definitely not en route to Cape Town, so it looks like I'll be buying everything I need. I got this awesome fleece jacket yesterday at Ackermans (it's like Wal-Mart, only more expensive....) and it keeps me very warm. Yay. I also spent way too much money at a place called Vertigo that had the best staff of any of the clothing places. I went to one first in Rondebosch and didn't buy anything b/c of the expense (they remind me of American Apparel) but the staff helped me get to Cavendish by hailing a minibus for me.
The minibus taxi system is really confusing and foreign if you've never traveled in one before. It's basically a 10-15 seater van, on the smaller side than the ones in the states. There's a driver and an usher type guy who pokes his head out the window while driving to yell at people on the street, takes money, and fits as many people as possible into the tiny vehicle. They're a rather informal type of public transportation, but they get the job done. For R5 (R7 is equivalent to 1 US dollar) I took the minibus to Cavendish (took me a while to actually find it as it's underground), a large mall in the area. While it's better than the Waterfront, there were still lots of expensive shops and I had to pay attention to where I was going because it was three stories and somewhat confusing. I walked in a two story circle at the beginning. But I found a lot of clothes and now I'm much warmer. I got socks at the Shoprite (grocery) down the street. Yay socks.
I have discovered that the problem with the cold here is that I like to sit around on the computer, not moving for hours and consequently losing what body heat I may have had.
Oh, the KFC in Cavendish was interesting b/c it was clean and modern looking. The food was basically the same. There's one down the street from where I'm staying so I am very tempted to go there instead of cooking for myself. Unfortunately it's not safe to walk out alone at night and I haven't made friends here yet.
-
I haven't explained the living situation yet. I'm living in the res, which is short for residential dormitory. It's self-catered, so it's essentially an apartment with four bedrooms and a kitchen. The set up is two UCT (generally South African) students paired with two CIEE (generally American) students. For them it's the second semester and they just had a three week winter vacation. When I got into the apartment I thought I was the first one, but when the second CIEE student (Molly) arrived and we were talking, we realized that there was someone else in the apartment. I had pegged the flat (I'm gonna call it that b/c it's local slang and faster to type :_D) as belonging to guys because of a picture of Angelina Jolie (just her face, not her naked...) and a car on the water heater in the kitchen. But it turns out the girl (Snele...I apologize to her if I'm wrong on this) is just staying in the flat until the end of vacation (they call it vac. Hee). I also met her brother Smiley (not his real name) and his girlfriend Natasha (she's from Sri Lanka). Snele and Smiley are Zimbabwean and so are a lot of other UCT students I've met. It's like a trend.
Anyway, yesterday I spent most of the night (in between chatting online with you guys) hanging out with Snele, Natasha, and another girl named Kuni who lives in another res. They're really cool, politically incorrect and lewd, which made me feel right at home. There's drama to learn and I'm almost glad that I'm enjoying the native (quote-unquote) population more so than the American students. I really don't get along very well with the CIEE kids. I also haven't gone out at all because I get so tired in the early evening. Plus I have no desire to drink. *shrug* Go figure.
Let's see, there's lots more to say, but instead of describing it, I'm gonna point to the right hand side of the screen on the main page where I've added a slideshow of pictures that I took today during the tour around the Cape that was organized by the UCT international orientation committee. Tomorrow we're apparently taking an aptitude test to see if we're at least on the high school level. You'd think being in COLLEGE would be enough of a pre-req, but whatever. It's supposedly really easy.
I'm definitely going to feel less of a inclination to write posts if I consistently get boring comments/no comments from you all, so please encourage me....
even if it's in email/facebook form.
----------------
Now playing: Mariah Carey - Just To Hold You Once Again
via FoxyTunes
We did orientation for CIEE and got cell phones. That's about it.
Now on to today's post!
--
So my luggage is somewhere in the states, definitely not en route to Cape Town, so it looks like I'll be buying everything I need. I got this awesome fleece jacket yesterday at Ackermans (it's like Wal-Mart, only more expensive....) and it keeps me very warm. Yay. I also spent way too much money at a place called Vertigo that had the best staff of any of the clothing places. I went to one first in Rondebosch and didn't buy anything b/c of the expense (they remind me of American Apparel) but the staff helped me get to Cavendish by hailing a minibus for me.
The minibus taxi system is really confusing and foreign if you've never traveled in one before. It's basically a 10-15 seater van, on the smaller side than the ones in the states. There's a driver and an usher type guy who pokes his head out the window while driving to yell at people on the street, takes money, and fits as many people as possible into the tiny vehicle. They're a rather informal type of public transportation, but they get the job done. For R5 (R7 is equivalent to 1 US dollar) I took the minibus to Cavendish (took me a while to actually find it as it's underground), a large mall in the area. While it's better than the Waterfront, there were still lots of expensive shops and I had to pay attention to where I was going because it was three stories and somewhat confusing. I walked in a two story circle at the beginning. But I found a lot of clothes and now I'm much warmer. I got socks at the Shoprite (grocery) down the street. Yay socks.
I have discovered that the problem with the cold here is that I like to sit around on the computer, not moving for hours and consequently losing what body heat I may have had.
Oh, the KFC in Cavendish was interesting b/c it was clean and modern looking. The food was basically the same. There's one down the street from where I'm staying so I am very tempted to go there instead of cooking for myself. Unfortunately it's not safe to walk out alone at night and I haven't made friends here yet.
-
I haven't explained the living situation yet. I'm living in the res, which is short for residential dormitory. It's self-catered, so it's essentially an apartment with four bedrooms and a kitchen. The set up is two UCT (generally South African) students paired with two CIEE (generally American) students. For them it's the second semester and they just had a three week winter vacation. When I got into the apartment I thought I was the first one, but when the second CIEE student (Molly) arrived and we were talking, we realized that there was someone else in the apartment. I had pegged the flat (I'm gonna call it that b/c it's local slang and faster to type :_D) as belonging to guys because of a picture of Angelina Jolie (just her face, not her naked...) and a car on the water heater in the kitchen. But it turns out the girl (Snele...I apologize to her if I'm wrong on this) is just staying in the flat until the end of vacation (they call it vac. Hee). I also met her brother Smiley (not his real name) and his girlfriend Natasha (she's from Sri Lanka). Snele and Smiley are Zimbabwean and so are a lot of other UCT students I've met. It's like a trend.
Anyway, yesterday I spent most of the night (in between chatting online with you guys) hanging out with Snele, Natasha, and another girl named Kuni who lives in another res. They're really cool, politically incorrect and lewd, which made me feel right at home. There's drama to learn and I'm almost glad that I'm enjoying the native (quote-unquote) population more so than the American students. I really don't get along very well with the CIEE kids. I also haven't gone out at all because I get so tired in the early evening. Plus I have no desire to drink. *shrug* Go figure.
Let's see, there's lots more to say, but instead of describing it, I'm gonna point to the right hand side of the screen on the main page where I've added a slideshow of pictures that I took today during the tour around the Cape that was organized by the UCT international orientation committee. Tomorrow we're apparently taking an aptitude test to see if we're at least on the high school level. You'd think being in COLLEGE would be enough of a pre-req, but whatever. It's supposedly really easy.
I'm definitely going to feel less of a inclination to write posts if I consistently get boring comments/no comments from you all, so please encourage me....
even if it's in email/facebook form.
----------------
Now playing: Mariah Carey - Just To Hold You Once Again
via FoxyTunes
I know, I know, just skip to the bottom
Because I don't feel up to backtracking, I'll just give a quick rundown of what's been going on.
---
Day One
Arrive at 5am at CPT. Go through passport and visa checkpoint and on to baggage reclaim. Put my bag down and roll shoulders because they hurt like hell. Bag is far too heavy. Go into bathroom and get confused b/c there's a cord going into the toilet and it doesn't flush. None do. Go to sink and tiny dribble of water comes out. There is no soap. Get SO CONFUSED. Go through a big door that says customs. Don't encounter anyone. Walk into the outer terminal part and look around for a group of young people. Am called over by one. She is white. Am confused. There are four people or so. We talk. Wait for more people to arrive. Wait longer for one girl. Turns out it is the one I met at Frankfurt. We leave the airport. Everyone ???s about my lack of baggage. I tell story. I hope I will not get tired of telling it. (hint: I will)
We get in bus thingie and I meet girl from Oxy. She has twin sister at Scripps. Cool. No wonder she looks familiar. Once more than ten people are in bus, it is v. loud. Oh, has been raining this whole time. Gore-tex was good investment. Can't see out windows because are fogged up and rainy. Comment that it looks just like home cuz there is grass. More comments that we are tired and will crash soon. (hint: is foreshadowing)
We get to hotel and luggage comes off the bus. We go into hotel. Lobby is cold b/c there is no heat and door is open. Fun. We get luggage key and we go to room. I ask program leader Felicity about luggage. She takes down info. We go to shower rooms, which have four beds and a shower. They are not real rooms. But there really is no heat. I freak out a little inside (for good reason). There are showers. I do not care because I have no clothes to change into. Other girls sit on bed and talk. Is somewhat interesting. Everyone brought insane amounts of luggage. Wtf mate. One girl showers. I go buy internet time (at a v. high rate) to email parents. Gmail doesn't work. I am sad and have to use school email. Email takes four minutes and I have six left so I log out. Log out doesn't work and I lose the six more minutes. Stupid hotel.
Someone decides to search for food. As we are about to leave one kid realizes it is raining. Apparently I was the only one aware of this (how old are we now?). They run back to rooms to grab shoes and rain jackets. I facepalm. Two people begin to walk out when we are stopped. Are told we will need to pay for breakfast, and afterwards food will be covered by CIEE. Is barely 8am, so nothing is open at the Waterfront, but we can go to the hotel restaurant (hint: bad idea). We go to restaurant and find that the price of breakfast is R115. Oh hotels...
The food is pretty shitty and there is little variety, but it is all that is available. Food is just like a regular continental breakfast (plus wet scrambled eggs and beef (beef??) sausages). They are playing Mariah Carey as we sit down in the dining room. We can see the mountain and cranes that are doing construction outside the hotel. The weird birds are loud and sound like they're dying. After breakfast, we head back to the hotel. Everyone decides to go to bed. There are six girls and four beds (the boy's room is unimportant). I go in there after charging my computer in the lounge to find all the beds taken. I am not comfortable with waking up anyone or trying to lie down next to someone. However, I am freezing and need to take my mind off it. I lie down on the floor in the colder room (there's no ground space in the other one) and attempt to fall asleep. Is useless. Get up. Walk around in the hotel. At some point, one of the girls wakes up and surrenders her bed as she goes to shower. I quickly hide under the down blanket and promptly fall asleep for some four hours. Everyone in the room sleeps through the orientation time they told us to make, so we are awakened afterwards by another student telling us to collect our money. We head upstairs to collect food money (good for four meals) and hear orientation stuff. Forgot everything they said because I slept in my contacts and spent the entire time blinking. Also received our temporary room key in the hotel. I am in the other building with only a few other students. As we were late, I walk to the building alone and get to my room to find no one there. I hide under the blanket of one of the beds due to the freezing nature of the room and wonder when dinner is. Eventually a girl comes in, having just arrived in Cape Town, and tells me that dinner is soon. She reminds me of Candice's friends because she is blonde, wears a Northface jacket, rainbows, and pearls (I think; my mind may just have added that detail). I am someone depressed because when I use the word "blog" she has no idea what I'm talking about. I mentally facepalm.
Dinner is down at the Waterfront, so we walk a block or two down to the water (no wonder it's cold!) We walk inside and find that it is a mall. Who knew? They have all the usual American chains. There is a KFC. I say something snarky about this not being real study abroad. I don't know this group of people so I just kind of trail along. One of the SolMates (the UCT student orientation leaders) takes a group of about five of us to a sushi restaurant. We sit down. He says he'll return. (hint: It's Ken so he's quote, random, and does not) We introduce ourselves to each other and talk. The sushi is good. I regret not ordering some kind of warm drink. (are you noticing a trend here?) Spicy tuna roll is strange looking but good. V. v. good. We split up the bill, add in tip, pay and leave. We hurry back to the meeting place at the Waterfront. I make snarky comment about all the safari (traditional African touristy shit) stores in this high end mall (there are also fancy shops).
We get back to the hotel and I end up plugging in my computer and typing up the previous blog post without internet. Am feeling internet deprived (but am too cheap to purchase it at the outrageous rates). I think I shower maybe but I can't remember. Another girl comes to the room. She is also unremarkable and boring to me. She shares the other room with the first girl. I don't know their names at all. I fail. I go to bed after setting up a wake up call for the morning and fall asleep completely covered in the down blanket and have a dream about a really creepy looking person and toss and turn until the dream disappears.
I sleep very well.
---
So I can see this narration tapering off, so I'll be sure to have a summary at the end too.
tl;dr Winter in Cape Town is FUCKING COLD
I'll type the next day summary when it's not past midnight.
----------------
Now playing: Scissor Sisters - Laura
via FoxyTunes
---
Day One
Arrive at 5am at CPT. Go through passport and visa checkpoint and on to baggage reclaim. Put my bag down and roll shoulders because they hurt like hell. Bag is far too heavy. Go into bathroom and get confused b/c there's a cord going into the toilet and it doesn't flush. None do. Go to sink and tiny dribble of water comes out. There is no soap. Get SO CONFUSED. Go through a big door that says customs. Don't encounter anyone. Walk into the outer terminal part and look around for a group of young people. Am called over by one. She is white. Am confused. There are four people or so. We talk. Wait for more people to arrive. Wait longer for one girl. Turns out it is the one I met at Frankfurt. We leave the airport. Everyone ???s about my lack of baggage. I tell story. I hope I will not get tired of telling it. (hint: I will)
We get in bus thingie and I meet girl from Oxy. She has twin sister at Scripps. Cool. No wonder she looks familiar. Once more than ten people are in bus, it is v. loud. Oh, has been raining this whole time. Gore-tex was good investment. Can't see out windows because are fogged up and rainy. Comment that it looks just like home cuz there is grass. More comments that we are tired and will crash soon. (hint: is foreshadowing)
We get to hotel and luggage comes off the bus. We go into hotel. Lobby is cold b/c there is no heat and door is open. Fun. We get luggage key and we go to room. I ask program leader Felicity about luggage. She takes down info. We go to shower rooms, which have four beds and a shower. They are not real rooms. But there really is no heat. I freak out a little inside (for good reason). There are showers. I do not care because I have no clothes to change into. Other girls sit on bed and talk. Is somewhat interesting. Everyone brought insane amounts of luggage. Wtf mate. One girl showers. I go buy internet time (at a v. high rate) to email parents. Gmail doesn't work. I am sad and have to use school email. Email takes four minutes and I have six left so I log out. Log out doesn't work and I lose the six more minutes. Stupid hotel.
Someone decides to search for food. As we are about to leave one kid realizes it is raining. Apparently I was the only one aware of this (how old are we now?). They run back to rooms to grab shoes and rain jackets. I facepalm. Two people begin to walk out when we are stopped. Are told we will need to pay for breakfast, and afterwards food will be covered by CIEE. Is barely 8am, so nothing is open at the Waterfront, but we can go to the hotel restaurant (hint: bad idea). We go to restaurant and find that the price of breakfast is R115. Oh hotels...
The food is pretty shitty and there is little variety, but it is all that is available. Food is just like a regular continental breakfast (plus wet scrambled eggs and beef (beef??) sausages). They are playing Mariah Carey as we sit down in the dining room. We can see the mountain and cranes that are doing construction outside the hotel. The weird birds are loud and sound like they're dying. After breakfast, we head back to the hotel. Everyone decides to go to bed. There are six girls and four beds (the boy's room is unimportant). I go in there after charging my computer in the lounge to find all the beds taken. I am not comfortable with waking up anyone or trying to lie down next to someone. However, I am freezing and need to take my mind off it. I lie down on the floor in the colder room (there's no ground space in the other one) and attempt to fall asleep. Is useless. Get up. Walk around in the hotel. At some point, one of the girls wakes up and surrenders her bed as she goes to shower. I quickly hide under the down blanket and promptly fall asleep for some four hours. Everyone in the room sleeps through the orientation time they told us to make, so we are awakened afterwards by another student telling us to collect our money. We head upstairs to collect food money (good for four meals) and hear orientation stuff. Forgot everything they said because I slept in my contacts and spent the entire time blinking. Also received our temporary room key in the hotel. I am in the other building with only a few other students. As we were late, I walk to the building alone and get to my room to find no one there. I hide under the blanket of one of the beds due to the freezing nature of the room and wonder when dinner is. Eventually a girl comes in, having just arrived in Cape Town, and tells me that dinner is soon. She reminds me of Candice's friends because she is blonde, wears a Northface jacket, rainbows, and pearls (I think; my mind may just have added that detail). I am someone depressed because when I use the word "blog" she has no idea what I'm talking about. I mentally facepalm.
Dinner is down at the Waterfront, so we walk a block or two down to the water (no wonder it's cold!) We walk inside and find that it is a mall. Who knew? They have all the usual American chains. There is a KFC. I say something snarky about this not being real study abroad. I don't know this group of people so I just kind of trail along. One of the SolMates (the UCT student orientation leaders) takes a group of about five of us to a sushi restaurant. We sit down. He says he'll return. (hint: It's Ken so he's quote, random, and does not) We introduce ourselves to each other and talk. The sushi is good. I regret not ordering some kind of warm drink. (are you noticing a trend here?) Spicy tuna roll is strange looking but good. V. v. good. We split up the bill, add in tip, pay and leave. We hurry back to the meeting place at the Waterfront. I make snarky comment about all the safari (traditional African touristy shit) stores in this high end mall (there are also fancy shops).
We get back to the hotel and I end up plugging in my computer and typing up the previous blog post without internet. Am feeling internet deprived (but am too cheap to purchase it at the outrageous rates). I think I shower maybe but I can't remember. Another girl comes to the room. She is also unremarkable and boring to me. She shares the other room with the first girl. I don't know their names at all. I fail. I go to bed after setting up a wake up call for the morning and fall asleep completely covered in the down blanket and have a dream about a really creepy looking person and toss and turn until the dream disappears.
I sleep very well.
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So I can see this narration tapering off, so I'll be sure to have a summary at the end too.
tl;dr Winter in Cape Town is FUCKING COLD
I'll type the next day summary when it's not past midnight.
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Now playing: Scissor Sisters - Laura
via FoxyTunes
13.7.08
Things I have learned over the past few days
From the Plane
1) It takes about a half an hour to read a magazine.
2) Never trust airlines to cooperate when it comes to luggage.
3) It's easy to get overwhelmed when everything goes wrong.
4) A sleep schedule of no more than three hours at a time does not necessarily induce insanity....as far as I can tell.
5) My hair does not take well to combs.
6) It's a good idea to go to the bathroom prior to getting on the plane.
7) Monitors showing what the ground looks like outside the plane are AWESOME.
8) Airline food sucks ass.
9) While it's fun to talk to your neighbor on flights, I think I prefer refusing to acknowledge their existence.
10) They give free whiskey sample shots in airport liquor stores.
11) The Other Boleyn Girl is a shitty movie despite all it has going for it.
12) Zyrtec-D easy open tabs are NOT easy open.
13) A broken entertainment system on an eleven hour flight is not necessarily the end of the world.
14) The credit card swipey thing on public phones hates me. In every airport.
15) Airline blankets are surprisingly warm.
Upon Arrival
16) It's winter in Cape Town.
17) In the dark it looks like any other place with grass and trees.
18) Hotel restaurants price gouge.
19) I am considerate to the point of hypothermia.
20) Sleeping in the sun is NICE.
21) Travel converters get very very very hot.
22) Boys are more interesting than girls.
23) I really wish I had succeeded in packing the alarm clock.
24) The Rand is really pretty.
25) Wearing three different shades of blue is three times as depressing as wearing only one.
26) The Western Cape is having a severe water crisis.
27) Hand washing clothes requires soap in order to become properly clean.
28) R50 is equal to about $7.
29) There are weird birds here.
30) Buildings tend not to employ the use of heat.
Points for whoever can correctly guess my first meal here.
The person with the most points by the time I leave will get
Tomorrow is the first day of orientation and I have no idea what to expect. Hopefully my luggage. Unlikely though.
It's freezing here. I have no warm clothes. Kill me now.
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Now playing: Tracie Thoms / Jesse L. Martin / Cast Of Rent - I'll Cover You (Reprise)
via FoxyTunes
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