at peace

yesterday was perfect. i went to my (so far) favorite restaurant, cocoa wah-wah, with friends for lunch; we sat outside, and the adorable waitress who has served us a few times now introduced herself and asked us our names because she knew that we had come in before. we had a leisurely, delicious meal, sitting outside and laughing. we recognized a flock of americans we hadn't seen before and talked to them for a big - the kids in CIEE, another study abroad program, got here a day or two ago, and there are 150 of them, so we've been seeing more students on the street. talking to them made us feel like locals, as we explained what we already knew about the area and the restaurant.. and then when they asked us how long we'd been here, and we said a week and a half, we got a reality check. it really does feel like we've been here for so much longer than that.

after lunch, we did some shopping. we went to claremont mall, which is about two miles away, and is absolutely huge and glorious. i got some sandals, a purse, and bracelets; i'm going to have to reign in my spending soon, but i just keep discovering things i need here that i didn't bring, or didn't bring enough of.

we then headed to camps bay to watch the sunset and have dinner. camps bay is an absolutely gorgeous beach in a very affluent area of cape town; bruce willis has a house there. gorgeous houses fill the side of the mountain overlooking the bay and along the main road there are numerous restaurants and cafes. the view of the sunset was perfect, and about seven of us sat on huge rocks and silently, peacefully watched the perfectly cloudless sky as the sun sank into the atlantic ocean. i can't remember the last time i focused all my attention on watching the sun set.

at eight, we met three others and went to dinner. we had a long, leisurely meal that included numerous bottles of wine, appetizers, a main course, and coffee. i still can't get over the prices here; even in camps bay, which is an upscale area, we paid about twenty american dollars for this entire meal. and i tried two new foods: oysters (which i liked a lot) and chicken liver pate (which is disgusting in theory, actually not too bad in reality, but i wouldn't order it myself).

i had such a feeling of peace and contentment while sitting there at dinner; there was nothing else in the world that i could or should have been doing besides sitting right there, enjoying the company of these new friends, boys and girls from all over who i am learning more about each day. i think calmly watching the sun set beforehand set the stage for an all around beautiful night; it makes me wonder how my life would be if i could do that each and every night.

we then went to long street, which is indeed a very long, main street in downtown cape town. it's kind of the place to be on a weekend night, just absolutely packed with people and cars and bars everywhere. we met up with some other kids from our program and just hung out for a while, nothing too crazy, but a good time, and i even got two pool balls in the holes (there must be a better, correct term for that) in row, which is a feat for me.

all night i just felt very in the moment, which i think is actually rare for me in my usual life; i feel like i'm always thinking ahead or behind, contemplating something that happened or that will happen, rather than being present. i think it's rare for most people to be absolutely, completely, enjoying what is happening at that very moment in their lives. so that's where i was, and it felt good.

we live in a beautiful world

i am currently laying on my stomach on my bed in my room, enjoying a relaxing, lazy day of basically nothing. i ran a few errands this morning in rondebosch, which is the town down the street from where we live (we live in mowbray). basically anything you'd need is in rondebosch, or at at least the necessities - several grocery stores (of varying price, quality, and scariness), pharmacies, a few clothing stores, restaurants, etc. then i spent a few hours at a restaurant to have lunch and try to use their free wi-fi, although it was pretty spotty and i ended up reading a book i bought instead. it's a beautiful day.

yesterday we went to a rugby game, which was pretty cool. i'm still a little unclear about the whole situation of rugby in general - we were watching the a cape town team, but i'm not sure if there's a national team as well... and i tried to learn the rules as we were watching, but it's pretty much just chaos and a lot guys running straight into each other. it really does make football look like child's play; when somebody got hurt, they would usually not even stop the game, but rather just keep playing and eventually someone would come over to check out the guy laying on the ground.

at night, my friend katelyn made dinner for a few of us at katrina's house, and then we went out to la med, which is a bar/club in clifton, which is an affluent area on the other side of table mountain. it was a completely awesome place, all open-air and a lot of room to sit or mingle outside; it's right on the beach, had a live band for part of the night, and was full of a lot of attractive, beachy (is that an adjective?) people. it was a ton of fun, but now (as per usual) i'm really tired, and i also have a cold or something of the sort... several other girls have strep throat already - i think we're all just run down and getting used to the new surroundings. that's about all i have for now. 

ps - happy birthday marie!

table mountain hike...aka hardest event of my life

it's saturday morning, and i'm sitting in my bed listening to music and the noise from the apartment building next door. i just skyped with emma for a little bit; it still blows my mind that i can see her and we can basically talk as if we were right there with each other. i realized that skype is really expensive, though, because it uses a lot of credits - the internet here is pay as you go, and you pay for how many megabytes you upload and download.. so a two way video chat uses up a lot. this is something that i think i'm just going to deal with, though, because i don't want to fall off the face of the earth and i want to keep up with what everyone's doing. i'm just going to have to budget my internet time.

yesterday we hiked up and down table mountain. the view was absolutely gorgeous - i took a million pictures, and once we finally got to the top you could see everything - ocean on either side, downtown, robben island, mountains and water as far as the eye could see. we were standing on the highest point in cape town. the hike itself, though, was extremely intense. i don't think any of us were ready for it, and there were some extremely steep parts on the way up that were rocky and we were basically pulling ourselves up with our hands. unbeknownst to us, though, the way down was the hardest - there were "steps" of rock that were extremely steep and completely uneven and dangerous. we descended that way for at least an hour, and my legs were shaking like crazy because we had been hiking for seven hours. it was worth it, and i'm glad i did it, but we were all exhausted afterwards. and fairly sunburnt as well.

after we came back and laid down and then showered, four other girls and some of the boys and i went out to dinner at a place in rondebosch, a few blocks from where we live, called cocoa wah-wah. it was surprisingly really good; it was small and modern and we had a really nice waiter. despite the stereotypes and the crime that is apparent, most south africans are really nice and friendly. it's also interesting because the restaurant served breakfast, lunch, and coffee drinks, as well as a complete drink menu... a very south african thing.

after that, the mentors threw a party at the apartment next to mine for all of us, which was fun. everyone was too tired to go out, so we just hung out around here which was really nice, and i got to talk to several more people that i really hadn't talked to before. everyone is generally pretty nice and just wants to have a good time and enjoy their stay here, and it's interesting getting to know people. it's going to take a while to establish firmer friendships, that's natural - this entire experience reminds me of freshman year. everybody is just happy and crazy now, because we have so much time before school starts, so everyone wants to go out and drink a lot and everyone is trying to meet as many people as they can. but i feel like as time goes on and we develop a more set routine in our lives, things will change... both situations are good. i'm just enjoying it all right now.

today we're going to the beach, so it'll be nice to have a relaxing, horizontal day after our experience yesterday. i think i'm going to go look through some of my guide books now, because i'm trying to get a better handle on where we are and plot out a map of cape town in my head. i'm so bad with directions.

time to breathe

ahhh. the past few days have been a blur, with so much activity and no time to just sit. which is what i'm finally doing now.

last night our mentors rounded us up and sent us out in taxis to the bars. we went to observatory street, which seems to be where the college campus-type bars are. we had a really good time, went to a few different places and ended up at an awesome bar with a room that had sand as its floor and also a room with some crazy techno music playing. 

this morning was rough, however, as we all did not get enough sleep and were woken up to go to another orientation session. it was fairly brief; a professor from uct gave us a brief overview of south african political history, which was interesting. after that, we went to set up our bank accounts, which is a relief because i feel better having some rand in my wallet. then i went to a grocery store nearby, which was a lot larger than i expected, and i was able to get a lot of things that we needed around here, like dish towels and a wine opener... necessities. the prices are really low for most things.

later this afternoon, a few others and i decided to go into cape town, since we hadn't actually been downtown yet and i hadn't even seen the ocean. a very interesting form of transportation that they have here are the taxis, which are actually vans. there's a driver, obviously, and then another guy hangs half his body out the window and yells and whistles at people on the sidewalks in order to try to attract them so they take a ride in his van. the taxis seem kind of intimidating at first, but it's actually a really great deal, because you pay a flat rate depending upon where you're going - today, going into cape town, we actually took two vans, one cost five rand and the other cost six fifty... which, in total, is roughly $1.10. also, they're so eager to take you that you can find them anywhere. we were just told to not take these at night, but during the day with others, it's totally fine. except that there are no speed limits here, and they are insane drivers.

anyway, we took one of these taxis into cape town and actually ended up going to the victoria and alfred waterfront. v&a waterfront is basically a huge tourist attraction, with tons of shops and restaurants, but it's completely beautiful - on the water, with the city behind it and table mountain behind that. we walked around for a while, and then went to a restaurant outdoors and ate dinner. it was really gorgeous, and it was good to see the city - i still need to take a trip into the actual heart of downtown, but it's so sprawling that it was hard for us to figure out where we needed to go to get there. it was a nice relaxing end to the day. cape town is so incredibly gorgeous. i can't believe i'm actually here.

now i'm finally taking some time to relax. i've had a lot of fun these past few days, but we're all kind of burnt out tonight. plus we were advised not to go out tonight since we have a big hike tomorrow. despite that, though, one of the mentors just came to our apartment because he was trying to recruit people to go out tonight... the mentors are all uct grad students who basically are here to show us around and help us when we need it. but they differ from what you'd expect, as they're always trying to get us to drink. hmm. 

i'm really looking forward to our hike up table mountain tomorrow. for now, i think i'm going to read and then go to bed early; i'm exhausted.

finally in cape town

i'm here, and it's gorgeous. more than gorgeous. it's hot, and sunny, and green. 

we got here last night, and everybody else was out at the bars and whatnot, but they came home pretty soon after we got in so we had a chance to throw our stuff in our rooms and then meet everybody. there are about fifty kids total, i think, and they all seem really fun. last night we went to a few people's apartments to look around and meet people.

this morning we had orientation for a while; we mainly learned about the academics here at the university of cape town - grades, registration, what to expect, etc. registration sounds like it's going to be an absolute pain, but i'm blocking that out until we have to deal with it. then we took a walk around the campus - there's an upper, middle, and lower campus, so it's huge - and hilly. i guess i'm used to a large campus since the u is pretty big, so it's not really a big deal, but i just definitely need to get a better grasp on where everything is. i have a horrible sense of direction, so i'm sure it'll take me a little while. the campus is gorgeous though (i just posted pictures on facebook) and it was great to get out and walk around. then we had a braai (barbeque) on campus - braais are apparently extremely popular here.

we were then set free, so we went down the street to the grocery store. we went to a surprisingly nice, lund's-like grocery store, but the food was still pretty inexpensive compared to what we'd pay in the US. however, they did warn us today in orientation that it's easy to get swept up in the notion that "oh, this is so cheap! it's only two american dollars, so i can buy it!" we need to start thinking in rand, not in dollars, because otherwise we're going to blow through our money really fast without realizing it... so i'll work on that. for now, though, i need necessities. i still need a power adapter, because mine doesn't fit, and i need a blow dryer and straightener. tomorrow we're getting our bank accounts set up and then i can take out more rand to get those things. it'll feel good to have all the necessities so i feel a little more settled. 

tonight we're all going out - our "mentors", aka leaders, aka camp counselors basically, told us that we all HAVE to be ready by 8:30 because we're going out! they're very serious about having fun. so i'm looking forward to that.

my apartment is pretty nice - it's more spacious than i expected. i have a double bed and a fairly large room. the place itself isn't especially fancy or new, but it's clean and has everything we need. oh, except a washer - which i was told we would have, so i don't know what that's about. one of my friends has a washer in her house, so i'll either use hers or find a laundromat. joy of joys.

tomorrow is some more orientation, and then we're going to run a few errands to get things we still need. friday we're hiking up table mountain, which should be a treat - the trip is nine hours total. it's apparently very strenuous, but we're going to see some great views and i'm sure it'll be fun. so i'm looking forward to that. 

for now, though, i'm going to go clean up some more and get ready to go out later. oh, mom, i bought a paper today with inauguration stuff on the cover. SCRAPBOOK!

stranded in senegal

my flight from chicago to new york went as planned, and new york to dakar, senegal was fine as well. however, as we were literally about to take off, the pilot had to turn the plane around because there was some issue with the wings or something... long story short, the flight, which was supposed to leave at 6:15 am to head to cape town, was cancelled and we were told that we would leave the following (tomorrow) morning. 

 to sum it all up, things are fine. actually, more than fine. we were really worried about what kind of hotel we'd be staying in, but we are staying in this amazing resort that is on the ocean and really insanely nice. they fed us all three meals today, and then we just walked around the beach and laid outside by the pool in the sun. there are 11 other people on my flight who are in my program, so it's great that we're all in the same boat. about 7 of us really started bonding today; it's only been about 12 hours but we feel like we've known each other for much longer. we're going to be missing our first day of interstudy orientation tomorrow, but i suppose they'll figure out some way for us to learn the things we've missed.

it's really bizarre, because laying by the pool today i felt like i could have been in florida or mexico or something, when really i'm in AFRICA, sitting with people who 12 hours ago were strangers to me, talking and laughing like this is the most normal thing in the world. things haven't gone as planned, but in a way it's good - i got to see a new country, which is always a good thing. i'll be extremely excited to get my suitcases tomorrow night so i can wear some different clothes, but things could definitely be worse. the view from our window is gorgeous and i'm going to go to sleep to the sound of waves. speaking of which, i need to go to sleep now, since i've gotten about 3 hours of sleep since i left... whatever day that was. i've lost track of time. more later.