UCT, Hiking and figuring out where we are

These past few days have been so draining! On Thursday, I woke up early and went with some people to get pre-approved for enrollment at the university. They just had to make sure all of our travel and financial information was legitimate in order to actually take class. Thursday was a pretty mellow day because we were all so tired from the previous few days. In the evening was the "freshers" braai up on the campus rugby fields. We got a bunch of free food, drinks and live music! Thursday night consisted of watching The Hangover and making burritos with people.

Me and Zakumi, the World Cup 2010 Mascot:


Yesterday, Friday, started with a three-hour line waiting to register for classes. I really miss student center after that. The line was standing in the sun for about two hours and then sitting to talk to a counselor to make sure the classes weren’t conflicting with each other. As of right now, I am registered for General Ecology, a class about Genocide in Africa, and African Music. I am debating whether to drop African Music and enroll into Xhosa level 1. I want to take Xhosa, but don’t want to be swamped with work all the time. I am pretty sure I will end up taking it though. Once people were done with registration (around 12:30pm) our landlord took us to Kalk Bay down the east side of the point to go hiking and caving. He explained the trip as a “moderate” hike but now none of us trust him in his judgment of adventure. The hike was about 45 minutes up into Echo Valley and into the Kalk Bay mountains where we were met with the entrance to Boomslang Cave. The climb up to the cave was amazingly gorgeous in the least but the entrance to the cave was not nearly as inviting as the hike. The 10-meter climb on our stomachs without flashlights was something out of a horror movie. Once inside the main chamber with some lit candles and flashlights, I was taken aback by the mysteriousness of the cave. Since there were so many of us, there was nothing to be afraid of. The chamber opened upwards the further we walked in almost higher than you could see with the flashlights. After about twenty minutes of winding our way around from corridor to corridor, we could see the light at the end of the tunnel and we made our way out. I have seen many places this trip that I have never seen or thought existed before coming here to Cape Town. All of them more beautiful than the last but the view we were given after emerging from Boomslang Cave, was one of chills and butterflies. Rocks on both sides and the peninsula and endless sea in front made for one hell of a picture. Even my pictures though, cannot express the depth and vastness of the cave exit, and in fact, the entire Cape Peninsula I have seen thus far.

Echo Valley:


Sarah, Anthony, Me and Jess before Boomslang:


In the Boomslang!


Boomslang Cave:


The hike downwards was something a little less fun though. We ended up losing the trail and bushwhacking our way to the town below, but nonetheless, we emerged (scathed, unfortunately) and found a nice Cuban mojito restaurant before the train came to take us back to Observatory. After cooking a delicious stir-fry, the night ended quickly as we were so tired. Today has been much more relaxing than the “moderate” hike though. We took the train again down the east coast to Muizenburg beach and got our sun and surf on. Unfortunately there were too many shark horns and flags going off, we couldn’t surf much. On the train ride back, a few of us talked to a couple little kids and they were adorable. They were very mesmerized with my new Jabulani World Cup Replica soccerball and wanted me to buy them three for them, ha. They also like Erin’s tattoo of stars on here leg. It is always interesting to see how children here react to Americans. They are just so curious and friendly, it is so difficult to not just give them all of your money and belongings. This is why I am excited for SHAWCO to start so I can actually feel like I am doing something to help the children and young-adults with some sustainable information instead of a few rand thrown there way.

Tonight some friends of mine are hosting a BYOBraai at their place. Should be fun to cook outside and relax. Tomorrow I want to make my way into Cape Town city center and explore, but we will see how much energy I have after getting super sun burnt at the beach. I have so much more to say but have to get going! I wish all of you could come see this place for yourselves. If you get the chance, please don’t pass it up.

Content, I suppose:


Much love.

Orientation

Orientation. The real orientation. Started our usual informational lectures on Monday with some safety information for staying smart around the neighborhood and the university. Also had an HIV/AIDS session. I wasn’t too excited for the AIDS portion because I expected the usual lecture series loaded with statistics and preventative tips. It actually was given by a campus group called Aces and turned out to be quite entertaining. As you can imagine, talking about sex and coming up with every type of sexually oriented fluid can be extremely hilarious in a large lecture hall. They made it a lot of fun with their games and visual demonstrations for prevention…

African drumming session:


Learned a lot more about the UCT system and how classes work. I had many questions about how registering for classes went. Got many of them answered, but still feel completely lost with their offline, manual system. I never thought I would appreciate student center and how easy it really is! After the lectures we had a chance to sign up for some activities and programs associated with the university. I signed up for a couple trips going on next week with some friends including shark cage diving and a bicycle wine tour outside of Cape Town. I really wish there was something exciting to do here… I also registered for SHAWCO, an organization devoted to academic advancement in poorer areas of Cape Town. They have specific areas where you can volunteer and I plan on doing the “Geography and Environmental Awareness” section (my two majors in a nutshell) and “Sports,” specifically Soccer. I am really excited to do all of this and see the other part of Cape Town that never seems to make it’s way into the spotlight of the city.

Yesterday was our roommate Dan’s birthday, so Monday night we went to a bar/club called the Tin Roof and needless to say, had a fantastic time. I really enjoy being around the people here in the house, and around the city. There are some really interesting characters around here. Yesterday was our second day of the real, non-beautiful-tour orientation. We had more talks about academics and class, but also had to take a standardized English comprehension test. The PTEEP as it is called, was the most obnoxiously long exam I have ever taken. After an hour and a half of explaining how to use the scantron bubble sheet and how long each section was, we finally began the 3-hour examination. Since the test is made for comprehension of the English language, it was not too difficult for all of us native speakers.

Today we had, again, more lectures in the morning. We only had about two hours of that then were able to take a bus to the one of the SHAWCO stations located neighborhoods. The dichotomy of monetary wealth on campus and in the city compared to the extensive surrounding suburbs is unreal. I remember seeing poor districts in Costa Rica and being quite surprised at how extensive they were, but this was something else. At times you couldn’t see anything but shack-housing except for the surrounding mountains, which are quite far from Cape Town as you move eastwards. I also confirmed my participation in two trips next week with 2WayTravel, a student travel/excursion company located on campus. Next Wednesday I will be waking up bright and early to dive with Jaws. I am shark diving off the coast! Of course I will be in a cage mom, don’t worry. Then Thursday will consist of an all day bicycle route through the surrounding wine country to do some wine tasting at local vineyards. I cannot wait for this!

Everyone is planning on taking it easy tonight. The past couple nights have been amazing, but have really taken a toll on my sleeping patterns with the complete lack of sleep. We are all just so excited about our situation here! Last night we took taxis to an area called Claremont to a bar/club called Tiger Tiger. Everyone was given wristbands that gave us free entry so you couldn’t really deny some Tiger Tiger! Some people are coming over and were making a stir-fry dinner. It should be nice to finally start cooking and not going out to eat for every meal. I am exhausted right now from a long morning of walking around campus. I am sitting in the living room eating slices of a mango I bought for R4 (4 rand or about 40c). The produce here is amazingly inexpensive!

Some housemates before TigerTiger:


Angle, Sarah and Tongs at TigerTiger


Here are a few more photos from the past couple days and some more from the cape tour:




Cheers brus (bros, but commonly used and not connected to the Jersey Shore boyz).

The Cape of Good Hope Tour

Yesterday we moved into our house on 197 Lower Main Road in the Observatory neighborhood. There are 17 students from the US living here, so you can imagine it is quite relaxing. I am in room number 3, which I thought would be near the front of the building where there is a lot of foot traffic, but it happens to be in the back of the building on the third floor. Two walls have windows with an amazing view of Table Mountain. It lets in a lot of sun and gets really warm in the early evening, but once the sun goes down the room cools down a bit. The Observatory neighborhood is quite “happening” with many bars, shops, and restaurants only about two blocks away from our house. Lower Main road seems to be the big nightlife area in the area so you can imagine the amount of people walking around the entrance of our house.

197 Lower Main Road's front entrance:


My room!


The mood in South Africa, and Africa as it seems, has been very relaxing. “Africa Time” is much more open-ended than schedules in the US. Ten minutes in the US really means 30 to 45 minutes here. Being in Cape Town though, the pace quickens compared to other parts of the country but still seems very chill compared to anything back in the states. I enjoy the calm state of mind that fills the city and surrounding areas. I am personally, I think, very similar to the people here in this respect. What happens… happens; and when it happens, it does. As the locals say, “This Is Africa” (TIA).

This entire day has been devoted to a tour around the Cape Peninsula, or should I say, “the most fantastic piece of earth my eyes have every laid sight upon.” All of us were packed into six coaches each with a tour guide describing the surrounding area. The tour began in the town as we passed the political house of parliament and other historical buildings associated with the government before, during, and post apartheid. Then our route took us to Green point to see the remarkable Green Point Stadium in construction for the 2010 World Cup. I have to admit, I was getting a little “giddy” at this point. But that was only the beginning. We toured down the west coast of the peninsula and saw some of the world’s most beautiful beaches with perfect crashing waves and enormous rock structures jutting out into the sea. We weaved our way along the coastal mountains, making the coastal route in California seem like a Poodle to the Great Dane we were cruising on. We stopped in a poorer district called Ocean View and were treated to a welcoming braai (barbeque) by the local community center. Again, the people here are so generous even as they live much less materialistic lives than we do in the states. Piles and piles of food covered tables. As we feasted, we were treated to a show consisting of singers and hip-hop dancers from Ocean View, who were lockin’ and popin’ like there was no tomorrow.

Exile Penguin staring into the rocks:


Little brus at Ocean View district:


We departed Ocean View and made our way to Simon’s Town and saw the famous penguins of South Africa! Not much to say about them, other than the fact that there were penguins in 80-degree weather. We then traveled to the Cape of Good Hope and hiked in the nature reserve to the lighthouse that ships use for navigating the Western Cape. We also stood at the Southwestern most point of Africa. The cliffs overhanging the sea were very similar to those of the Northern Highlands of Europe in Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia. After about an hour and a half of hiking the beautiful trails that led up and down the mountains, we headed back up the eastern coast of the peninsula and got back to UCT and Obs (Observatory neighborhood where I live) around 6:30pm.

Cape Point Lighthouse:


A view of the Cape of Good Hope and its beach:


We’re expecting rain tomorrow since a cold front is moving in from the north and south. This shouldn’t be a problem since we will be inside and doing the usual orientation stuff. This will help me fight the sun burn I have developed over the past three days. I found a lovely Thai/sushi place where you can get a gigantic amount of pad Thai for only 28 rand (4 USD). The sun is slowly falling behind the mountain right now, but it won’t be dark until 9:00pm or so. Cape Town continues to amaze me I suppose ☺

Ciao for now,
Sam

Arrival in a beautiful city

Posting Location: Wah Wah Internet Café
Friends,

Made it to Cape Town last night around 11:30! After 20 hours of sitting and watching movies on the airplanes, we are finally here. Unfortunately we flew in at nighttime so I couldn’t see much of the landscape around the area, but it was daytime as we flew south from Amsterdam. The land that we covered from the lowlands of the Netherlands all the way to the southern tip of Africa were some of the most diverse I have seen in my life. The Swiss Alps were beautiful, making me realize why Swiss cartographers are so good at their profession (wow I am cool). Then we hit the magnificent blue Mediterranean. Finally, the north shore of Africa came into view, the first time I have ever seen the continent. Even seeing this unrecognizable landscape made my heart start pounding. The continent I have heard and read so much about, and seen countless times on a map, was now directly below my feet. The Sahara desert was vast as you can imagine. It only took about 4 hours, going 600 miles per hour to fly across, nothing big. You couldn’t tell where the land ended and the sky began because of the heat radiating back off the sand. It was as I imagined; dry, sandy, and filled with mirages of beautiful women drinking from water holes.

We landed around 11pm in Cape Town and waited in line for customs, got our bags, and found the orientation leaders who were wearing bright green shirts. The leaders are all students at the University of Cape Town and seem very nice. We got to the dorms and put our bags up in our rooms and of course had too much energy to just go to sleep right then and there; which I regret this morning as I type this. A couple of the leaders took us on a walk to a small area where there is food and bars. Seeing as it was already one in the morning, a group of 15 or 20 white students wandering around was probably the most noticeable thing to we could have done as we drew the attention of many people walking back to their houses, but nonetheless we were enjoying the humid, 70-degree weather of Cape Town. Jealous?

We walked around this morning to find a pharmacy to get necessary sun block for the beach. Since there is nothing to do today (22nd), a couple of leaders and us are taking taxis to the beach! I got my cell phone for the local area and it seems to be pretty reasonable for the entire time I am here… about 200 USD for the entire 6 months! All incoming calls from people to my phone are free for me. Later before noon I took my first mini-bus ride to Camps Bay beach on the other side of Table Mountain with a lot of people. The combination of the Atlantic Ocean and Table Mountain containing the beach was unbelievable. Just being here for a day makes me wonder why any of us go to school in freezing Wisconsin. This city is everything a person can imagine, and more. The kindness of the local people, the scenic views from literally everywhere, and the beautiful mountains surrounding the entire area make this place truly amazing. Also took a campus tour after the beach and went up to the Rhodes memorial, which is dedicated to Cecil Rhodes, the largest figure involved with the creation of the University of Cape Town.

Waves crashing at Camps Bay with Table Mountain and the 12 apostles behind:

The view from Rhodes memorial:

Rhodes memorial again:


One of the most surprising things to me so far has to be the diversity of the Cape Town area. I went into this thinking that the University area was going to be mostly white, since I was told that, but there seems to be mostly Black Africans. I really enjoy being around so many interesting people. So far, even though it’s my first day, I am thoroughly content with my decision to study here. Tomorrow we move into our houses, which will be awesome, but first I believe the orientation leaders are showing us what an evening in the city center of Cape Town is all about!

Cheers, my friends

One more week

The countdown began yesterday (Wednesday) for my last week of being in the United States. I cannot believe that my flight is next week! Over break, I wish I could say I have been working on getting ready for the trip by packing my bags and getting all of my papers together.. but I have not really been doing that too much. Just spending time with family and friends before I don't see them for so long.

Reading the handbook has been interesting. I was at first feeling overwhelmed with all of the information coming at me, but now have realized that a lot of the things that IAP says are really to just make us feel comfortable with where we are going and to make sure we know that we aren't going to some city in an African country without someone being on the other side to receive us. Orientation will be a nice way to collect necessary information that will help us around the university and the city itself. My orientation starts on January 24th right in the morning. On the 23rd I move into my house with 16 other people and meet my landlord who is going to bring us on a small tour of the cape! (And also take our money for living in the house). Our orientation also starts with a tour of the city and the cape again. We are also registering for classes and taking a written placement exam, which shouldn't be too bad.. but definitely won't be fun.

I applied for world cup tickets a while ago with my friend Don who is also going on the trip! I am hopefully seeing England vs. Algeria on the opening day of the world cup and then France vs. Uruguay on June 18th! The drawing for the tickets is on February 1st so I will let you all know if I will be a true hooligan at the games!

I have plenty more to do before I leave but will be ready come wednesday next week. I am trying to figure out how Skype will work down in Cape Town. I will have access to internet in my house and it is supposed to be relatively fast. The only problem is that internet is REALLY expensive. You have to pay mgb/second, which can get pretty pricey when video chatting and stuff. I will still want to video chat with people every once-in-a-while! I am excited to have this blog so you can see what I am up to and see some of the pictures I put up!

That's all for now folks