Spring Break!

We had our spring break here at UCT about 2 weeks ago, and I feel like I could write a book about all the amazing experiences I had on my 10 day trip, but I’ll just have to give you a glimpse on here and I’ll be full of cool stories to tell once I get back home as well. I decided to kind of break the bank for my spring break trip, but looking back it was definitely worth it. I traveled to three new countries I had never been to; Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, so my passport is getting lots of use and has some sweet stamps in it. I got a souvenir 100,000,000,000,000 dollar bill from Zimbabwe, which sadly is worth less than one cent because of inflation... But it is a pretty cool souvenir in my mind.

We left in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday the 4th with high expectations of seeing ‘cool’ wild animals, but otherwise no idea of what lay ahead. I put the word ‘cool’ in quotations because what I’ve realized is that for people who live in the wilderness where we visited, elephants, zebras, giraffes and the like are no longer a sight to see. Even for our group leader Jess who has been on this specific trip 5 times, the idea of seeing these wild animals is similar to the mindset I have towards squirrels or rabbits back in the states. When at first you see them it might be a big deal or exciting or whatever, but when you see them day in and day out it isn’t as spectacular. For me though seeing these animals was amazing and something I will never forget for the rest of my life.

Traveling all day on Saturday was grueling but the route was scenic and the destination was even better. We crossed into Botswana that evening where we spent the next 6 days or so. We stayed at a handful of different campsites in the country as well as in the Okavango Delta for 2 nights. Taking a flight in a small 7-seat plane over the Delta turned out to be a great idea because we were able to get our first glimpse of wild animals (elephants and giraffes!) as well as a greater picture of where we were going to stay for the next 2 nights. We got into the delta by means of macuro’s, which are hand crafted boats kind of like gondola’s, which were pushed by our guides who grew up in the area.

Living in the Delta for 2 nights we slept outside by the fire, went on walking safari’s (to witness elephants, zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, water buffalo, warthogs, and black mambas),
sunset ‘cruise’ to see hippo’s and crocs, tried to push the macuro’s (which was definitely harder than it looked), swam in the delta and obviously song and dance by the fireside. Seeing all the African wildlife up close and personal was definitely one of my favorite parts of the whole trip.

On the last two nights of the trip we stayed in Zambia at a campsite near Victoria Falls. Being one of the 7 natural wonders of the world I knew Vic Falls had to be spectacular, but it exceeded all expectations by far! The falls take a curve around the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe and the first night we went to the Zambia side which was absolutely stunning. But what we didn’t realize was that about 80% of the falls are only able to be seen from the Zimbabwe side. Once we realized this that was a perfect excuse to get another couple stamps in our passports and also to hit up a market we had heard about where you can trade socks and pens and such for hand crafted goods.

Victoria Falls is part of the Zambezi River and just downstream from the falls there are some of the biggest rapids that you can raft in the world, without certification. Over time the falls have shifted farther and farther upstream, leaving a beautiful gorge in its wake. The rapids go for about 15km snaking their way down the river. Quite obviously since I was in the area I had to conquer this challenge. I conquered every wave except #13: The Mother. She got the best of our whole raft as you can tell. I feel like I have said this before since I came to Africa, but this was definitely the sweetest thing I have ever done!


All in all, spring break was amazing! I visited 3 new countries, traded sunglasses for trinkets, saw sweet wild animals, rafted the Zambezi, and SO much more! I could not have asked for a better trip!

FREE WILLIE

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged and I apologize, I simply have been too busy to sit down and document all my adventures! I will write three blogs today about the things that have happened in the past month, so hopefully this will make up for my prolonged hiatus from the blogosphere.

As I talked about in one of my previous blogs, interStudy, the program that I am studying abroad through organized a fun filled weekend for all the students to get away and do some sweet stuff. The whole interstudy crew was split in half because there’s just too many of us. The group that I went with had our getaway weekend Oct.27-29th.

We got picked up on that Friday afternoon after classes were finished and trekked along the coast for a couple hours to the coastal town Hermanus. This town is a destination for whale watching as well as shark cage diving. Both of which were activities on the agenda for the weekend. (I had already gone shark cage diving so don’t worry I didn’t go again mom!)

The weather was kind of spotty for the whole weekend so some of our activities ended up getting delayed, but the cool part about that was that we got to just hang out by the ocean all morning on Saturday. Nick and I hopped a couple barriers and went climbing on the cliffs by the ocean, and climbed around on the rocks for a good couple hours. It was SO much fun, and we got some sweet pictures of course.

After hanging out in the town all day we went whale watching on Saturday afternoon, which everyone was excited about, but not quite sure what it would be like at the same time. I kind of picture whales as boring animals which are only cool because they are so gigantic and ominous out there in the ocean. But never the less I was excited to possibly see one jump out of the water Free Willie style or something!

About 25% of the people ended up staying below deck puking their guts out, but the rest of us got to see quite a show! The guide who was on the boat with us said in 15 years he had never seen anything like this before, which was pretty amazing. We saw 3 whales all feeding next to each other, which is odd because typically the whales migrate away from SA to feed because there isn’t much food. And not only that, but one of the whales was albino. For those of us who aren’t whale enthusiasts it didn’t seem like anything special, but in the eyes of a professional it was a very rare occurrence so I was glad I could be there to witness.

After docking back in the bay the next activity was sea kayaking which lots of people weren’t feeling up to after having spent the whole boat ride bent over the toilet. Our group was split into two, and the group I was in wasn’t scheduled to sea kayak until the morning, but since so many people felt sick I took the opportunity to kayak with the other group as well! In hindsight I was very glad I chose to do so.

10 of us headed out into the open ocean in 5 separate 2-man kayaks. Peter and I were kayak partners and obviously were the best ones out on the waves. We took a scenic tour of one of the bays, bearing witness to the beautiful cliffs that I had climbed all over earlier that day, and a great view of the coastal town. Some of us took a swim in the ocean, some on purpose, and other’s not so much. Which was cold, but very refreshing. On our way back there was a playful ‘little’ whale that started to follow us back, getting so close one of the kayaks said they could’ve touched him if they weren’t drenched in fear. At first I was extremely excited at the thought of a whale being directly underneath us and hanging out with us. This feeling of excitement was instantly wiped away when our guide told us that the whale putting its tail above water meant he was likely to breach (jump out of the water) which is extremely dangerous for obvious reasons. Whales are thousands of pounds and we were in flimsy little kayaks! Needless to say we raced to shore as quickly as possible in order to avoid the possible flying massive whale. As it turned out, the curious young whale was following us around because he was just that: a curious young whale. He did not jump on top of us, thankfully, but it was quite an adrenaline rush none the less.

My second trip out on the ocean kayaking was less eventful, but this time around, just like last time, Becca and I dominated the waves as expected. We saw a whale again this time, but there was no threat of breaching so we didn’t see our lives flash before our eyes, quite a relief actually. I’m just going to say this right now, water sports are all SO much fun. I had a great time obviously.

After a quick stop at KFC, which is literally on every corner in this country, we got to go paint balling and quad biking (ATVing) on Sunday afternoon. For those of you who know me, I love playing shooter video games. Now this may be because I am a sick human being or whatever, but I love those types of things, so paintball is the same sort of experience.. But I actually get to shoot people so that makes it even better! We were pitted against these guys whose jobs it is to beat up on people who never play and so quite obviously we got our butts kicked, but it was tons of fun! One of the rounds there were 12 of us trying to protect these two huts that were connected by a walkway. Meanwhile all the professional guys who were all in the armed forces at some point in their lives were trying to storm the houses and pelt us with paint balls, which hurt quite a bit at short range! Towards the end of the round the were all on our doorstep and we were fighting for our lives. We tried everything, opening the door to pelt them, only to be shot probably 15 times within a couple seconds. Failed attempt #1. Tried to shoot around the corner at them, only to be shot right in the fingers. Failed attempt #2. Finally I had a great idea, to sneak around the front corner where they didn’t expect me. As I round the corner the owner of the place was just reaching above his head to shoot in the window at my teammates, so I pelted his belly about 10 times! Seems like a successful attempt right? Well he has 2 teammates right behind him who immediately shot me up pretty badly. Failed attempt #3. We were overrun eventually, but it was so much fun!

Bruised and battered we headed out on quad bikes, which are the same as ATV’s back in the states. We took a scenic route through some vineyards and some sort of orchards which were beautiful. We ended our ride at the top of a cliff that overlooked Hermanus which was stunning. On the way back we ditched the single file rule and passed each other at any opportunity! It was tons of fun, and a perfect ending to a great weekend!

Man vs. Fence

It is winter here in the southern hemisphere, which for South Africa typically means rain nearly every day. Until this last weekend though, it had honestly rained twice in the five weeks I had been here. While this type of sunny weather is quite nice for us short term visitors, I have been told that the dams won’t be full after this winter like they usually are, and water supply will run low during the inevitable summer drought. Over the weekend though I’m sure the water levels caught up a little bit in the dams because it was not just raining off and on, it was downright pouring most of the time.

One of the side effects of the weather finally catching up to us was that our weekend excursion with our study abroad group, interstudy, had to be postponed a week. On the agenda for the weekend were oceanic kayaking, quad biking (ATVing), whale watching, paintball, and shark cage diving. The fun filled weekend wasn’t cancelled though, just postponed to this upcoming weekend, so I will be blogging about all those shenanigans next week.

Since our weekend was postponed I thought long and hard about making the trip to Jo-burg (Johannesburg) to go to the Tri-Nations rugby match between the South Africa Springboks and the New Zealand All Blacks. In hindsight I wish I would have so I could have avoided the imminent danger to my leg that would occur on that fateful Saturday afternoon. Since I did not purchase a round trip ticket to Jo-Burg I settled for planning on going to a local pub to meet some guys, rep my Boks polo, and cheer on the squad! That seemed like a very good plan B in my mind.

Saturday ended up being a very relaxed morning, filled with sleeping in and not much homework. Paul and I decided to walk to Rondebosch and eat at Steers, a chain burger joint, for lunch. After our meal of burgers and chips (French fries) Paul and I walked back to our flat on Upper Liesbeek Road in Mowbray. Now, the city had the power shut off on our block since 10am, and was planning on doing maintenance until about 3pm. The gate outside our building wasn’t working since the electricity was out, but the gate in front of the building adjacent to ours had been propped open all morning so people could get in and out. When we got back from lunch we came to realize that both gates were shut, and neither of them would open.

There was a girl about our age standing just inside the gate which had previously been propped open, and she informed us that “some idiot closed the gate, and I really need to get to the library to write a paper!” She ended up passing us her backpack and the rest of her belongings over the 7 foot fence, and proceeded to climb to the top of the fence at the corner in front of our building. When she got to the top she kind of froze, and a few more of our American friends had crowded around trying to help her out. Me being the tallest, and strongest, obviously, took charge and lifted her off of the fence and placed her safely on the ground. She was very grateful, but Paul and I still needed to get into our building so we could get our homework to have a study session at our friends’ house across the street.

Paul went first, scampering up the fence and hopping over very gracefully, and I followed suit. Little did I know that the small snag I got in my jeans was just the beginning of my issues. Since theft is so common here literally every housing building has a gate around it with spikes all over. I caught my jeans on a spike on the side of the fence, but I didn’t think much of it. I grabbed my books and jumped over the fence to the other side so I could study study study. Once I got to Grace and Judy’s house I realized that my jeans had blood on them by where the snag was, so I rolled up my pant leg to check out the damage. To my utter surprise, there was a legitimately open wound on the inside of my left knee.

Judy and Taylor graciously accompanied me to the ER down the road in Claremont where we got to sit around for about 4 hours. But on the bright side, Taylor learned how to do stitches so if this ever happens again we won’t have to go to the ER! Now, four days later, my wound looks very clean and isn’t infected at all so there shouldn’t be any complications, but surely I will have a sweet scar with a funny story to boot!

African Road Trip

A week ago Monday was a national holiday, Women’s Day (the equivalent of Mother’s Day), here in South Africa so we had a long weekend off of school which is always enjoyable. Since we had an extra day of weekend, 15 of us students planned a road trip along the scenic Garden Route along the coast of South Africa. Basically the Garden Route is a state highway that goes along the southern part of the country through the mountains and along the beaches of South Africa. As seen in the picture, I road tripped with (L to R) Andrew, Aria, Chelsea, Lil. When we left on Friday after classes all we had planned was where we were sleeping each night, and most of us knew we wanted to bungee jump on Saturday. Some people opted not to tag along because of the fact we were being very spontaneous about the weekend plans, but I loved it and it ended up being a very fun filled trip.

Friday we packed up the rental car with all of our gear, and headed out once we were all done with classes. Andrew had already mastered the art of driving on the left side of the road by the time he got back from the rental place, so we didn’t have any troubles with that (until Lil tried driving haha). We hopped on N2, aka the Garden Route, and off we were, into parts of Africa we had never visited, filled with excitement. Who knew what kinds of African adventures lie ahead of us?! Certainly none of us expected to be offered so many cell phone chargers and other random things by people waiting at the stoplights, oh Africa how many hilarious things you have.

Very last minute Lil decided to burn a CD that we could listen to in the car, which was a blessing and a curse. The radio here isn’t like back in the states, there really only are a handful of stations that play music. Since the radio was pretty much worthless, we ended up listening to our one CD at least 20 times throughout the trip, and needless to say we knew every word of every song by the time we arrived back home on Upper Lisbeek Road. We definitely bonded over the love/hate relationship we had with the disc.

When we arrived in Mossel Bay on Friday night both of the other cars we were caravanning with had already arrived and were waiting for us at Café Havana, a café in the town which had some sort of Spanish roots because all the dishes on the menu were in Spanish. Thankfully the descriptions were in English! That night was my first experience with what you call a hostile, sort of like a motel, but it is possible you could end up sleeping in the same room bunked with total strangers.

Each of the three nights we stayed in very nice Hostiles, and actually all the ones we stayed in are technically called Backpackers (higher class hostiles, basically). On night 1 we had a little trouble finding the hostile in the town, so after going to the wrong hostile and almost booking a room, driving around for about 20 minutes and getting stopped by the cops twice, we finally found the hostile! It was only R120 per person, which is about $17 a night. The rest of that night was very relaxed, just hanging out at the hostile, chumming with the locals, all that good stuff.

Saturday was the day that I experienced the most thrilling thing ever! Bungee jumping off of the highest bungee jump in the world! Stopping at 7/11 for a classic breakfast of Snickers and Mountain Dew we departed Mossel Bay and got back on N2 yet again, driving through mountains and past beaches, and all sorts of beautiful scenery. I actually drove that day for about 3 hours from Mossel Bay to Bloukrans Bridge, the site of the highest bungee jump in the world! Driving on the left side of the road was much easier than I thought it would be. Surprisingly the hardest part was the fact that the blinker was on the right side of the wheel, so I kept hitting the wipers when I just wanted to switch lanes haha.

Like I said, bungee jumping was the most thrilling thing I have ever done in my entire life! The rush of free falling for 5 whole seconds, followed by the feeling of zero gravity, again and again was such a rush I can’t even explain how awesome it was! I didn’t even tell my parents that I was going to bungee jump until after the fact, and I’m pretty sure my mom had a little panic attack when I told her. I bought the pictures of my jumping experience which are all on facebook, as well as the video of my jump, but that will have to wait to be uploaded until I’m back in the states. As well as the pictures and videos, I also bought the family some hand made souvenirs from a guy peddling his goods (but you’ll have to wait and see what they are once I get back :) )

Saturday night we stayed at another hostile, this one being located in Jeffery’s Bay, which was even nicer than the one we stayed in the first night. This hostile offered free wifi which was useful for posting our bungee jumping pics! As well as complimentary breakfast which was a nice touch. Three of us ended up staying in a room with some strangers, which I thought was going to be quite an experience after I heard some horror stories about European hostiles, but it ended up being very anti climactic. We went out to dinner on Saturday at a very nice restaurant in Jeffrey’s Bay, and this ended up being our first experience to malva, a traditional South African desert, which was SO delicious.

On Sunday we woke up and enjoyed the complimentary breakfast at the hostile, and hit the road again. Part of the group went to the coastal town of Port Elizabeth to hang out for the day, while the rest of us had the same plans, except for a pit stop at the lion sanctuary which was amazing. We pulled into the lion sanctuary and drove along the dirt road to get to the parking lot, almost getting stuck a handful of times in our very non off-road vehicle. Along the road there were springbok, wildebeest, zebra, and giraffe, which we naturally took lots of pictures of. The lions were all kept in cages, so that the humans don’t get munched on, but it felt just like a zoo, so I wasn’t all that impressed. But at the info center/restaurant they had lion cubs you could play hands on with, which was spectacular. They were the cutest little things ever! They all were kind of sleepy when we got in the cage, but I bugged one of them enough that he woke up and was getting a little feisty. Definitely ruined his nap, but I got some sweet pictures! I felt like I was living the Lion King for about 15 minutes, and I was fully enjoying it.

Once we had had our fill of lion action, we got back on N2(yeah yeah I know, we didn’t want to get lost in Africa alright?) for a few more minutes and stopped at the beach in Port Elizabeth. Thanks to that quick stop, I can now say I have been in the 3 largest oceans in the world, and 3 of the 5 oceans on the planet. I have yet to set foot in the Southern or Arctic oceans, but I have plenty of time to hit those up. Also, since I’ve been to Africa I now have been on 4 of the 7 continents in the world. I have been to all except Australia, Asia and Antarctica. Quite an alliteration eh?

Our last night of the journey, Sunday night, we stayed in Storms River at a hostile that got 5 out of 5 in the travel guide, so we knew it would be nice. We had one giant room for all 15 of us to hang out in, and there was pool and foosball for us play as well. For dinner we went to a diner type restaurant which is the greatest Elvis tribute restaurant outside of the united states, or so I heard. I had a ham and cheese omelet which was quite delicious so I had no complaints even though we didn’t see any Elvis impersonators.

Monday, the last day of our trek was filled with 8hrs20min of driving, the worst traffic jam in the history of the continent, multiple close calls with baboon crossings, chicken flavored chips, eye spy with kids in the other lane, selling “pelts” for beans, and finally getting home! I realize many of these are inside jokes you might not understand if you were not there, but you will just have to ask me about all my adventures some other time for I feel very long winded currently.

Long story short, we had a great long weekend thanks to the celebration of women!

I have to actually take classes? - First week of school

I have been sitting in the living room of our flat for the last few hours, spending my Sunday evening catching up on calculus in order to bridge the gap between what I learned in my courses at home and what I am learning in my calc course currently. I wish I could spend the semester just hanging out here in Cape Town without having to go to school and do that whole learning thing. But that isn’t a possibility, sadly. Obviously I am over exaggerating the suffering I have gone through so far in school, but that is typical after one week of class. I am taking Calculus 4, Structural Engineering, Statistics and Ethics. Hopefully all of these classes will transfer back to the University of Minnesota to fulfill general requirements, or specific requirements for my major or minor.

In my school schedule I am beginning the first semester of my second year in college, but here in Cape Town it is the second semester, so that makes things a little bit interesting for my calculus and engineering class. Both of them are picking up where the first semester classes left off, but my courses didn’t teach things in the exact same order. Hopefully this won’t end up being a big deal, but this week has been full of trying to get caught up a little bit in calculus, as well as learning some engineering concepts I have never seen before.

Statistics on the other hand has been a breeze so far. We have been covering very basic mathematical concepts, so it has been nice to not use my brain for at least one class! Originally I was enrolled in Macro Economics instead of Ethics, but I filled out some paperwork to switch into the Ethics(Philosophy) class in order to *fingers crossed* fulfill my last general requirement at the UofM. I filled out this paperwork on Thursday, but lectures for Ethics are only Monday-Wednesday so I have yet to attend a lecture for that class. Hopefully all the paperwork on the University’s end gets all sorted out so that I officially have dropped econ and picked up ethics.

I have class at 8am four days a week which isn’t all that bad, but the fact that I have to plan for at least 30 minutes to get to class makes the mornings that much earlier.

I love the feel of the UCT (University of Cape Town) campus. Most of the buildings are really old and beautiful. I can’t wait until it gets to spring and summer here because there is ivy covering almost every building, which will be really cool to see. The feel of the campus feels a lot like home, lots of people, large campus, all sorts of stuff going on all the time, but one of the differences I have noticed (is kind of stupid, but whatever) is that instead of actual restaurants all over campus, here there are tons of food tents set up all over campus. There are a few actual café’s and restaurants in some of the buildings, but mostly there are just little food shops set up in the lounge areas in buildings, or outside in the food court area. Some of the tents seem real questionable, but I’ve heard the Chinese tent has some great food. This is a very weird difference I have noticed, but it was just something I have picked up on so far :)

After classes were over this week, the weekend was packed per usual. Friday night I went to another Western Province rugby match in which they destroyed the Barloworld Toyota Puma’s. The final score I think was 54-13, so as you can guess the game wasn’t much of a struggle, but it was sweet to watch so many try’s scored. The event was organized by a travel agency on campus which does all sorts of events for study abroad students. Before the match all the people going met at CocoWahWah, the local American hang out, for dinner. It is pretty funny actually because whenever you walk past that restaurant the majority of the patrons are American.

Saturday, I woke up and went to the Old Biscuit Mill farmer’s market for the second straight week. Sampling all the delicious homemade foods will be a regular Saturday morning event I’m sure. After we had had our fill we decided to head out in search of Green Street Market just like we had done last week. Instead of taking a taxi there like we had last week, we decided to take a minibus instead.

This ended up being quite the adventure. Minibuses are basically old VW van style van’s which people drive on various routes to and from the suburbs. The minibuses have a station they all stop at downtown, which sadly wasn’t at Green Street Market. We kind of got directions on how to go from the driver, but we basically just walked in the general direction through the downtown. Since it was Saturday it wasn’t all that busy down there, but still there was all sorts of hubbub going on, especially in the stretch of skyway that we walked through. There were at least 6 guys within 30 feet of each other, all of them trying to sell mini vuvuzela bubble blowers, pad locks and various random other things. It was funny to me that they would all be selling the same stuff in such a close vicinity of each other. Eventually we found the market and browsed around for a while. I didn’t purchase anything there, but it was still fun to see all the handmade goods people were selling. Paul, Grace, Judy and I left the market and walked to the waterfront area of downtown, and Paul and I climbed a giant Coke statue on the way.

Today some of the interstudy people decided to go surfing at the beach in Muizenberg, but nine of us went instead to a braai hangout spot in one of the townships. Mzoli’s was the name of the place, and it was different than any restaurant I’ve ever experienced. We got there at about noon and every single table was either full or reserved. I talked one of the employees into searching for a table for us and he ended up finding one in the back, “the last one we have” as he said. Everyone sat around tables under the tent canopy outside or danced to the music the DJ was playing. The way the food worked was that you went to the butcher across the street to buy meat to grill, and then the Mzoli’s people grilled it for you in the back of the restaurant. While you wait it’s just a big hang out dance party pretty much. It was really fun, and totally different than eating out in the states, so all in all it was a great experience.


1 week of school down, 11 to go! The school portion of my experience is necessary, but the extracurricular experiences are what I will remember for a lifetime!


Just a note on terms that are used quite often here:
Lekkar: awesome/really cool
Hectic: used ALL the time e.g. class is really hectic right now, that party was hectic last night, etc.
Keen: “are you keen to grab some lunch after class?”
Bru: bro/man e.g. what’s up bru?

SHARKS!

Today I was able to experience the greatest predator in the world in a very up close and personal way. I went cage diving with the great white sharks off the coast of South Africa! There was a group of 11 of us who were all picked up from our flats at 11:30 by a van labeled Great White Experience on the side. We took a scenic drive east, away from Cape Town, for about 2 hours until we got to a small Oceanside town which I can’t remember the name. Upon arrival we were served a light lunch while we signed our lives away on the waiver. Basically the waiver stated that you were not forced to get on the boat, and that great white sharks are wild animals, thus the company was not liable for any injuries that may occur to you. Thankfully there was no loss of life, or even a scratch on anybody when it was all said and done.

Everyone changed into their swim suits, or costumes as they are called here, and we headed out on the boat. There were 20 total people not including the crew of the boat. The boat ride took about 20 minutes until we got to ‘shark alley’ where all the best shark action is. There we dropped anchor and part of the crew began to get the cage on the side of the boat secured and ready, while the rest of them started throwing bait(tuna and other dead fish) into the water to attract the great whites.

The cage was about 7 feet high, 12 feet long and 3 feet deep. It hung off the edge of the boat so there was enough space at the top so you could keep your head above water for breathing purposes. 5 people got in the cage at a time, shoulder to shoulder, so that all 20 of us could get a chance to see the sharks before they moved on. I ended up in the last group of 5, but was the first one in the cage. I purposefully tried to be the first one in the cage because that meant I was the farthest on the left, closest to the bait thrower. My reasoning was that if a shark was going to swim directly towards the cage, it would end up doing so at the far left because the bait thrower had a tuna head attached to a rope and was throwing it out into the water and pulling it back in. The sharks had been following the tuna back towards the boat, and therefore the cage, so I wanted to be there if one got aggressive.

My wish came true! About half way into my under water experience, just as planned, one of the sharks decided he wanted to eat that tuna and swam right at me as the guy pulled it back towards the boat. The shark at the last second opened up its jaws and ran into the cage literally inches from me! I screamed like crazy even though I was under water, but it was the coolest thing ever! All in all we saw 7 different great white sharks, most of them being about 18 feet long. It was amazing to be able to witness their natural instincts for survival, and have it be so up close and personal!

Tomorrow morning I start school. I am not overly looking forward to it, but it will be nice to have a regular schedule. Plus I am hoping I can meet lots of people who are from South Africa, and not just hang out with the other students from America. You guys are sweet and all, but it will be sweet to be in class with mostly people from around here.

Sometime this week I will be uploading pictures onto facebook, either from school or an internet café, so be looking for those!

The Little Things

After being here for a week, I have realized how many conveniences from America I take for granted. For example: in home washing machine, fully stocked fridge, online class registration, you know the little things in life that make everything so much easier. Never before have I had to walk multiple blocks to do laundry, shop for every meal I need to eat, or walk to building after building just to find the times and places that my potential classes will be held. This time spent in a new continent will for sure be a learning experience, for countless reasons. I am learning about a new culture at the same time that I am learning about myself.

Now, so far it may seem that I am only experiencing things that I do not enjoy, or that are simply making me frustrated. That is totally not the case. There are plenty of little things about this place that I am falling in love with as well. In just a week being here I am already loving the fact that there are mountains all around when I wake up every day, seeing zoo like animals in the wild, and also being an ignorant American (more to come on that side note :D )

Wild animal count:
Zebra: 1
Ostrich: 1
Penguin: 100
Pigeon: 1,000,000

There are about a million pigeons that reside in and around the food court building on campus, and as I have been told and partially experienced, they will eat food out of your hand. Quite scary if you ask me.

As for the ignorant American tidbit, it is just amusing to me how easily you can pick out someone who is not from here. Since most of the study abroad students are from the US, therefore it is easy to pick out the Americans walking down the street. I haven’t quite figured out what makes us so noticeable, because I mean we aren’t the only white people who live here, but at the same time it is quite obvious who is a local and who is not. Hopefully I/we will be able to blend in a little bit more as the semester goes on and we won’t stick out like a sore thumb all the time!

Warning mom, I am going great white shark cage diving on Sunday!

Africa is cold?

I have been here for just about a week and the most astonishing thing about South Africa is that it is much colder than back at home in Minnesota! I knew it would be winter here, but the weather reports made it seem as if it would be 60 most days and generally nice outside. What i have found out to be true though is that it gets very cold once the sun goes down at 6ish, and it has been rainy like 25% of the time.
Besides the fact that i wasn't ready for the weather to be quite like this i am loving Cape Town so far! The picture i posted is of the Cape of Good Hope, the South West most point of Africa, as we were told by the tour guide. I have taken hundreds of pictures already (i just walk around with my camera in hand lots of the time :D ) but i think the scenery will stop being so amazing after being here for a few weeks. There is a beautiful mountain visible from just outside the apartment, and i think it is amazing because there is nothing like it back in Minnesota.
Well it is time to go off to more orientation stuff, but i will try to post fairly regularly on here so keep coming back for more life from Africa!

Day 0

Trip has not started yet. It is in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday, July 11th. I am departing Minneapolis in about 14 hours. I am going to go get some sleep in a few minutes, and when i wake it will be time to take off for South Africa. Over 24 hours of traveling lie ahead of me but it will be worth it in the end.

So long America, i am Studying Abroad.