Cape Town!

So I am finally in Cape Town! It is definitely a relief after a stressful two days of traveling, but the long plane rides weren't as bad as I was expecting. I have now been here for a little over a week.  My house, simply put, is the shit. It has 3 bedrooms, mine has doors that are all windows and open into our backyard and garden. We also have a cute living room and kitchen.  I have two roommates, one from Boston and the other from Amsterdam and they are great. We then share a backyard with our neighbors, who are all coincidently from Madison and everyone gets along very well.

The neighborhood I live in is called Observatory, commonly known as Obs. It is a fun little neighborhood, but has a reputation of not being the safest place around. But I feel completely safe during the day, and there is so much to do on Lower Main St. which is just a block away. It reminds me of a mini State Street, with lots of cafe's and bars and little shops to go into. But at night it is crucial to walk in a group or take a taxi, but we have all been very safe thus far.

Orientation week just ended and it was a lot to take in. There was pre-registration, registration, and then signing up for classes, then waiting in very long lines to put it in the computer. But I am finally enrolled in classes, but haven't quite figured out how to use my email and things like that. Everything is much more laid back in terms of organization and access to information, especially compared to UW. But it is a nice change because it helps me to be more laid back about school as well.

During orientation we were taken to Cape Point, which is the southern most part of Africa where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet. I have seen tons of picture, but none of them did justice to the beauty of this place. It was breathtaking. I had to tell myself I was really in South Africa, and really seeing these mountains, and the oceans. It felt like a dream. We then traveled to a township called Ocean View, and they told us about their history of being transported out of Simon's Town to the township during Apartheid. They fed us amazing food and put on some great musical performances for us, including two young boys that danced in memory of Michael Jackson, they were amazing and completely adorable.

A few days ago some of my roommates and few friends decided to hike up Lions Head, which is one of the peaks of Table Mountain. It was about a 2 hour hike up, it was tiring but so so worth it. The views were to die for.

Another recent adventure was that of hiking up Platteklip Gorge, which is one of the hikes up to the top of Table Mountain. It was incredibly steep and exhausting, but it may have been the best day of my life. I will eventually put up pictures, but they don't do it justice at all. It was the most amazing place I have ever been. These two hikes have helped me decide that I'm going to join the mountain hiking club at school, living in Wisconsin gives me no to opportunities do something like this so I'm going to take advantage of it.

On Sunday, we went to a place called Mzoli's. It is basically a gigantic braai, the South African version of a barbeque or cookout, and it's most popular day is Sunday. It is huge party with dancing and lots of drinking and eating.  People usually come in groups, and a few people from the group have to wait in line, today for about an hour, to order the meat you want them to cook. You then get a number, and about 2 hours later you get a huge bowl full of meat with Mzoli's sauce and every digs in. It was completely delicious, so delicious that a friend who has been vegetarian for 5 years tried a little bit of it. Meat is the only thing they serve though, so people bring coolers and other food, but there is also a liquor store down the road that gets a lot of service on Sundays.  I would say there were a couple hundred people at the braai and it was great.

Tomorrow I start school, which I am actually very excited for. We have been with a lot of International students, because school hadn't started. I'm really looking forward to experiencing a South African University and hear different perspectives than I'm used to from both students and professors. It will also be nice to have more a routine, and it will set in that this is life for awhile. At the moment I feel like I am just on vacation, with a lot of going out and exploring the city. But I will still have plenty of time for both when school begins.

Thats all for now, but next weekend I am going to the Rugby game at the new stadium, and then on Saturday I am going shark cage diving!! My roommate went today and absolutely loved it, so I'm very excited, and will write about how it goes.

Countdown: 4 days

So I'm off to South Africa in 4 days time, and it is definitely a strange feeling. I am surprised at how relaxed I've been about the whole thing and thought I would be worrying much more than I actually am. It is definitely a good thing, and I think it just hasn't quite hit me yet. Hopefully it will stay that way while I am trying to get the last of my things together. I also hate saying goodbye, and tend to get very emotional, but my excitement is overpowering those feelings right now which I am appreciating greatly.

When thinking about what I want to accomplish in South Africa, a lot comes to mind. I am hoping to grow as a person and learn a little bit about myself. But there are also some other goals that I would really love to achieve while over there. This goals have come from experiences of friends, some prior knowledge of South Africa, and books on South African travel:

1. Swim with the penguins at Boulders Beach. Boulders Beach is right in Cape Town, and I think I will be accomplishing this goal during orientation week for UCT.

2. Visit Robben Island. You can't visit South Africa without visiting Robben Island. I have read books on Nelson Mandela and he is such an incredible man and it would be a sad but important experience to see where he was for 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment.

3.  Hike up Table Mountain. UCT is located and the bottom of Table Mountain, so I will have ample time to accomplish this goal, but would like to do it a few times during my stay. Here is a picture of the mountain:

4.  Learn how to scuba dive. This one is very intimidating to me for some reason, but I'm sure I would love it once given the chance.

5.  Surf. Probably not too often, and I'm sure I will be terrible, but it is something I have always wanted to try. And what better place to try it than in Cape Town?

6.  Go bungee jumping. Terrifying, but I really really want to do it. It would be such an adrenaline rush.

7. Sky diving. Also terrifying, but it would be an amazing experience.

8.  Go on a safari. Hopefully at Kruger National Park.

I need this to happen to me.

9.  Visit Victoria Falls, which is the largest curtain of water in the world. It lies between Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

10.  Drive the Garden Route. It is a stretch of coastal plain between Mossel Bay and Storms River Mountain. It has a legendary status of being South Africa's paradise.

11.  Learn about South African wines. I also want to visit some vineyards for wine tasting, and hopefully will be able to do the Stellenbosch wine route.  

12.  Visit the sand dunes in Namibia. Sand dunes are crazy, and I want to be surrounded by them.

13.  Lay on the beach in Mozambique. It is supposed to be paradise, and it sounds and looks simply amazing:

14.  Picnic at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. It is right in Cape Town, and was the first botanical garden to grow only indigenous plants, which is wonderful.

15.  Visit Lesotho, Swaziland, and all South Africa's bordering countries. This may be a little far-fetched, but I would like to see most of them.

16.  Watch both a soccer and a rugby game. I have never done either, and I think it would be a blast.

17.  Volunteer with young students promoting education. This is my life's passion, and a big reason I am going to South Africa. Ideally I will be teaching abroad after I graduate, and this would be a great experience for me.

18.  Learn some Xhosa, and also Afrikaans.  Both are widely spoken in Cape Town, and I would like to learn a little of both.

There are many more where this comes from, and I will be adding on when I get there. But I am going to try and do as much on this list as possible.  Unfortunately, I don't think I will have to funds to accomplish everything I would like to, or the time for that matter (I sometimes forget that I have to go to school while living in Cape Town), but a girl can dream. And an experience like this won't happen again anytime soon, so I am going to do it big, and come home broke.

Let me know if you have any other recommendations! And my next post will be written while sitting in Cape Town, which is so exciting. Hamba kahle!