Disclaimer...

So i realized that after i wrote that blog last night how much it all kind of sucked. Although it is not very detailed and all seems kind of jumbled up things have been crazy since i got back and i just wanted to get it done. if it doesn't make sense or you want more details shoot me an email and i will explain. Overall, i guess all you need to know is that i had a great time and we packed a thousand thing into 10 days. Cape Town is beautiful and you would all love it.

In other life it was immediately back to reality in pietermaritzburg. I have two tests and two papers due this week. No time for naps.

I guess that is it, blogs to come in the future i will try to make a little better, less scatterbrained and written with more than 2 hours of sleep the night before.

Spring Break Part 4...Wine Tour and Beaches and Cape Point

So the last days of my trip were definitely the best. Thursday we went on a wine tour in the vineyards of Stellonbosh. An area that rivals Northern California and France the world's best wines. We started off the day at a vineyard where we learned HOW to taste wine, how to smell wine and how to tell how old wine is. I acted very grown up but pretty much giggled the whole time. It is great to be able to drink legally. At the first vineyard we tasted wine and some really good soft cheeses made right there. Everything was delicious, i was tipsy by 10am. We went from vineyard to vineyard (4 in all) all very modern and learned how to make red wine and white wine. We even went down below and saw where they store everything. We tasted chocolate and laughed a lot. The day was fantastic, including the well deserved nap on the way home. P.S. Wine descriptions are very silly.













That night since we were definitely too tired to go out we met some people in our backpackers who were in Cape Town to run the Two Oceans Marathon on Saturday. Of course we hit it off right away and hung out with them all night talking about running. The next day we all went to this beautiful beach together and played Frisbee and took sprints into the FREEZING Atlantic ocean.









The next day we hiked to the most Southern tip of Africa called Cape Point. The cool part about this place is that it is where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean and since they are such drastic temperature differences. The craziest part is that when we got there a baboon jumped into a car and read some of our Cosmo magazine before running away with a cookie wrapper.

Ok so the next day was my favorite. Did you know that South Africa has a huge colony of African penguins? I didn't! But they are friggen adorable. We drove to see the penguins in a little beach town called Simon's Town were colonies of African penguins were nesting. The cute thing about all the penguins is that they are monogamous so they were all in pairs. We even saw some awesome penguin sex. One of the cool parts is that they weren't like roped off really or anything and you could get really close to them, but you couldn't touch. The best part was the beach that most of them lived on called Boulder Beach. I swear, it should be one of the wonders of the world, it was beautiful. The beach was covered with huge boulders, but in between was really soft sand. If you hiked past some of them you got into the most beautiful area with penguins in the water right next to where you were walking. You can see below my awesome Ariel from the little mermaid interpretation. What do you think?
The next day was our last in Cape Town and we went to visit Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent most of his life with the rest of the political prisoners during Apartheid. I had read his autobiography prior to coming and it was really cool to see the place in real life. We took a ferry over to the island and they explained a lot of it's history. Before it was a maximum security prison it was a place where they sent people with leprosy. We saw the graves and then we went into the prison where we got a tour from an ex-political prisoner. He was there for seven years in the communal cell area. And then we got to see Nelson Mandela's cell. It was all very overwhelming as i realized how most of the events that they were talking about did not happen very long ago. It was surreal, but i am glad i went. Visiting the island really showed how far South Africa has come in such a short amount of time.


After that it was about time for our trip to end. We went out to celebrate by eating Thai food on the water, my favorite. We drove to the airport and flew out at 6.30 this morning. Haven't slept in two days i think i should stop rambling and go to bed. Overall, super successfull Spring Break 09.

Spring Break Part 3. The Waterfront and Table Mountain...

We finally arrived in Cape Town after many days and hours of getting lost. We headed down to this area called the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront where there are tons of ritzy shops to window shop in and millions of restaurants. I touched everything until it started to blur and watched street performers sing and dance and play the bongos. We ate lunch at a picnic table on the water and watched the boats come in. The sky was blue and it was relaxing (comparatively to jumping of bridges it least).



The next day after getting significantly lost again we head to this big mountain in Cape Town called Table Mountain. Thinking it was the normal thing to do to hike up it we started on the trail around noon. Ok, bad idea. Our waterbottles were not full and after reading a few signs we were warned that this hike was NOT FOR BEGINNERS. Oh well, after feeling delirous after climbing what seemed like endless rock stairs-ish for 3 hours we made it to the top only a little bit dehydrated. The view was awesome of the ocean and we took the cable car down. A well spent $5 if i say so. If you are going to hike table mountiain remember more than a half bottle of water and pleast do it before noon. There is no shade. The adventure continues...

Spring Break Part 2... The Bungee Jump

Ok... so i think the pictures say it all, but i case they don't i will describe you the world's LARGEST bungee jump that i did. On the way to Cape Town we stopped at Blokrans Bridge under the highway where i pretty much jumped to my death. The good thing was i was the last one of our group of 8 so by the time, i went i would like to say i was ok with it. It was crazy dangling there upside-down and then you hang waiting for a guy to come down and flip you right-side up. It never really got too scary because you never get that close to the ground and you could see the beautiful Indian Ocean from hanging upside-down. Unbelievable. Do you see that smile? that was after the jump...

Spring Break. Part 1 of 4 or 5... The Drive.

If you look on a map you can see how far where i live, Pietermaritzburg, is from where we went on Spring Break, Cape Town. It is a long long 22 hour drive. We left after everyone had finished class on Friday and drove through the night (on the wrong side of the road!!!) until we got to this city called Port Elizabeth. When we got there around 6.30am the sun was just beginning to rise. It was unbelievable. There were a ton of fisherman lined up and it was so nice to get out of the car. I had a peanut butter and jelly breakfast on the beach as we watched people train for Ironman, which was happening the next day. So many bikers! The place was hopping and it was beautiful, but that wasn't our destination so we hopped back in the car for a couple more hours. We stopped at a few beautiful beaches with awesome rocks to climb on and saw some dolphins in the distance. Then we continued to drive until we got to Tsitsikama Backpackers in Storms River.

Storms River was a really peaceful place, it kind of seemed like we were there a little out of season. The backpackers seemed like a big house with a comfy family room and bar, we all felt right at home. When we got there we played a volleyball game and i passed out in a hammock. It is funny how sitting for hours makes you tired.

That next day I woke up early and went for a hike in the nature reserve, of course i got lost and started singing to myself out of boredom. Oh how i miss my ipod! On my way back up i met up with everyone for breakfast before we went on our canopy tour.

The canopy tour was sweet. We went on 10 different zip lines across the top of the Tsitsikama National Forest. It was pretty cool and actually kind of scary. We went pretty fast i almost slammed into a few trees. It was really cool, but i could only look down when we were on the platforms. It felt like a whole different world because all you could see was trees and green. Right when we finished we got caught in the craziest thunderstorm, I don't know what would have happened if we were still up there.

After sprinting full speed back to the hostel, we hung out and i learned how to play some pool. I was awful, but i actually won my first game after about 2 hours. The night was pretty chill and the people who worked there were awesome. We youtubed for a couple hours watching funny south African rugby clips. I miss youtubing. You can't do it on campus. Anyway... that was the beginning. Much much more to come...

KY Jelly Obstacle Course: The Spandex Party

So a typical Wednesday night does not involve rolling around in watery lubricant and hurling yourself around cones and over inflated walls, but last Wednesday did. As a fundraiser for the rowing team (might i add, best fundraiser ever) we employed students to make teams of four, clad themselves in as much spandex as possible and roll around in KY Jelly.

It was a competition out on the sports fields where two teams of four would battle against each other in tournament style brackets to drink some delicious drink, wheelbarrow through a kiddy pool of KY Jelly, and try to climb through a blow up obstacle course. By the time it was our turn the course was coated and significantly slippery. I fell on my face and couldn't make it over the last wall. But the goop was definitely a great hair gel. We ended up loosing in the first round, but it didn't mean that we stopped playing the kiddie pool. The night was fun and messy and a shower was definitely in order immediately when i got back to my dorm. Gross.

So i do go to school too...

I know it might seem that i rarely participate in anything school related, but you would be surprised, classes here are harder than a state. A lot more homework also. Zulu class is getting tough, we are learning how to say things negatively and instead of just putting a word in front you have to change the verb entirely- crazy language. But i didn't do as poorly on the first exam as anticipated. yay for having a 75% be an A here. i guess things are just marked very differently.

The only problem is that here all the finals are worth 60% of the grade so i guess i just have to trudge through the motions of the semester and then study really hard at the end. However this method doesn't give much incentive for going to class throughout the semester. Attendance in most of my classes is very low.

What else? History class.... he talks like we all know what is going on but i have never heard of any of this stuff before. i feel like i am a huge disadvantage for not being from South Africa. We talk about all these names of Zulu kings and places like they are every day speech. stressful. The good thing is i had a consultation with my professor today ( he was only two hours late for the appointment, typically south African) about my essay and he said it was awesome. which is surprising since i have absolutely no idea what i wrote about. so i guess things are going better than expected.

Political science volunteering is my third class and volunteering is amazing. writing the research papers that go along with the class, not so great. But yesterday we went to Ubuntu and took a walk with the girls through the neighborhood to the hospital. It was so interesting to see what a hospital looked like here. let met tell you... not as sterile as you would think. We also saw that most of the places in the area do not have any running water and there are pumps outside on the corners kind of like a campground and people filling up buckets for water. can you imagine? it is fun for a couple of days in the summer to live like that, but to have to carry buckets of water every day. i really take a lot of things for granted.

Ok... have to go to class. see life isn't one big vacation. just close...