Friday, March 26, 2010

Soweto and Kruger..best vacation ever!






What an incredible “spring” break! They call it vac here which is short for vacation since it’s actually fall right now. We began very early Saturday morning flying up to Joburg. While in Joburg we stayed at Lebo’s backpackers in Soweto which is the largest township in South Africa and the former home of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. It is called Soweto because it is the SOuth WEst TOwnship and is about 30 minutes from downtown Joburg. The first day we went on a four hour bike tour around Soweto which was a great experience. It was much more enjoyable than merely riding a bus around looking at the different historical sites. Everybody would laugh when they saw a line of about 40 people riding through on bikes! When we got back to Lebo’s there were kids everywhere waiting to play with us which was a lot of fun and tiring! They constantly wanted to be held and ride on your shoulders and take pictures. I was so excited because they had a tv at Lebo’s that showed march madness so I was able to watch a few games! The next day we went on a tour of Joburg which was fun but I am very glad I’m living in CT! The city seemed very dirty and old and not as pretty as CT. We stopped at a traditional medicine market which was interesting and peculiar! We weren’t allowed to take pictures and none of the shop owners seemed very happy to see us walking around. It was full of plants, roots, herbs, bottles of STRANGE looking concoctions, animal bones and who knows what else. This stuff was everywhere and they said witch doctors and traditional healers come here to buy ingredients for their potions! I didn’t know the practice of traditional healing was still common enough to warrant a big market in the middle of Joburg, but apparently it is. From there we went to eat lunch at the top of the tallest building in Joburg which is 50 stories high. After lunch we went to the Apartheid museum which was a great experience. They had a large Nelson Mandela display with the history of his life and accomplishments which was really neat to read. After visiting several museums and historic sites, I have come to appreciate those same types of places in the States. The quality of the museums in the States is incredible and the clarity of the information presented is much better than in SA. However, after saying that, the Apartheid museum was very informative and I am glad I was able to visit and learn more about the atrocities during apartheid.
Now it was on to Nelspruit and the safari in Kruger! This was an absolutely amazing and incredible experience. We stayed at Old Vic backpackers which was a lot of fun. The owner is called Crazy Dave which is a very appropriate name! He asked me where I went to school so I told him Auburn in Alabama but I’m from Tennessee. From then on he called me Miss Alabama 2008 and every time he said it he would change the year so sometimes it was 2005, 1992 and I got older each time! He would literally call me that every time he saw me! One of the safari guides actually asked if that was true and I just died laughing and said Crazy Dave completely made that up!
For the safari we rode in open air safari trucks that held 10 people and my group had the best guide named Toby! He was awesome and so knowledgeable about all the animals and plants. He taught us how to survive in the bush using the different plants and berries! We were able to see the Big Five (leopards, lions, african buffalo, rhinos and elephants)! We went into Kruger two days and had to wake up at 3:45 in the morning in order to get to the park at sunrise! It was totally worth getting up that early! The first day we didn’t see any lions or leopards, but we saw a ton of elephants, rhinos, zebras, impala, buffalo, giraffes, monkeys, and lots of birds and other animals. The animals got so close to the truck it was unbelievable. They weren’t scared at all! We drove around the park until around 4 and then it was about an hour drive back to Nelspruit where we were staying at Old Vic. The second day was amazing! Within five minutes of entering the park we found lions just walking and sitting along the road! You aren’t supposed to lean outside of the cars or trucks because that is when the animals get scared if they see something moving and if a person breaks the shape of the car or truck. Anybody is allowed to drive their own car into the park and some of those people are not too smart! This one couple was really close to the lion and the lady leaned out the window to take a picture and the lion walked right up to the car within inches and looked like it would eat that lady! Toby said if she hadn’t rolled up her window in time the lion would have definitely put his head in the window to sniff around!! The lady looked terrified when she drove by! We followed a lion walking up the road for a while just watching him! He was roaring the whole time which was awesome to hear. I was so intrigued I could have followed him for hours! After following the lions for awhile we set off to find a leopard which is very rare to see, but we were determined to find one! We had been driving around for an hour or so without seeing one and we were a little bummed because we had to start heading to lunch, but on the way we found one! We passed a dirt road and one of the guys said he saw something that looked like a big cat so we backed up and turned down this road we weren’t supposed to enter and sure enough there was a huge leopard sitting by a tree! I was freaking out but had to sit really still and be quiet! We got some amazing pictures before he started walking off into the woods. Toby said that was one of the best views of a leopard he’s seen in the wild! We were bragging to everybody at lunch about our spot! After lunch our goal was to find all the Big Five that afternoon. We started by going to see another leopard that had been sitting in a tree all day. It was nothing compared to how close we were to the first leopard. Then we saw some more elephants, buffalo, rhinos, giraffes, zebras and a lot of neat birds. We saw four out of the Big Five within an hour which is insane! We were still looking for more lions but never found any in the afternoon. After lunch all the other groups starting heading back home and left the park at about 2:30. We didn’t leave the park until 5:30! Toby was having so much fun with us he said we didn’t have to follow the schedule so we got to stay until the park was closing! I am so thankful I was able to have such a great experience in Kruger and I wish everybody could go on a safari with Toby! I could have stayed for five more days! This was definitely the best “Spring” break I have ever had or could have imagined!

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Robben Island and Table Mountain




I’m a little late in putting up pictures from my trip to Robben Island and camping trip on Table Mountain, but better late than never! Robben Island was a very interesting experience. We had to take about a 45 minute boat ride out to the island with quite an exciting surprise on the way; we got to see a whale! It’s not whale season so I think this whale was a little confused but it was amazing to see how big it was! When we got to the island we all hopped on a big tour bus with a hysterical guide. At first the girl next to me asked if he was drunk because he was so dramatic with his stories and a little bit strange! It turns out that he is the best guide on the island and gives tours to all the dignitaries and famous people who come to visit. The tour was fairly quick and we stayed in the bus while it drove around the island. I couldn’t really get the feel of how the island was when it was used as a prison. It was eerie how all the wardens’ houses were still there and it looked like the houses were occupied but I never saw any people. Towards the end of the tour we got out at the actual prison. Our guide for this part was an old prisoner on Robben Island. He was put in prison for burning down a government building during apartheid. I couldn’t believe that someone who used to be a prisoner would now be giving tours. We also got to see Mandela’s prison cell which was very small. I still can’t fathom that Mandela was in prison for 27 years and a few years after being released, became president of the country!

Wow hiking and camping on Table Mountain was an amazing and challenging experience! I went with five other people and we had a great time. We started out by hiking up Skeleton Gorge which was extremely challenging! The guys had to carry mine and Elizabeth’s backpacks or we wouldn’t have made it up the mountain. The guys kept making me laugh which was not good because I was already out of breath from trying to keep up, so I stopped quite often to catch my breath! I realized how out of shape I am right now! When we got to the top of that part of the mountain there were several water reservoirs which were really neat. It was like a whole different world once you were at the top. There was sand all around the water and it was so pretty and peaceful. We continued hiking for about another hour and a half trying to figure out where we were going to sleep for the night. It was getting close to sundown so we were crunched for time. We ended up hiking to the Apostles and camping out on the edge of the mountain. The sunset was breathtaking seeing it from the top of the mountain and looking over the ocean. We couldn’t see the lights from downtown Cape Town which was a little disappointing but we were able to see the lights from the Camp’s Bay area. The area where we slept was pretty far off the path! The guys wanted to sleep on the edge of the mountain so we had to climb across all these rocks to get to a good place. After dinner we decided to start a camp fire down in a crevice between the big rocks. Elizabeth and I slept in the crevice while the guys slept out on the cliffs literally about to roll off the mountain! In the morning I found out something that really creeped me out! That night, before the Elizabeth and I went down to the campfire, the guys saw this huge spider that they said was as big as a crab! They killed it right next to where we slept! I’m glad they didn’t tell us until the next morning because I would have been thinking about that spider the entire night! In the morning it started getting really foggy and cloudy. It was awesome seeing the clouds moving towards the mountain. We decided to hike from the Apostles to the top of Table Mountain and the cable car station. I have to admit I was getting really tired! The hike was about another two hours uphill in the cold rain! I decided I was glad I wasn’t able to see anything around me because the trail was literally on the side of the mountain which would have scared me. We finally reached the top and got some food to eat. We tried to act dramatic and whenever we passed people walking around we would make comments about how we hadn’t had food for two days and had been up here for several nights. I don’t think anybody believed us! The hike down almost killed me! It was straight down and just weaved back and forth the entire way. I was really tense because I was afraid to slip and fall on the wet rocks but luckily none of us fell! It took almost two hours of non-stop hiking before we reached the bottom. We were able to hitch hike a ride with a nice couple down to the center of town to catch a mini-bus back home. Everybody was looking at us very strangely because we were soaking wet even though it was sunny down in Cape Town. This was a wonderful trip and a great display of God’s beautiful creation!
The pictures are of Devil’s Peak with Robben Island in the background, the ex-prisoner from Robben Island, and a cliff overlooking Camp’s Bay!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Langa




Life has become very busy in CT with school in full swing. This past weekend we did a homestay in the Langa township which was quite an experience! Another IES student, Denise, and I were together with our family. My family had two parents Sapho and Phmla, a 21 year old girl Fika, 9 year old boy Lizo, and 6 year old girl Zonke. We got to the house around dinnertime on Friday night. Fika was at work until late that night so we didn’t meet her until Saturday. The two kids were friendly and we played play station with them for awhile. Phmla was in the kitchen cooking with her best friend who was over at the house. The parents left and said they would be back in a few minutes. The concept of a few minutes was more like several hours! They served us a lot of food and meat and it was similar to what we eat in the States. Lizo saved me the whole weekend because I would give him all the meat I couldn’t eat from my plate and he loved it! I was a little worried before the weekend because I thought they would be serving us traditional Xhosa food which for some reason I haven’t gotten used to. I really enjoyed Ugandan and Ethiopian food, but the Xhosa food isn’t my favorite! Some of the IES students ate some scary things such as sheep intestines and African salad which uses sour milk and some kind of grainy substance. I was very fortunate in the food department! Saturday was a very interesting day! We woke up in the morning and asked the family what the plan was for the day…well there wasn’t a plan! Lizo had left earlier to go play cricket and Zonke ate breakfast with us before she went and played with her friends for several hours. Sapho wasn’t at the house that morning and Phmla said she was just running to the store for a few minutes but those minutes turned into about 4 hours! Fika was at the house but was cleaning and wouldn’t let us help her do anything! We kept offering to help but she insisted she didn’t need help so we sat on the couch while she was cleaning around us. We asked her if we could go walk around outside and she looked at us like we were crazy and said that would not be safe so we continued to sit on the couch! She later said she was just going around the corner but she was gone for quite awhile so we were at the house by ourselves a lot that morning! Then around 2 Phmla came back and we ate lunch then left to go to Canal Walk. Canal Walk is the most amazing mall I have ever seen. It is massive and incredibly nice. Sapho dropped Phmla, the two kids, me and Denise off at the mall because Phmla needed to return some shoes. Well, this was quite an ordeal! They wouldn’t take the shoes back so she made a really big scene which was embarrassing! The kids were running around everywhere and people were staring at us. I was very glad when we left that store! We walked around for awhile and then ate some pizza and ice cream. By this time it was 6:00 and Phmla told us we would be at the mall until 9:00 because that is when Fika got off work and we needed to give her a ride home. We about died when she said this because that meant six hours in the mall! The kids wanted to play in the big arcade so they kept begging us for money which got old after a few minutes! While they were playing, Denise and I walked around the mall and tried to figure out how to spend three more hours so we went to the bookstore and looked at magazines! About 8:45 Phmla called us to meet back up and leave and told us Fika didn’t actually need a ride home anymore! We ended up waiting until about 9:45 before Sapho got there to pick us up. The father’s relationship with his family was very interesting. He had been working in Joburg since the beginning of January and had just arrived back on Thursday and was leaving again on Sunday until the end of March. Even though he was only home for a few days he was never with the family. Not once did they do anything as a family and he was never at the house. Sunday was a fun day! We went with the kids to mass at the Catholic church which was a good experience. When we got back Lizo let us play with him and his friends which was a lot of fun. We rode their razor scooters on the sidewalk and I had a lot of people laughing at me as they walked by! We played street soccer and I loved it. It was really interesting to see the different rules they had invented in order to help prevent any arguing or fighting. We ended up in a tie and I scored a goal! Later we had handstand contests in the drive way which was a lot of fun. A little boy was walking on the sidewalk and he wanted to come do a handstand so his dad brought him over and I helped him!
Overall the weekend was a wonderful experience and a good opportunity to see how people from another culture live. There were a few differences that really stood out to me. The first is time...there is no concept of being on time. We were about 45 minutes late to church and a few minutes always turned into several hours. To an extent this is true in all of CT, but was even more so in Langa. Also there was no sense of personal property or space. Denise and I stayed in the little kids room and they would constantly walk into the room and get in the beds and go through our bags. They found where Denise kept her camera so they would always come get it out of her bag. The family was very nice to us but we never felt welcome or that they wanted to get to know us. We were never able to really have a conversation with the parents or Fika which was a little disappointing, but I’m really glad I was able to have this experience!
This past Monday was my birthday which was very fun! A big group of us ate dinner at a place called banana jam. They surprised me with a pecan pie with candles which was really sweet. After dinner a bunch of people came over to our house for a party which was a lot of fun. We played spoons for hours and it got really intense with guys wrestling each other for spoons. I felt very loved on my birthday and I’m really grateful for such great friends here.
The pictures are of me and the neighbor doing handstands in Langa, two of my housemates Sasha and Elizabeth at my birthday dinner and me with my wonderful pecan pie!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

We Need a Capetonian!


I’m starting to settle into a routine here in CT. I have early mornings everyday which means naptime in the afternoons! Classes are going well but I’m still not in the school mode. I’m not a big fan of having each class every day because that requires reading every night which I haven’t quite gotten used to! My Econ class is going to be a challenge. The teacher knows my name which in this case is NOT a good thing! The teacher is kind of spastic and asks questions all the time in class and calls on the few people whose names she knows. There are about 40 people in the class and she knows like 8 names so those few people get called on quite often. I have two strikes in that class already! Before class started yesterday she was walking around the room talking to people and she came walking up to me and opened my book and goes what is the main point of the article and it took me by surprise so I was dumb and answered I’m not quite sure what the authors main point was. She laughed and started walking off and then turned around and goes you’re not a complete idiot because the main point is hard to find. Ya, great way to start off the year and then she asked me what my name was. So today she asked me this question in the middle of class and I tried to answer it but obviously it wasn’t the correct answer so she laughed and goes we need a Capetonian to help out Audrey. My face turned bright red of course! My other teachers are much nicer! I am loving African dance even though I’m sure I look pretty funny trying to dance! We have an awesome teacher who is a lot of fun and there are two guys that play the drums for our class. I was extremely sore after the first two classes and I have it again tonight. Ang, I have more respect for you after these classes! It is kind of funny to watch these two girls who are trained in classical ballet because they are so stiff trying to do the moves and the teacher laughed at them!
One thing that is very funny to me is that birds fly into the buildings and classrooms all the time! It is completely normal for these big ugly birds to just be flying around during a class. All the windows are open so they just fly right in. I was attacked by a bird three different times walking home from class last week in the same spot! He would come flying from a tree and make this screeching noise and hit me in the head as it flew by. I screamed one time and this homeless guy named Mike was sitting there and started laughing at me. The street that my house is on is where all the homeless people sleep and stay during the day. Every time I walk home somebody comes walking up asking for money. We have become friends with one guy named Mike who just says hi now and talks to us but doesn’t ask for money. He said he has been living on the same street for 13 years with his sister. They have a shopping cart full of stuff and a mattress that they sleep on at night. There is this other homeless guy, Denzel, who lies and makes up stories to try and get money. We asked Mike about Denzel and he made a face and goes ya I don’t like him, he lies all the time. It is a tough situation walking by those people multiple times a day. One of my roommates gave this homeless man like 10 cents he was carrying. A few hours later I went walking by him and he comes running up to me screaming and cussing and asking where my friend was because he was so mad that he only gave him 10 cents and kept saying “what does he think I can do with only 10 cents” and all sorts of other stuff. I just kept walking really fast and didn’t look at him and finally he stopped and walked off. My roommate was just trying to be friendly and apparently they expect more than 10cents. We were told to never give money, especially as girls because we shouldn’t ever get our wallets out in public. I personally have never felt in danger, but the danger is much more real here than back in the States. Cell phone theft is a huge problem here. There have been two students killed in the last two weeks because they tried to fight back when a robber asked for their cell phone and wallet. Just a reminder to never fight back and give them what they want. It is very uncommon for anyone to have bodily harm done to them because most crimes are petty theft.
Well on a lighter note I had a very fun weekend! Friday night I went to dinner and to see the movie Valentine’s Day with a big group of girls. Dinner was fun, but I was a little disappointed in the movie! On Saturday I had beginners sailing lessons which wasn’t quite what I was expecting. It was just students at the UCT yacht club and they didn’t really teach how to sail. It was still fun because that was my first time on a sailboat, but I never got to try sailing and I didn’t really learn very much. Maybe next time I will get to try it myself. Later that night I went to a performance called Black Noise which was hip-hop dancing and all sorts of stuff. It is an organization that teaches kids from the township and they were AMAZING. It was really fun to watch them dance. On Sunday afternoon I went to the waterfront with a group of people for lunch and to walk around. There is a six star hotel there called the One and Only. Some of us decided to sneak in and act like we were staying there so Nick and I walked in and a lady came up to us and asked if we were joining them for high tea and we told her we were just waiting on our parents! Every single girl in there was carrying around a rose since it was Valentine’s Day. We walked around for awhile which was fun and everything was incredible. I didn’t even know six stars was possible!
I am still loving my time here and all the experiences. I just got tickets to three world cup games which I’m so excited about! I really don’t know how CT is going to handle that many people coming for the games, but it is going to be interesting to see how it all works out! The picture is of me in the One and Only!

Monday, February 8, 2010

No Longer a Tourist!



Well I am no longer a tourist! Classes have now started and reality is setting in, its not all fun and games! I am excited and a little nervous about my classes. My economics course is interesting but I found out today it is the hardest econ class at UCT so it will be quite challenging! My Xhosa class is so much fun, the teacher is great. We learned the different clicks today, the c, q, and x are different clicking sounds so I feel really cool learning a language where you click! It is going to take some practice to get it right! Getting to class in the morning is an interesting and frustrating process. There used to be a jammie (that’s what they call the UCT buses) stop right by my house that was so convenient and took me right to upper campus, which is where my classes are held. This morning, however, that changed and the jammie doesn’t pick up there until 9 and my class starts at 8! It is about an 8-minute walk to the lower campus jammie stop and you have to stand in line for about 20 minutes or more to get on the jammie! I will be leaving very early in the morning because my teacher for the 8:00 class said she will lock the doors at 8 and not let you in late (hopefully that isn’t true!). There is only three months of class but the classes meet every day and also have tutorials and labs you have to attend. This will be different than my classes back home but hopefully it will be good and help me learn the material. The UCT campus is absolutely beautiful and the buildings are so pretty with ivy growing on the outside. Cecil Rhodes donated the land to the university and required that every building have ivy growing on the side! He wanted it to look like an Oxford in Africa.
Today was the first home rugby match of the season and we won! I have decided I really like rugby! It’s a combination of football and wrestling which makes it really exciting and people are getting hurt all the time! The Super 14, which is the professional league’s big tournament, starts in a week and I’m hoping to go to quite a few of those games.
As an international student, IES encourages us to join clubs and societies on campus and in our tuition we have already paid to join three societies. I have chosen to join the gym, the investment society and the yacht club! I’m really excited about the yacht club because they teach us how to sail and kite surf! I have my first sailing lesson Saturday morning!
Last week the IES students went on the Garden Route tour which was a lot of fun. It was three days of traveling along the coast towards Port Elizabeth through the mountains and countryside. We did a lot of fun things like visit an ostrich farm, eat traditional Xhosa food (I have decided I like traditional Ugandan and Ethiopian foods better!), kayak, and hike. It was a fun time to get to know people on the program and do some touristy things before school started.
The pictures are of me feeding the ostriches which was actually scary and the beautiful sunset over the water!

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Rugby, Crystal Pools, and Peninsula Tour




I have gotten to do some really fun things the last three days! Friday morning I registered for classes which was quite an experience! Registration started at 9 so some of us got to campus around 8:30 and were actually the some of the first people in line! At 9 they let everybody into this big room and there are like three different stages which got really confusing! You had to pick up forms, fill them out with your classes, then an advisor had to check it and sign off on it. There were only 7 advisors for over 700 students registering during that time! Then once the advisor signed the form you had to take it to the data center where someone entered your classes into the computer. Not sure why we couldn’t just do that to begin with! Then once that was done you had to take a form and wait in a LONG queue to get your student id. Luckily the whole process only took me about 2 hours which was a lot better than some people! I am currently registered for Xhosa (an African language where they make clicking noises for certain letters!), Traditional African Religions, Economics and Development, Natural Resource Economics, and last but not least African Dance!! I’m excited to see what the classes will be like here. Our first day is this coming Friday, Feb 5. Two nights ago some of the group went to see a rugby match which was awesome!! I absolutely loved it! It was between the Stormers and Sharks and both teams have players who play on the Springboks (SA national rugby team). Those guys were unbelievably huge and they run full force straight at each other! I was getting really into the game and asking this old man in front of me all the rules! Every time something happened I didn’t understand I would ask him to explain it! I hope I didn’t annoy him and I apologized for asking so many questions! I will definitely be going back to more matches while I’m here! It is so easy to get around anywhere using the train and taxis. There is a train stop 2 minutes from my house and there are frequent stops which makes it easy to go pretty much anywhere. Yesterday I went hiking to Crystal Pools with a group of people who are South Africans I met through one of the guys in my group and have started going to a bible study with on Wednesday nights. It was an intense hour-long hike climbing on rocks and sand. There were three different pools you could jump in and swim with high cliffs all around that people would jump off. I decided not to jump from the cliffs because while we were there four people had to be airlifted because of serious injuries!! One person fell down the cliffs and fractured his skull and did something to his back and I’m not sure what happened to the other people! That scared me from doing any jumping, but several of the people in our group still jumped. Five of the girls who went with us are models from around the world that are in Cape Town for three months doing shoots for different companies and magazines. Two of the girls are from Brasil and are actually from the same city as Mar! What a small world! Today we went on a peninsula tour which was so much fun! We started off by driving around the city to see famous buildings and then we drove along a crazy road! It was on cliffs along the mountain overlooking the ocean below! It was scary but had amazing views! They used to film car commercials on the road because it was so windy and beautiful. Then we went to see the African penguins on the beach! They were very strange looking penguins and just stood there in weird positions staring at the sun! They weren’t the big fluffy penguins you always see on tv, but it was still cool. Then we went to a township to eat lunch and some kids performed hip-hop dances and sang which was awesome! They were really talented and they practice with an organization that works with children in townships. After that we headed to the Cape of Good Hope. This was absolutely beautiful! It is supposedly where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet. We had to go on a really long hike up to the top of these cliffs where an old lighthouse is and the famous sign pointing in different directions of cities around the world! Then we hiked down and back up another cliff which was close by and is considered the Cape of Good Hope. The water is such a pretty blue and the waves were really big. One thing I have noticed is that here there aren’t any railings or fences to protect you from falling off into the oceans! It is very different from America. The paths are natural and harder to walk on. I also noticed yesterday and today that older people were hiking and walking up the mountains!! It kind of put me to shame because I thought I was gonna die walking up! They are in better shape than us Americans haha! Tomorrow we are going on a three day Garden Route tour along the coast of South Africa. We will be going in caves, riding ostriches, kayaking, and other fun things so I can’t wait! I put up pictures of the penguins, the helicopter picking someone up from the pools, and me with the sign at the Cape of Good Hope!

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Soccer games and the beach!




Today was a great day! We finally had a free afternoon and a few of us went to the beach at Camps Bay. It was absolutely beautiful! The water was so freezing cold that you could barely even put your feet in. The Atlantic ocean here is freezing and the Indian ocean is warm, but that is where the sharks are! A week ago someone was eaten by a shark at a beach in the Indian ocean (we are going to that beach on Thursday)! There are mountains surrounding the ocean and beautiful houses everywhere. There were about 12 of us that stayed for the afternoon. It cost us less than $4 to ride a train and then taxi to get to the beach! Im hoping to go to the beach a lot! Oh when we were at the beach I was very surprised and shocked to see so many women without tops on laying out on the beach!!! Later when we got home somebody said that Camps Bay is apparently a nude beach! We ate dinner at a really neat place right by the water and my entire meal cost $11. The money situation is great here for Americans! Today in orientation we learned how to register for classes at UCT which is a bit in the dark ages because we have to stand in long queues (lines) for hours to register because it isn’t done on the computer! I have to figure out my classes I will be taking tonight so there aren’t any problems when I need to register! Last night a big group of us went to a local sports bar called Pig and Swizzle to watch one of the African Cup soccer games which was SO much fun! Everyone there was for Zambia and they were getting really really into the game! It ended up going to pks and Zambia lost so people were kinda upset! We are going back for the next games because it was such a fun experience! We were the only non-locals there and we met a lot of fun and interesting people! The pictures I’ve put up are the views of Lion’s Head and part of Table Mountain from the beach and also some of the people from my group!