UCT and a few Jam Jars -- Tuesday

Today was fun! Last night Aaron told us to go outside when we woke up.. so we did and you will not believe the view we have from our place! You turn around and there's Devil's Peak and Table Mountain! Right there! Pretty sure we woke up the neighbors we were so excited!
We walked to campus at UCT and got a tour.. amazingly beautiful campus. We like buildings at the U that are 'old' and pretty.. but these are old. Like colonial style old. Campus is huge too... they have lower, middle, and upper campuses. To get to the upper campus you have to walk up hill a lot! I ate a ton on the planes and I feel like I burned it all off.

We had sort of our first class where we got a lecture on safety followed by the best clubs and bars to go to... that sort of stuff. Don't worry, the clubs generally are closed Monday nights, so we'll at least get a night off. We walked by the rugby fields! But there was no one playing because I guess it's exam time for them. We walked down this big hill to get down to the main street and the houses here are so cool. They sort of remind me of houses in Florida because most of them are short but interesting-looking. ALL of the houses are surrounded by gates and a lot of them either have some sort of spikes or barbed wire running across the tops of the gates. Some houses even have guards standing by the entrances.

Diane and Ajith showed us the main street and the most important place on it-Nandos. According to them Nandos is a healthy delicious version of KFC. Ajith even said that South African KFCs are better than the ones in the US! We'll see about that, I'm pretty skeptical.
Eventually we went to the harbor and ate at this awesome restaurant called Primi Wharf. Interstudy paid for our food and drinks (thanks!) so I got some sort of ravioli stuff and a Sex on the Beach. They had these drinks there called Jam Jars that are made up of a few different liquors and come in different flavors.. the best is strawberry. They come in big jam jars. They are delicious. And they have Tea Pot drinks that come in teapots!

After we were done eating, we went to the waterfront, took a group photo and walked for a while. The harbor is so pretty. You can look across and see Robin Island and faroff mountains and then you turn around and see Table Mountain. Everywhere you look is gorgeous! There are a ton of stray cats too...didn't expect that. They look a bit crazy too, like they might bite. I saw at least 8 of them walking around today. They were in the weirdest places, too.. like on the huge concrete wave breakers and hanging around in the hotel parking lot next to a Porsche. As we were in the mall looking for hair dryers and adapters, we spotted Lisa and Bianca from America's Next Top Model... long story short, Nate and Cole managed to get their numbers and an invite to Lisa's 21st birthday party tomorrow night. Haha they were so giddy about it, they went and bought new shirts to wear out. So we'll see how that one goes!

I guess I don't have a lot else to say besides the basics because we havn't had that much of a culture shock yet.. Cape Town is so westernized that there hasn't been anything that is completely different than what I am used to. It will be interesting to experience the huge contrast between Cape Town and the townships, especially when it comes to the disparities in wealth.

That's all I got for now..I'm thinking upcoming posts should be better once we start getting into less touristy activities and my brain starts to turn back on. Until then, sorry for the scrambled mess of thoughts.

We Made It!! --Monday

Well, we got here last night! I have no idea when, though.. my concept of time wasn't working after 30 hours and some 8,000 miles of traveling. We flew from Minneapolis-New York-Dakar, Senegal(refuel)-Johannesburg, South Africa-Cape Town!

First off, gotta tell you that Rev Run was on our flight from Minneapolis to New York-pretty sweet! Sara got a picture with him, so once I get it from her, I'll post it.
Once we got to New York, we had a 7 hour layover so we filled up with food and hung out in the food court for a few hours. The food on the flights was surprisingly good.. minus the somewhat soupy scrambled eggs with wierd mushrooms. The South African Airlines planes were pretty awesome.. we each had a tv in our headrest with our own choice of movies and we got free drinks! But the wine wasn't very good.
The airport at Johannesburg is crazy! We had no idea where our luggage was going but we finally found it, but then there is a ton of construction so we had nooo idea how to get to our next flight. Then some nice porters led us through the airport and then demanded lots of tips so they could buy some drinks after work. We ended up giving them alot of money.. oops!

We got into Cape Town sometime in the evening/night and met up with Aaron, Kate, Sephimo and Ajith. Then we went to our houses...my house is for student housing so its pretty bare bones compared to our other house across the street which is a bed and breakfast. We didnt do a whole lot last night, just ate pizza, took showers to get the plane grime off, hung out and went to bed.

Pictures!Flying into New York

Yay! So excited!

Almost Time To Go!

12 hours from now, I'll be up taking a shower and getting all my stuff together to go to the airport. AAHH! As you probably know (since I havent shut up about it for the last couple months), I'm going to Cape Town, South Africa with 16 other students and our teacher, Aaron.

I get asked a million times what we'll be doing there. Well, here it is: Our class is called 'Cross-Cultural Leadership Contexts of the AIDS Pandemic.' In the mornings we'll be hearing from a ton of guest lectures to learn about the history and current situation of South Africa, especially surrounding the issue of AIDS. They'll also talk to us about the work they do within the township communities. We'll spend most of the afternoons in Gugulethu (a township just outside of Cape Town) working with the Rainbow after-school program helping out with an orphanage and disabled children.

But it's definately not all work! We'll have time for some entertainment, too:

• Check out the Waterfront (Cape Town's harbor area)


• Go on a safari


• Get a tour of the coast (we get to go on a glass-bottom boat and see seals and penguins!)


• Head out to the Winelands for some taste-testing


• Aaand, weather permitting, we'll get a tour of Robbin Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned), go sandboarding (like snowboarding but with sand), shark diving, and hike around Table Mountain (that's where the baboons are..aah!)

One of the weekends we'll also be partnering up and going to Gugulethu for homestays. We get to sort of live like a township resident for a couple days, which should be pretty interesting. Oh man, I'm getting excited just thinking about all this stuff! So there's the basics of what's going on.

I obviously super excited to go but I'm also pretty nervous. Never in my life have I seen someone struggling to survive or stood within 1000 feet of a house made of scraps. I've never had to face a truth like that. There will be a lot of difficult things that we're going to come across while we're there and this blog is meant for me to tell you about those experiences-both good and bad. So enjoy your reading, leave me some comments and I'll see you in 3 weeks!

**I want to thank everyone that donated money.. here's a list of everything that you helped to purchase for the JL Zwane Community center:

• 21 rain jackets


• 15 shirts


• 27 pants/shorts


• 1 jacket


• 200 condoms


• 114 pairs of socks


• 8 bras


• 192 pairs of underwear

This is the pile of donations.. I couldn't get it all in one suitcase (George, you were right), let alone keep it under 50 lbs, so it isn't all coming with me (most of it is, though). The rest will eventually make it there either through Open Arms of Minnesota/Kevin Winge (who does work in the townships) or other groups traveling down there. No worries!