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!