Hi all :)
First of all I would like to apologize for the terrible job of keeping this blog updated … So im going to try and start over ☺ and actually keep up with it this time… sorry agan :/
Here goes…
So it’s been 5 crazy/amazing/epic/wonderful months since my last post.. Instead of making this thing 6billion pages ill spare you and just give you a quick summary of some of the things that I was very lucky to be able to do:
Hiking table mountain, biking through a national park, going to Zambia/Zimbabwe/Botswana for ten days- white water rafting, petting lions, going on two safaris, having a herd of elephants walk across the road, touring vic falls, sun set cruise from our beautiful resort with my best friends, living in Durban for 2 months learning how to be a proper South African ;) .. Having mom & Gary & Lynne Jason & the girls visit for 6weeks taking a week vaca to Cape Town doing wine tours & petting cheetas..then back to Durban for Christmas in the sun, spending New Years in Cape Town – driving to Joburg then Durban then Mozam in 2days… going to Mozambique for a week jetskiing, scuba diving and living on the beach… then getting back to Cape Town Jan 27th to meet my new roommates … (Hopefully you all know by now that I extended my semester to a year abroad)
In a nutshell there you go ☺ would have loved to elaborate more but it would honestly take a year. The photos do more talking that words ever can ☺
So here I am about to start my second semester in paradise. At the moment it is snowing like a heaven in Texas while I have spent the last 3days on the beach … very ironic!! Last semester was absolutely amazing and I am so thankful and lucky that I was able to do so many amazing things while I was in beautiful Africa! As of now I have visited 6 African countries, bungee jumped the highest bridge in the world, rode an elephant, pet a lion & a cheetah, cage dive with Great white sharks, kayaked with whales in hermanus, white water rafted on the Zambezi river, hiked two mountains, had a safari truck be stampeded by an angry elephant, watched a heard of elephants walk across the street in Botswana, watch giraffes walk along the side of the road in Zambia, scuba dive in Mozambique with sea turtles and the biggest parrot fish I have ever seen, been to a proper South African 21st, made some of the best friends I have ever had & be apart of a real South African family learning how to say Pardon instead of What ;) (Thank you so so much DeRicquebourg family, yall are amazing)… im sure that there is more I am just forgetting it because I was a bad blogger and never kept track haha. But honestly last semester changed my life and allowed me to experience things I never in my wildest dreams thought I would do. I really had the absolutely time of my life and am so excited I am able to spend 6 more months here! Last semester flew by and im sure this one will as well, so I am going to try and make the most of my time here! I miss my friends and family dearly but thankfully skype has made staying in touch relatively easy. Recently found out that my sister Brittany is coming to visit in March!! SO very excited for that, cannot wait to see her and show her around beautiful Cape Town.
So far, I love all my new room mates and new kids in the program… everyone seems really nice & our new digs (house) is awesome!! I am really happy I decided to stay another semester ☺ Registered for my last semester of classes yesterday & start school Feburary 14th!! Hopefully the next update wont be in 5months ;) xx
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Kayaking in Hermanus with WHALES :)
Saturday September 25, 2010
Genius me hit the snooze on my phone and fell back asleep when i was supposed to be up at 7am because the bus was picking us up outside at 7:30am... at 7:36 my phone started buzzing again and when I put two and two together I had to fly out of bed, throw everything in a bag and run downstairs where the bus driver and everyone else was waiting on my roommate and I.. Woops!! She overslept as well so it wasn't just me haha. After we got situated we started driving for about an hour and then we got to the Genandendal museum. It was really a cool place still set up from the early `1700s and it was a beautiful day outside! We learned about Genandendal in our Core Class so it was cool to see. After the museum tour they took us outside and we got in these little huts.. pretty cool! After the tour over they took us into the adorable little town of Greyton where we had a speedy lunch because we had to get back on the bus asap to get to Hermanus to go Kayaking!! WOW Hermanus was beautiful! I couldn’t bring my camera with me down to the water because I didn’t want it to get ruined from the water while we were Kayaking! Luckily Arcadia paid a professional photographer to take our photos while we were kayaking so the problem of no pics avoided!! Since I woke up in a frenzy this morning I completely forgot to put a change of clothes in my bag so I thought I was going to have to be soaked the whole way home after kayaking, but thankfully the nice people there had an extra pair of board shorts that they let me borrow... and boy were they stylish haha!! KIDDING! But the Kayaking was so cooL! I have never done it before so it was neat to have my first time in the middle of the ocean with Whales!! We saw about 3 different whales for the hour that we were on the water! WOW were they beautiful & HUGE!!! We couldn’t get very close, but still close enough to see them come out of the water a bit! I was in the front of the kayak doing all the work… just kidding, my partner Reza was in the back doing equally as much work. I’d say we were a good team, did not flip once thank goodness because the water was pretty chilly! When some of the waves would come over the top of the kayak it was a nice little wake up splash haha. All in all the kayaking was really fun & Hermanus was awesome! We walked around the little market after we got out of the water while the second group went out. All of us were pretty tired so we went back to the bus and napped until the other group finished & then we headed back home! What a cool way to spend a Saturday in Cape Town!!
Genius me hit the snooze on my phone and fell back asleep when i was supposed to be up at 7am because the bus was picking us up outside at 7:30am... at 7:36 my phone started buzzing again and when I put two and two together I had to fly out of bed, throw everything in a bag and run downstairs where the bus driver and everyone else was waiting on my roommate and I.. Woops!! She overslept as well so it wasn't just me haha. After we got situated we started driving for about an hour and then we got to the Genandendal museum. It was really a cool place still set up from the early `1700s and it was a beautiful day outside! We learned about Genandendal in our Core Class so it was cool to see. After the museum tour they took us outside and we got in these little huts.. pretty cool! After the tour over they took us into the adorable little town of Greyton where we had a speedy lunch because we had to get back on the bus asap to get to Hermanus to go Kayaking!! WOW Hermanus was beautiful! I couldn’t bring my camera with me down to the water because I didn’t want it to get ruined from the water while we were Kayaking! Luckily Arcadia paid a professional photographer to take our photos while we were kayaking so the problem of no pics avoided!! Since I woke up in a frenzy this morning I completely forgot to put a change of clothes in my bag so I thought I was going to have to be soaked the whole way home after kayaking, but thankfully the nice people there had an extra pair of board shorts that they let me borrow... and boy were they stylish haha!! KIDDING! But the Kayaking was so cooL! I have never done it before so it was neat to have my first time in the middle of the ocean with Whales!! We saw about 3 different whales for the hour that we were on the water! WOW were they beautiful & HUGE!!! We couldn’t get very close, but still close enough to see them come out of the water a bit! I was in the front of the kayak doing all the work… just kidding, my partner Reza was in the back doing equally as much work. I’d say we were a good team, did not flip once thank goodness because the water was pretty chilly! When some of the waves would come over the top of the kayak it was a nice little wake up splash haha. All in all the kayaking was really fun & Hermanus was awesome! We walked around the little market after we got out of the water while the second group went out. All of us were pretty tired so we went back to the bus and napped until the other group finished & then we headed back home! What a cool way to spend a Saturday in Cape Town!!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Spring Break: YOU MARRY ME!!!
Okay guys SO sorry for the lack of updates on this thing!! Mid-terms came up & then we were on break for 10days and then this week I had my first exam & a paper due! But im all finished now YAY! I think my first test went really well too!! Brace yourselves because our VAC (spring break in America ;) ) was definitely unexpected but still had a blast!!! Here goes…..
Friday 9/3/10
OH my word, the 4:30am cab came so quick, considering I had been up all night finishing a paper that was due in a few hours! Luckily a friend of mine turned it in for me! But I finished writing around 3am and skyped mom, gary, britt & lisa & daniel on a conference call and it was so fun! After talking with them for a bit, I jumped in the shower, grabbed my backs and hopped in the cab with the six boys downstairs! The plane took off at 6:30am and luckily I slept most of the two hours to Joburg, but I was still so exhausted from no sleep the night before! After the cab driver took his Jolly time picking us up from the airport in Joburg, we finally made it to Joburg Backpackers around 11am. We met Leya and Kaitlyn who got in the night before. The rest of the group went on a tour of Soweto and the 3 of us girls took a cab to Nelson Mandela square in the city. Joburg was beautiful and modern!! It seems like a really rich part of South Africa too because we saw a sick black lamb and silver rolls Royce parked outside of this gorgeous hotel by the shopping center!! Sadly I was feeling awful so we went back to the backpackers hostel and I took a nap until like 7:30. I woke up still feeling lousy but I emt my friends upstairs for pizza and hung out for a bit! Everyone went to go out to the bars but my throat felt like it was going to explode so I stayed in hoping it would be better in the morning with a full nights sleep.
Saturday 9/4/10
No luck :/ I woke up at 6:45am feeling like I swallowed rocks all night sweating to death. Not the perfect start to vac! The Baz bus was there to pick us up at 7:45 to take us to Swaziland, so I sucked it up, took some advil and hopped in the bus! I slept a lot and drank lots of water and poweraide on the way there. I started to feel a little better thankfully after a while. At 4:30pm we made it to the Swaziland/South African border & got our new stamps yay & then headed to Lidwala Backpackers where we were staying for the night. The place was so cute and I saw my first MONKEY!! Haha After we put our stuff up in our rooms we started walking down the road to the restaurant that the lady at the front desk told us about. A police car pulled over and picked us up because he said it was too dangerous for us to be walking at night :/ should have been a warning sign!! The restaurant we ate at was delicious though and they had the sharks rugby game on so we had a good time! After dinner our waiter called us taxis and we went back to the hostel and chilled for a bit then went to bed. First night in Swaziland was pretty good…
Sunday 9/5/10
I was feeling a little better when I woke up, but it was absolutely gorgeous outside so I took some more advil and tried not to think about it haha. We packed up our stuff and left it at the front while we went on a tour of Lobamba Village. It was pretty cool, our tour guide actually lived in the village so he first took us by the stadium, and then to the King’s museum where we actually learned some cool history about Swaziland! They are one of the few monarchies left in the world! The village was neat to see thought because we just observed people living their normal lives and at the end we went to watch a guy who started this non profit organization in the village teaching kids how to play the guitar and art skills. Him and his female partner played us a few of their songs and it was really great! I took some cool videos! After the tour finished we went back to the stadium and caught the second half of the Ghana vs. Swaziland soccer game! So cool to see Ghana play because I remember watching them in the world cup when they knocked the US out!!! After the game was over and we went to leave, the guards blocked off the exit because the king and his wives were driving their ballin cars out of the stadium!! HE totally waved us too! So cool!! We took a mini bus to from the game back to Lidwala and grabbed our stuff then took the little bus to Sondzela Backpackers in the Milwani Wildlife Sancuary. It was night time when we got there so we couldn’t really see the scenery but the hostel was so cool! We all put our stuff up, claimed bunks and then hung out for a little bit downstairs by the pool and ping pong table, then went up stairs and went to bed.
Monday 9/6/10
WOW.. I cant even put in words how beautiful the view was that we woke up too over looking the whole wildlife sanctuary and mountains!! Breath taking! We hopped on the 7:30am shuttle to go to the grocery store and get a few things! We came back and paid for the horse back riding and right when we were about to leave, Kaitlyn realized that the little bag she had her passport and all her money in was missing :/ At first we thought that there was no way it could be gone, just must be in a different pocket of her backpack. We had to leave because we were going to be late for the horses, so Leya and Kaitlyn stayed behind to keep looking for the passport! In the mean time we walked through the trail from our hostel through the sanctuary… it was amazing! There were wild animals running all around us, (deer looking) not sure their specific names and more monkeys!! So adorable! The horse back riding was absolutely indescribeable!! When we first got there we had to get helmets and then they took us to the place where they had the horses and picked them out for us. The guide gave me Sabuka which means the tiny one in the Swazi language lol he told me this was the perfect horse for me! She was a sweet heart! I haven’t rode a horse since I was so young and even then I think I just rode our pony haha .. But they took us all the way to the mountains and through the fields on the horses and it was so cool!! Saw lots of cool animals, herds of wildabeasts and zebras and enyallas, and much more I just have no clue the names.. but more importantly I have tons of pictures!! The zebras were my favorite to see though! Ah such beautiful creatures!! We rode the horses for about two hours and then went ate lunch at the restaurant they had there which was overlooking the lake where there were HIPPOS with in 5feet of us! So cool!!!! We got to see them eat and then go in the water and hang out haha. Sadly after lunch we heard from the girls and they had no luck with the passport and were still waiting at the police station. Even more bad luck… Today was Swaziland independence day so the Swazi embacy was closed and to make it worse it was also Labor day in the States so the US embacy was also closed so there was absolutely nothing we could do :/ not good!! Once they got back we tried to make the best of the situation and went on a walk through the sanctuary & it was perfect timing because the sun was setting over the mountain and it seriously was one of the top 5 most beautiful things I have ever seen! I got some really cool pictures too!! On the walk we saw more zebras too!! When we got back from our walk we made pbjs for dinner and re-planned what we were going to do until Thursday when the next bus was coming because since kaitlyn didn’t have her passport we couldn’t leave in the morning like we were supposed to, to get back into South Africa. I decided that I was going to stay with her because I know that if that was me, she would have stayed and I would have not wanted to be there alone. Sadly, only Leya felt the same and the others decided that they were going to leave. That night there was a traditional Swazi dance performance going on at the main camp so we took the shuttle to go see it. It was pretty cool to see, very different style of dancing but the drums were way cool! After that we just went home and went to sleep early because there really isn’t anything to do in Swaziland at night.. its exactly the safest place. In the day it’s fine if you are with people, but night time is another story.
Tuesday 9/7/10
Unfortunately the rest of the group thought that it would be okay to leave three girls in Swaziland by them selves so they left in the morning while we stayed behind. :/ As our bad luck continued, we were in a miss understanding with our program director back in the states because when Kaitlyn spoke with here the day before, she was under the impression that the situation was being taken care of and that they would call us when they made her a new passport. So instead of going to the embacy first thing in the morning like we should have, we took the shuttle to the market and then a minibus to the city of Manzini with one of employees from Sondzela. She was really helpful in finding us the right bus to transfer to because there were SO many people and minibuses everywhere, it was actually overwhelming and a bit scary because us three girls were the only white people there, at all. Please, know I am not racist at ALL… it was just a bit uncomfortable having everyone staring at us like what in the world are you doing here… Once we got on the right bus we headed to the Hlane National Park where we booked a Safari!! The bus took about 20 minutes to get there, not a bad ride, I sat next to this adorable little boy who found a digital camera fascinating! He loved looking at my pictures.. it was so sweet! Continuing with our bad luck, we didn’t check the weather before we left so we had on shorts and tanktops and it was probably low 60s .. thankfully the people at the front destk were nice and let us borrow sweatshirts for the drive. The safari was SO COOL!! Right away we saw an ostrich that walked right up to our truck & then a few minutes later we saw a mom and baby rhino!! They were too cool! In total we saw probably 6 different rhinos and tons of enyallas and more of the deer looking animals! We also saw some wildabeasts and wart hogs!! After the first hour, they took us back to the lion section and we drove up on 3 different elephant families!! AHH it was too neat to see the difference in the way the wild elephants act compared to the traied ones that I saw at the park where we rode them on our garden route trip! The last family of elephants we came upon had a tiny little 2week old baby elephant standing next to its mom. OH it was so precious.. hard to get pictures of because it was so small and in the bush a little ways. But our driver told the family in the back to hold onto their kids because he said the mom looked mad. & Boy was he right, about a minute after she got behind our truck and started getting closer and our driver just yelled for us to hold on and he floored it with the mom elephant stampeding behind the truck! AHH it was the coolest thing ever!! At first we were laughing because we were omg this is not happening, but then we were like holy cow we better hold on because if he hits a pot hole we are done for haha!! We got away safely with the elephant on our tail for a good 30 seconds!! What an experience!! After the elephants we saw three female lions chasing something.. we only saw them for a few seconds because they ran off when they heard the truck!! It was way cool to see them though!! Only thing we didn’t see that I was a little bummed about were giraffes.. but it was still an awesome Safari for only $40.!! So im def not complaining!! After the Safari, we ate lunch in the middle of the game park right next to three sleeping rhinos! After lunch we walked back out to the main road to get the next passing bus. We started walking in the direction where the busses were heading and planned to grab it on the way. We came up upon a police road block where the passing cars have to pull over and the police check all the passengers belongings to make sure there isn’t any illegal smuggling going on. As we were walking up to the stopped bus, one of the Swazi police officers asked to see our ids and asked where we were going. We told him and as he looked at our ids his exact words were.. “Oh you girls are American, I’ve always wanted to go to America… Will you marry me?”… No joke with a serious face… REALLY? Ah culture shock begun!! We took our ids said no and walked on the bus and rode thirty minutes back to Manzini where we had to get on a mini bus back to the market where the shuttle from Sondzela was to pick us up! Well ill say this next part was my first real taste of the Africa that people are scared of… Because so far in South Africa we have been spoiled to their modern way of life. COMPLETELY different in Swaziland… As we got of the bus in the middle of the crazy market in Manzini we weren’t exactly sure which of the 200 different minibuses to get on so we stayed close together and started walking in the middle of the chaos of people… once again we were the only white people so the stares were already intact, and then the grabbing of the arms started and the shouting at us when we would ignore them and keep walking.. It was so hard to keep our emotions on ease, one because we were scared to death and two because we just wanted to get home and not deal with this and make the situation worse! I kept it cool until the 10th Swazi man pointed from about a foot in front of me yelling “YOU, MARRY ME?!!” at that point I had no other option but to yell NO GET AWAY FROM ME! And then started crying… so did Kaitlyn (im not the only baby lol) Leya took charge and stayed calm and grabed us closer as we kept walking into the mass of swazi proposers! FINally a nice older man came up to us and asked if we needed help and then showed us to the right bus… Thank God for him. It was so intense and like something from a movie that just didn’t seem real. I don’t know if this sounds a lot worse than it actually was, but to say the least nothing bad happened and as much as I wanted to be angry with the situations its one of those things where you have to remember that you are not in Kansas anymore & you are in a different country where in their culture women are not viewed the same as they are where we are from and having someone yell marry me is common, I guess. Culture shock in full force! We cried for a good 2 minutes on the bus, sucked it up and made it to the market safely! We bought some pasta for dinner and went back to Sondzela and cooked it then sat in the living room and talked with these nice Dutch girls who were med students in the Netherlands just on vacation. We went to sleep really early because after we spoke with our program director we found out that we needed to get to the Embassy first thing in the morning when it opened so we could try to get Kaitlyn a new passport.
Wednesday 9/8/10
All three of us woke up at 5:30am and ate a little breakfast while we waited for the cab driver to pick us up and take us to Mbane the city that was 45minutes away where the American Embassy was located. We first had to go to this photo shop where Kaitlyn had to get a passport sized photo and then get to the embassy. As our wonderful luck continued the passport pictures were the wrong size so we had to go back to the photo place and get different sizes. Being so frustrated and upset because we had no clue when we were going to be able to leave the country we asked a Swazi police car to take us to the photo shop because after waiting five minutes we didn’t see any cabs. It was really nice of him to take us though. After we got the right sized pictures we went back to the embassy and waited in the waiting room until we received any news. The woman told us that these things can take either a few hours or days just depending on how it was handled. We cried again and then all fell asleep in the waiting room chairs. Then three hours later we received the best news and the lady woke us up saying, “Kaitlyn, we got it!!!!” One of the happiest moments of my life! We all cried again, then hugged and Kaitlyn got her new passport and walked outside to grab a cab back to Sondzela. After the rude driver dropped us off at the wrong entrance and demanded us to pay him more money we had to walk about a mile back to Sondzela. As pissed as we were about having to walk, at least we had the privilege to walk through the beautiful sanctuary where we saw three more zebras just eating grass peacefully right by the fence. We were so close to them too! Ah they are so beautiful! We all got back home, took showers then hopped into our bunks and napped until 4:30 because the weather was rainy and crummy so there wasn’t anything to do outside. For a late lunch we made pbj +banana sandwiches and sat by the fire and watched tv for hours. When dinner time came we refried our pasta from the night before and borrowed a little bit of pasta sauce from the fridge and ate by the fire talking to these really nice English people and the Dutch girls from the night before. Staying in hostels is such a great way to meet people from all over the world! IT’s neat to hear all of their traveling stories and about them in general. That night we all went to sleep so happy because we knew that at 7:30 am we were peacing out of Swaziland for good!!
Thursday 9/9/10
We said goodbye to our Sondzela family and then hopped on the Baz bus at 7:45 and enjoyed the hour drive to the border. By 9am we had hugged, RAN across the border, and high fived like 10 times because we were FINALLY back in South Africa!!!! YAY so exciting! We saw giraffes on the the drive too because we drove by a game park a few miles after crossing the border! SO COOL :D our luck at least seemed like it was turning around! By 2:30pm we made it to St. Lucia where the bus picked up the rest of our group that left us while we were in Swaziland. We made it to Durban at 5:45pm and the three of us booked a separate hostel than the rest of the group because we weren’t really excited to hang out with them. We stayed at this really cool hostel called Tekweni. We all showered and got ready and then met some friends that we met in Cape Town who were in Durban on their Vac too at the Hooters in Umlanga. Funny story, one of the guys we met actually lives next door to Gary’s family! Small world hey. While at Hooters I realized that I forgot to take my malaria medications so genius me thought it would be okay to take it with the margarita I was driniking… Bad choice! It was worse than the feeling you get when you take a vitamin on an empty stomach ahha thankfully I didn’t get sick though, just felt like it for a good 3minutes! After hooters we all went to a nearby club called Clapham Gold and had a fun night and then went back to Tekweni and passed out from being so exhausted.
Friday 9/10/10
From our previous days of waking up at the crack of dawn, it was impossible to sleep in. At 7:45am I was wide awake. Thankfully Kaitlyn and Leya were up too so we got dressed and walked to the nearby café and had breakfast. Then weather was so beautiful so we ate outside and enjoyed it. After breakfast Leslie and Ruth (Gary’s sister and mom) picked us up in Umlanga and brought us back to their house. It was so unbelievably nice of them to let us stay with them for the night instead of in another hostel. After we put our swimsuits on and we met the boys next door and they took us to the beach in Belito where we chilled and made sand creatures for two hours. After Belito beach we went to the beach that was close to their house called Westbrook which was equally a beautiful with Huge waves! It was a little bit windy but we enjoyed relaxing in the sun and not being stuck in Swaziland. After another hour we went back to the boys house and they cooked us lunch and we watched the OC for a bit and then went back to Greg and Leslie’s to shower and get ready. They took us to a cocktail party with them, which was so fun. After that Brett took us to a few different bars and we all hung out for a bit then called it an early night because the girls had to be at the airport at 5am.
Saturday 9/11/10
After a long week it was finally time to go back home to Cape Town. Kaitlyn and Leya’s plane left at 6:45am but mine and the rest of the groups’ left at 9am. Leslie made me toast for breakfast and then brought me to the airport and the plane took off right on time. We got back to Capetown around 12:30 and Lauren picked me up and brought me back to my flat! I love their family, they are all so sweet and were so helpful over the break! I honestly can’t thank them enough for all of their hospitality. Once we were back to the flat the security alarms were all going off because we had all been gone for so long that the maid did something with the alarm code and when we opened any of the doors the annoyingly loud alarm just blared. Thankfully it only took about 5minutes of constant EEEHHHHEHHHEHHHHHH before our program director called us with the right code and we fixed it. A few of us girls decided that a trip to camps bay beach was in order so we all put our swim suits on and took a minibus for about 30 minutes to the beach. The weather was so perfect!! We hung out for about two hours then got back on the minibuses and headed to the Rugby game that we got tickets for before we left! It was pretty cool to see the game in the stadium! First time I have seen a game in person! After the game a few of us girls went to dinner and then went back to our flats and got ready to go out. Only three of us ended up going out but we had a great time because the rugby team that we saw playing earlier that day was at the same club we were at. They all had on these matching long sleeved polo shirts so our friend sarah asked why in the world a group of like 20 guys would wear matching outfits out and then they told us they were all on the professional rugby team. Haha they were all fun to hang out with though for the night!
It was a nice way to end our unexpected spring break to say the least! Even though it wasn’t the vac we planned, we still had a great time and everyone came home safely so no complaints! Sorry that was a novel and hopefully ill update these things more often!! Still loving Cape Town as much as ever, especially now that the weather is starting to warm up!!
Friday 9/3/10
OH my word, the 4:30am cab came so quick, considering I had been up all night finishing a paper that was due in a few hours! Luckily a friend of mine turned it in for me! But I finished writing around 3am and skyped mom, gary, britt & lisa & daniel on a conference call and it was so fun! After talking with them for a bit, I jumped in the shower, grabbed my backs and hopped in the cab with the six boys downstairs! The plane took off at 6:30am and luckily I slept most of the two hours to Joburg, but I was still so exhausted from no sleep the night before! After the cab driver took his Jolly time picking us up from the airport in Joburg, we finally made it to Joburg Backpackers around 11am. We met Leya and Kaitlyn who got in the night before. The rest of the group went on a tour of Soweto and the 3 of us girls took a cab to Nelson Mandela square in the city. Joburg was beautiful and modern!! It seems like a really rich part of South Africa too because we saw a sick black lamb and silver rolls Royce parked outside of this gorgeous hotel by the shopping center!! Sadly I was feeling awful so we went back to the backpackers hostel and I took a nap until like 7:30. I woke up still feeling lousy but I emt my friends upstairs for pizza and hung out for a bit! Everyone went to go out to the bars but my throat felt like it was going to explode so I stayed in hoping it would be better in the morning with a full nights sleep.
Saturday 9/4/10
No luck :/ I woke up at 6:45am feeling like I swallowed rocks all night sweating to death. Not the perfect start to vac! The Baz bus was there to pick us up at 7:45 to take us to Swaziland, so I sucked it up, took some advil and hopped in the bus! I slept a lot and drank lots of water and poweraide on the way there. I started to feel a little better thankfully after a while. At 4:30pm we made it to the Swaziland/South African border & got our new stamps yay & then headed to Lidwala Backpackers where we were staying for the night. The place was so cute and I saw my first MONKEY!! Haha After we put our stuff up in our rooms we started walking down the road to the restaurant that the lady at the front desk told us about. A police car pulled over and picked us up because he said it was too dangerous for us to be walking at night :/ should have been a warning sign!! The restaurant we ate at was delicious though and they had the sharks rugby game on so we had a good time! After dinner our waiter called us taxis and we went back to the hostel and chilled for a bit then went to bed. First night in Swaziland was pretty good…
Sunday 9/5/10
I was feeling a little better when I woke up, but it was absolutely gorgeous outside so I took some more advil and tried not to think about it haha. We packed up our stuff and left it at the front while we went on a tour of Lobamba Village. It was pretty cool, our tour guide actually lived in the village so he first took us by the stadium, and then to the King’s museum where we actually learned some cool history about Swaziland! They are one of the few monarchies left in the world! The village was neat to see thought because we just observed people living their normal lives and at the end we went to watch a guy who started this non profit organization in the village teaching kids how to play the guitar and art skills. Him and his female partner played us a few of their songs and it was really great! I took some cool videos! After the tour finished we went back to the stadium and caught the second half of the Ghana vs. Swaziland soccer game! So cool to see Ghana play because I remember watching them in the world cup when they knocked the US out!!! After the game was over and we went to leave, the guards blocked off the exit because the king and his wives were driving their ballin cars out of the stadium!! HE totally waved us too! So cool!! We took a mini bus to from the game back to Lidwala and grabbed our stuff then took the little bus to Sondzela Backpackers in the Milwani Wildlife Sancuary. It was night time when we got there so we couldn’t really see the scenery but the hostel was so cool! We all put our stuff up, claimed bunks and then hung out for a little bit downstairs by the pool and ping pong table, then went up stairs and went to bed.
Monday 9/6/10
WOW.. I cant even put in words how beautiful the view was that we woke up too over looking the whole wildlife sanctuary and mountains!! Breath taking! We hopped on the 7:30am shuttle to go to the grocery store and get a few things! We came back and paid for the horse back riding and right when we were about to leave, Kaitlyn realized that the little bag she had her passport and all her money in was missing :/ At first we thought that there was no way it could be gone, just must be in a different pocket of her backpack. We had to leave because we were going to be late for the horses, so Leya and Kaitlyn stayed behind to keep looking for the passport! In the mean time we walked through the trail from our hostel through the sanctuary… it was amazing! There were wild animals running all around us, (deer looking) not sure their specific names and more monkeys!! So adorable! The horse back riding was absolutely indescribeable!! When we first got there we had to get helmets and then they took us to the place where they had the horses and picked them out for us. The guide gave me Sabuka which means the tiny one in the Swazi language lol he told me this was the perfect horse for me! She was a sweet heart! I haven’t rode a horse since I was so young and even then I think I just rode our pony haha .. But they took us all the way to the mountains and through the fields on the horses and it was so cool!! Saw lots of cool animals, herds of wildabeasts and zebras and enyallas, and much more I just have no clue the names.. but more importantly I have tons of pictures!! The zebras were my favorite to see though! Ah such beautiful creatures!! We rode the horses for about two hours and then went ate lunch at the restaurant they had there which was overlooking the lake where there were HIPPOS with in 5feet of us! So cool!!!! We got to see them eat and then go in the water and hang out haha. Sadly after lunch we heard from the girls and they had no luck with the passport and were still waiting at the police station. Even more bad luck… Today was Swaziland independence day so the Swazi embacy was closed and to make it worse it was also Labor day in the States so the US embacy was also closed so there was absolutely nothing we could do :/ not good!! Once they got back we tried to make the best of the situation and went on a walk through the sanctuary & it was perfect timing because the sun was setting over the mountain and it seriously was one of the top 5 most beautiful things I have ever seen! I got some really cool pictures too!! On the walk we saw more zebras too!! When we got back from our walk we made pbjs for dinner and re-planned what we were going to do until Thursday when the next bus was coming because since kaitlyn didn’t have her passport we couldn’t leave in the morning like we were supposed to, to get back into South Africa. I decided that I was going to stay with her because I know that if that was me, she would have stayed and I would have not wanted to be there alone. Sadly, only Leya felt the same and the others decided that they were going to leave. That night there was a traditional Swazi dance performance going on at the main camp so we took the shuttle to go see it. It was pretty cool to see, very different style of dancing but the drums were way cool! After that we just went home and went to sleep early because there really isn’t anything to do in Swaziland at night.. its exactly the safest place. In the day it’s fine if you are with people, but night time is another story.
Tuesday 9/7/10
Unfortunately the rest of the group thought that it would be okay to leave three girls in Swaziland by them selves so they left in the morning while we stayed behind. :/ As our bad luck continued, we were in a miss understanding with our program director back in the states because when Kaitlyn spoke with here the day before, she was under the impression that the situation was being taken care of and that they would call us when they made her a new passport. So instead of going to the embacy first thing in the morning like we should have, we took the shuttle to the market and then a minibus to the city of Manzini with one of employees from Sondzela. She was really helpful in finding us the right bus to transfer to because there were SO many people and minibuses everywhere, it was actually overwhelming and a bit scary because us three girls were the only white people there, at all. Please, know I am not racist at ALL… it was just a bit uncomfortable having everyone staring at us like what in the world are you doing here… Once we got on the right bus we headed to the Hlane National Park where we booked a Safari!! The bus took about 20 minutes to get there, not a bad ride, I sat next to this adorable little boy who found a digital camera fascinating! He loved looking at my pictures.. it was so sweet! Continuing with our bad luck, we didn’t check the weather before we left so we had on shorts and tanktops and it was probably low 60s .. thankfully the people at the front destk were nice and let us borrow sweatshirts for the drive. The safari was SO COOL!! Right away we saw an ostrich that walked right up to our truck & then a few minutes later we saw a mom and baby rhino!! They were too cool! In total we saw probably 6 different rhinos and tons of enyallas and more of the deer looking animals! We also saw some wildabeasts and wart hogs!! After the first hour, they took us back to the lion section and we drove up on 3 different elephant families!! AHH it was too neat to see the difference in the way the wild elephants act compared to the traied ones that I saw at the park where we rode them on our garden route trip! The last family of elephants we came upon had a tiny little 2week old baby elephant standing next to its mom. OH it was so precious.. hard to get pictures of because it was so small and in the bush a little ways. But our driver told the family in the back to hold onto their kids because he said the mom looked mad. & Boy was he right, about a minute after she got behind our truck and started getting closer and our driver just yelled for us to hold on and he floored it with the mom elephant stampeding behind the truck! AHH it was the coolest thing ever!! At first we were laughing because we were omg this is not happening, but then we were like holy cow we better hold on because if he hits a pot hole we are done for haha!! We got away safely with the elephant on our tail for a good 30 seconds!! What an experience!! After the elephants we saw three female lions chasing something.. we only saw them for a few seconds because they ran off when they heard the truck!! It was way cool to see them though!! Only thing we didn’t see that I was a little bummed about were giraffes.. but it was still an awesome Safari for only $40.!! So im def not complaining!! After the Safari, we ate lunch in the middle of the game park right next to three sleeping rhinos! After lunch we walked back out to the main road to get the next passing bus. We started walking in the direction where the busses were heading and planned to grab it on the way. We came up upon a police road block where the passing cars have to pull over and the police check all the passengers belongings to make sure there isn’t any illegal smuggling going on. As we were walking up to the stopped bus, one of the Swazi police officers asked to see our ids and asked where we were going. We told him and as he looked at our ids his exact words were.. “Oh you girls are American, I’ve always wanted to go to America… Will you marry me?”… No joke with a serious face… REALLY? Ah culture shock begun!! We took our ids said no and walked on the bus and rode thirty minutes back to Manzini where we had to get on a mini bus back to the market where the shuttle from Sondzela was to pick us up! Well ill say this next part was my first real taste of the Africa that people are scared of… Because so far in South Africa we have been spoiled to their modern way of life. COMPLETELY different in Swaziland… As we got of the bus in the middle of the crazy market in Manzini we weren’t exactly sure which of the 200 different minibuses to get on so we stayed close together and started walking in the middle of the chaos of people… once again we were the only white people so the stares were already intact, and then the grabbing of the arms started and the shouting at us when we would ignore them and keep walking.. It was so hard to keep our emotions on ease, one because we were scared to death and two because we just wanted to get home and not deal with this and make the situation worse! I kept it cool until the 10th Swazi man pointed from about a foot in front of me yelling “YOU, MARRY ME?!!” at that point I had no other option but to yell NO GET AWAY FROM ME! And then started crying… so did Kaitlyn (im not the only baby lol) Leya took charge and stayed calm and grabed us closer as we kept walking into the mass of swazi proposers! FINally a nice older man came up to us and asked if we needed help and then showed us to the right bus… Thank God for him. It was so intense and like something from a movie that just didn’t seem real. I don’t know if this sounds a lot worse than it actually was, but to say the least nothing bad happened and as much as I wanted to be angry with the situations its one of those things where you have to remember that you are not in Kansas anymore & you are in a different country where in their culture women are not viewed the same as they are where we are from and having someone yell marry me is common, I guess. Culture shock in full force! We cried for a good 2 minutes on the bus, sucked it up and made it to the market safely! We bought some pasta for dinner and went back to Sondzela and cooked it then sat in the living room and talked with these nice Dutch girls who were med students in the Netherlands just on vacation. We went to sleep really early because after we spoke with our program director we found out that we needed to get to the Embassy first thing in the morning when it opened so we could try to get Kaitlyn a new passport.
Wednesday 9/8/10
All three of us woke up at 5:30am and ate a little breakfast while we waited for the cab driver to pick us up and take us to Mbane the city that was 45minutes away where the American Embassy was located. We first had to go to this photo shop where Kaitlyn had to get a passport sized photo and then get to the embassy. As our wonderful luck continued the passport pictures were the wrong size so we had to go back to the photo place and get different sizes. Being so frustrated and upset because we had no clue when we were going to be able to leave the country we asked a Swazi police car to take us to the photo shop because after waiting five minutes we didn’t see any cabs. It was really nice of him to take us though. After we got the right sized pictures we went back to the embassy and waited in the waiting room until we received any news. The woman told us that these things can take either a few hours or days just depending on how it was handled. We cried again and then all fell asleep in the waiting room chairs. Then three hours later we received the best news and the lady woke us up saying, “Kaitlyn, we got it!!!!” One of the happiest moments of my life! We all cried again, then hugged and Kaitlyn got her new passport and walked outside to grab a cab back to Sondzela. After the rude driver dropped us off at the wrong entrance and demanded us to pay him more money we had to walk about a mile back to Sondzela. As pissed as we were about having to walk, at least we had the privilege to walk through the beautiful sanctuary where we saw three more zebras just eating grass peacefully right by the fence. We were so close to them too! Ah they are so beautiful! We all got back home, took showers then hopped into our bunks and napped until 4:30 because the weather was rainy and crummy so there wasn’t anything to do outside. For a late lunch we made pbj +banana sandwiches and sat by the fire and watched tv for hours. When dinner time came we refried our pasta from the night before and borrowed a little bit of pasta sauce from the fridge and ate by the fire talking to these really nice English people and the Dutch girls from the night before. Staying in hostels is such a great way to meet people from all over the world! IT’s neat to hear all of their traveling stories and about them in general. That night we all went to sleep so happy because we knew that at 7:30 am we were peacing out of Swaziland for good!!
Thursday 9/9/10
We said goodbye to our Sondzela family and then hopped on the Baz bus at 7:45 and enjoyed the hour drive to the border. By 9am we had hugged, RAN across the border, and high fived like 10 times because we were FINALLY back in South Africa!!!! YAY so exciting! We saw giraffes on the the drive too because we drove by a game park a few miles after crossing the border! SO COOL :D our luck at least seemed like it was turning around! By 2:30pm we made it to St. Lucia where the bus picked up the rest of our group that left us while we were in Swaziland. We made it to Durban at 5:45pm and the three of us booked a separate hostel than the rest of the group because we weren’t really excited to hang out with them. We stayed at this really cool hostel called Tekweni. We all showered and got ready and then met some friends that we met in Cape Town who were in Durban on their Vac too at the Hooters in Umlanga. Funny story, one of the guys we met actually lives next door to Gary’s family! Small world hey. While at Hooters I realized that I forgot to take my malaria medications so genius me thought it would be okay to take it with the margarita I was driniking… Bad choice! It was worse than the feeling you get when you take a vitamin on an empty stomach ahha thankfully I didn’t get sick though, just felt like it for a good 3minutes! After hooters we all went to a nearby club called Clapham Gold and had a fun night and then went back to Tekweni and passed out from being so exhausted.
Friday 9/10/10
From our previous days of waking up at the crack of dawn, it was impossible to sleep in. At 7:45am I was wide awake. Thankfully Kaitlyn and Leya were up too so we got dressed and walked to the nearby café and had breakfast. Then weather was so beautiful so we ate outside and enjoyed it. After breakfast Leslie and Ruth (Gary’s sister and mom) picked us up in Umlanga and brought us back to their house. It was so unbelievably nice of them to let us stay with them for the night instead of in another hostel. After we put our swimsuits on and we met the boys next door and they took us to the beach in Belito where we chilled and made sand creatures for two hours. After Belito beach we went to the beach that was close to their house called Westbrook which was equally a beautiful with Huge waves! It was a little bit windy but we enjoyed relaxing in the sun and not being stuck in Swaziland. After another hour we went back to the boys house and they cooked us lunch and we watched the OC for a bit and then went back to Greg and Leslie’s to shower and get ready. They took us to a cocktail party with them, which was so fun. After that Brett took us to a few different bars and we all hung out for a bit then called it an early night because the girls had to be at the airport at 5am.
Saturday 9/11/10
After a long week it was finally time to go back home to Cape Town. Kaitlyn and Leya’s plane left at 6:45am but mine and the rest of the groups’ left at 9am. Leslie made me toast for breakfast and then brought me to the airport and the plane took off right on time. We got back to Capetown around 12:30 and Lauren picked me up and brought me back to my flat! I love their family, they are all so sweet and were so helpful over the break! I honestly can’t thank them enough for all of their hospitality. Once we were back to the flat the security alarms were all going off because we had all been gone for so long that the maid did something with the alarm code and when we opened any of the doors the annoyingly loud alarm just blared. Thankfully it only took about 5minutes of constant EEEHHHHEHHHEHHHHHH before our program director called us with the right code and we fixed it. A few of us girls decided that a trip to camps bay beach was in order so we all put our swim suits on and took a minibus for about 30 minutes to the beach. The weather was so perfect!! We hung out for about two hours then got back on the minibuses and headed to the Rugby game that we got tickets for before we left! It was pretty cool to see the game in the stadium! First time I have seen a game in person! After the game a few of us girls went to dinner and then went back to our flats and got ready to go out. Only three of us ended up going out but we had a great time because the rugby team that we saw playing earlier that day was at the same club we were at. They all had on these matching long sleeved polo shirts so our friend sarah asked why in the world a group of like 20 guys would wear matching outfits out and then they told us they were all on the professional rugby team. Haha they were all fun to hang out with though for the night!
It was a nice way to end our unexpected spring break to say the least! Even though it wasn’t the vac we planned, we still had a great time and everyone came home safely so no complaints! Sorry that was a novel and hopefully ill update these things more often!! Still loving Cape Town as much as ever, especially now that the weather is starting to warm up!!
Friday, August 27, 2010
Getting ready for Mid-term Papers!!
HI all :) hope everyone is doing fantastic back in the states (or where ever you are reading this) ;) This past week has just been full of school & LOTS of reading for my upcoming mid term papers!! EEEKkk a little nervous about those.. I have 3 due next week, one monday night, and two on thursday but then it's SPRING BREAK :) round one for me lol i get another when i get home!! But I'm getting so excited about it! We finalized our plans last night & just purchased the tickets for everything this morning!! Here is the plan:
Fly to Johannesburg: leaves at 6:25 am on Friday the 3rd
Then we would book the 7 day BAzbus pass (http://www.bazbus.com/) here is the website, check it out, Really cool :)
The Bazbus picks us up from Pretoria at 7:30 am on Saturday and we would arrive in Swaziland at 5:15pm. We will be in Swaziland Saturday until Tuesday am... We then hop back on the Bazbus on Tuesday at 7:30 am and go to St.Lucia/ Zululand and we would arrive there at 12:45pm. We found a really cool safari there where we can see the Big 5 and it is less expensive than Kruger. Then Thursday at 12:45 pm the BazBus will pick us up and take us to Durban. We will arrive there at 5:15 pm and stay there until Saturday. On Saturday, we will fly out of Durban back to Cape Town.
:) YAY so excited!! I never thought that i would be going to Swaziland!! I wanted to go to MOzambique so bad but we couldnt fit it into everyone's budget so this was our back up but it still is going to be amazing!! :) I can't wait to go on a safari!!! It is so hard to get motivated to do school work with this trip coming up in a week lol!! But ill make it work!! So far i have been doing really well in school!! I have gotten a 75 & 72 (which are A+ in this country lol, weird grading system) on my first Gender papers & i have gotten a high marks on my Game theory tuts (assignments) as well :) It so cool going to school here though, so different from home :) good different though!! We have been so lucky with weather as well, it's gorgeous and in the 70s most of the time... flip flops, jeans & tank tops! LOVE it :) I am so excited for the warm weather though!!
Okayy, until next time, LOVE & miss you all :)
xxxxKara
Fly to Johannesburg: leaves at 6:25 am on Friday the 3rd
Then we would book the 7 day BAzbus pass (http://www.bazbus.com/) here is the website, check it out, Really cool :)
The Bazbus picks us up from Pretoria at 7:30 am on Saturday and we would arrive in Swaziland at 5:15pm. We will be in Swaziland Saturday until Tuesday am... We then hop back on the Bazbus on Tuesday at 7:30 am and go to St.Lucia/ Zululand and we would arrive there at 12:45pm. We found a really cool safari there where we can see the Big 5 and it is less expensive than Kruger. Then Thursday at 12:45 pm the BazBus will pick us up and take us to Durban. We will arrive there at 5:15 pm and stay there until Saturday. On Saturday, we will fly out of Durban back to Cape Town.
:) YAY so excited!! I never thought that i would be going to Swaziland!! I wanted to go to MOzambique so bad but we couldnt fit it into everyone's budget so this was our back up but it still is going to be amazing!! :) I can't wait to go on a safari!!! It is so hard to get motivated to do school work with this trip coming up in a week lol!! But ill make it work!! So far i have been doing really well in school!! I have gotten a 75 & 72 (which are A+ in this country lol, weird grading system) on my first Gender papers & i have gotten a high marks on my Game theory tuts (assignments) as well :) It so cool going to school here though, so different from home :) good different though!! We have been so lucky with weather as well, it's gorgeous and in the 70s most of the time... flip flops, jeans & tank tops! LOVE it :) I am so excited for the warm weather though!!
Okayy, until next time, LOVE & miss you all :)
xxxxKara
Sunday, August 22, 2010
:) Just living life in Cape Town
August 22, 2010
Okay sorry everyone it has been so long since my last post!! It's hard to compete with elephants & bungy jumping lol but since then i have just been going to school and enjoying being a 21 year old in Cape Town :) Last thursday, the 12th, i started Shawco, which is a volunteering organization where we go to the Masizame orphanage and teach kids either math, english, or life skills. It was sooo cool to be able to be a teacher for those sweet girls, im working with the 7,8,9th graders so they were ages 11-15 .. their schools run a little different with ages i guess but i already love them to death! we had to help them make collages from magazines that described them & i was making one too & I wrote my name in bubble letters, and then they saw and got so excited and asked me to make them all ones with their names on it so they could hang it in their room :) it was so sweet how happy they all were! They are such bright girls.. over 3 of them were fluent in 3 languages! It so heart breaking that these beautiful little girls dont have parents though :/ but i will be with them until i leave in jan. so hopefully some how i can help make their lives a little better because they have already done so for me!!!
Friday, my roommate Kaitlyn, and friend Leya went out for Mexican food at this place called “The Mexican Kitchen” on Long Street, which was AMAZING, I love the food here lol and From Saturday morning until Sunday evening we had an Arcadia excursion to Langa, the oldest township in Cape Town. Saturday morning, we took a 3 hour tour of the township and saw places where people made this really cool pottery and jewelry and then saw the really poor side of the township which was unbelievably sad… I mean I can’t even imagine how people live like that, 3 families crammed into a room smaller than my bedroom.. it really made me think twice about a lot of things I take for granted in life. After seeing that I can’t even tell you how much I appreciate the things that have. The crazy thing is, these people seemed so happy and were excited to see us when we were touring through their homes. It’s kind of ironic the whole “township” tour… but it gives people the opportunity to see a different lifestyle. After the tour we were dropped off with our host families for the night! My friend Racy and I were paired off together with a house mom named Ester who was a 60 year old nurse and her 24 year old daughter Langisha who had the most adorable two year old son whose name was Iza. We had the most fun playing with little Iza, and Langisha took us for lunch and to her friends house and we walked around a bit, then they dropped us off at her cousins house where we sat and watched tv for like 3 hours with a few other of my Arcadia group members. The first night was a little weird because we all thought we were going to be getting family interaction, but it felt more like we were being baby-sat which kind of stunk. But Langisha fetched us eventually and took us back to her house where Ester cooked us a delicious dinner and briefly spoke with us while trying to get little Iza to bed. The next morning (Sunday) Langisha cooked us a great breakfast and then we walked around the township a little more and met a few more of her friends. Ester made us lunch and after eating we were on our way back home. It was really nice of them to have us stay in their home, just a little awkward at times because they didn’t speak English in front of us when they were having conversations around us and it just felt like we were kind of a burden all weekend. But the families were really kind and im sure it was just a culture difference. All in all it was nice to get back home to our Highstead flat!
Monday-Friday last week I was busy doing lots of school work, reading, and writing papers mostly. Thursday, Shawco was cancelled, so that was a bummer but it was my room mate’s 21st birthday so we had made reservations at the fabulous Mexican restaurant Panchos in observatory! We had an absolute blast there! After dinner we took a cab to this club called the Fez in Green point and had an eventfully fun night!! Love all the people here, everyone is so nice!! Friday was a beautiful day outside and we went over to the Mowbray house and had a braai with the whole Arcadia group. We met some really nice South African guys the night before and they met up with all of us at the braai and then all 15 of us went to their house and hung out and had a great time! Still celebrating Kaitlyn’s 21st of course!! Saturday morning, Gary’s nieces Nicole and Lauren (who both live in CT, 2 minutes from me) and some of their friends came to pick me up at 9:45 am to go to the biscuit mill market!! AHH LOVE that place! We all had the BEST food as usual! And did a little shopping around the adorable little shops! After the market, Nix, Lauren and I went to the Cavendish mall and bought movie tickets for later on that night because we wanted a quiet evening in ☺ And there is this amazing clothing store here called YDE.. oh my word I want to buy everything in that store but sadly their clothes are so much more expensive here than back home.. so ill just live with the terrible wardrobe I brought with me haha. Later that night Nix and Lauren’s cousin Kerry picked me up and we met Nix at the movie theatre and saw Step Up 3d haha so corny but great dance movie! It was fun hanging out with them, they are so sweet!! After that I came home and passed out so early.. such a long weekend but had so much fun!!
Sunday- Today we watched the two huge towers that are a big part of Cape Town’s city scape get blown up because they haven’t been used in forever. Not really sure why they blew them up, but we hiked up the mountain to the Rhodes memorial to watch along with hundreds of other Cape Town people. It started to rain on us but we toughed it out lol. Now time to bury myself in homework because mid terms are coming up and then the first of my spring breaks this year! We are hopefully going to Mozambique!! But I will let everyone know when we make final plans!!
Okay sorry everyone it has been so long since my last post!! It's hard to compete with elephants & bungy jumping lol but since then i have just been going to school and enjoying being a 21 year old in Cape Town :) Last thursday, the 12th, i started Shawco, which is a volunteering organization where we go to the Masizame orphanage and teach kids either math, english, or life skills. It was sooo cool to be able to be a teacher for those sweet girls, im working with the 7,8,9th graders so they were ages 11-15 .. their schools run a little different with ages i guess but i already love them to death! we had to help them make collages from magazines that described them & i was making one too & I wrote my name in bubble letters, and then they saw and got so excited and asked me to make them all ones with their names on it so they could hang it in their room :) it was so sweet how happy they all were! They are such bright girls.. over 3 of them were fluent in 3 languages! It so heart breaking that these beautiful little girls dont have parents though :/ but i will be with them until i leave in jan. so hopefully some how i can help make their lives a little better because they have already done so for me!!!
Friday, my roommate Kaitlyn, and friend Leya went out for Mexican food at this place called “The Mexican Kitchen” on Long Street, which was AMAZING, I love the food here lol and From Saturday morning until Sunday evening we had an Arcadia excursion to Langa, the oldest township in Cape Town. Saturday morning, we took a 3 hour tour of the township and saw places where people made this really cool pottery and jewelry and then saw the really poor side of the township which was unbelievably sad… I mean I can’t even imagine how people live like that, 3 families crammed into a room smaller than my bedroom.. it really made me think twice about a lot of things I take for granted in life. After seeing that I can’t even tell you how much I appreciate the things that have. The crazy thing is, these people seemed so happy and were excited to see us when we were touring through their homes. It’s kind of ironic the whole “township” tour… but it gives people the opportunity to see a different lifestyle. After the tour we were dropped off with our host families for the night! My friend Racy and I were paired off together with a house mom named Ester who was a 60 year old nurse and her 24 year old daughter Langisha who had the most adorable two year old son whose name was Iza. We had the most fun playing with little Iza, and Langisha took us for lunch and to her friends house and we walked around a bit, then they dropped us off at her cousins house where we sat and watched tv for like 3 hours with a few other of my Arcadia group members. The first night was a little weird because we all thought we were going to be getting family interaction, but it felt more like we were being baby-sat which kind of stunk. But Langisha fetched us eventually and took us back to her house where Ester cooked us a delicious dinner and briefly spoke with us while trying to get little Iza to bed. The next morning (Sunday) Langisha cooked us a great breakfast and then we walked around the township a little more and met a few more of her friends. Ester made us lunch and after eating we were on our way back home. It was really nice of them to have us stay in their home, just a little awkward at times because they didn’t speak English in front of us when they were having conversations around us and it just felt like we were kind of a burden all weekend. But the families were really kind and im sure it was just a culture difference. All in all it was nice to get back home to our Highstead flat!
Monday-Friday last week I was busy doing lots of school work, reading, and writing papers mostly. Thursday, Shawco was cancelled, so that was a bummer but it was my room mate’s 21st birthday so we had made reservations at the fabulous Mexican restaurant Panchos in observatory! We had an absolute blast there! After dinner we took a cab to this club called the Fez in Green point and had an eventfully fun night!! Love all the people here, everyone is so nice!! Friday was a beautiful day outside and we went over to the Mowbray house and had a braai with the whole Arcadia group. We met some really nice South African guys the night before and they met up with all of us at the braai and then all 15 of us went to their house and hung out and had a great time! Still celebrating Kaitlyn’s 21st of course!! Saturday morning, Gary’s nieces Nicole and Lauren (who both live in CT, 2 minutes from me) and some of their friends came to pick me up at 9:45 am to go to the biscuit mill market!! AHH LOVE that place! We all had the BEST food as usual! And did a little shopping around the adorable little shops! After the market, Nix, Lauren and I went to the Cavendish mall and bought movie tickets for later on that night because we wanted a quiet evening in ☺ And there is this amazing clothing store here called YDE.. oh my word I want to buy everything in that store but sadly their clothes are so much more expensive here than back home.. so ill just live with the terrible wardrobe I brought with me haha. Later that night Nix and Lauren’s cousin Kerry picked me up and we met Nix at the movie theatre and saw Step Up 3d haha so corny but great dance movie! It was fun hanging out with them, they are so sweet!! After that I came home and passed out so early.. such a long weekend but had so much fun!!
Sunday- Today we watched the two huge towers that are a big part of Cape Town’s city scape get blown up because they haven’t been used in forever. Not really sure why they blew them up, but we hiked up the mountain to the Rhodes memorial to watch along with hundreds of other Cape Town people. It started to rain on us but we toughed it out lol. Now time to bury myself in homework because mid terms are coming up and then the first of my spring breaks this year! We are hopefully going to Mozambique!! But I will let everyone know when we make final plans!!
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
GARDEN ROUTE ROAD TRIP!!!!
Friday August 6, 2010
Road trip down the Garden Route starts today J yay!! We planned on leaving Cape Town at 4pm because a few people from our group had class, but after many complications with the rays of sunshine a the Budget Car renal place we finally departed CT around 7:45! We packed our little blue 7 seater suv full of backpacks, loafs of bread & tons of pb & J haha! Thankfully one of the girls in our group knew how to drive a manual so the drive was smooth & we only turned on the wrong side of the road once, totally safe J No seriously, it was not scary at all and such a fun road trip! It took us about 7 & a half hours to get to Buffels Bay where we were staying at a Backpackers Hostel right on the beach!! The drive was dark the whole time there but the stars were unbelievably beautiful!! I saw a few shooting ones too! We finally got in at about 3:45am and went to bed in our room with 12 bunk beds because we had to be up bright & early the next morning!
Saturday August 7, 2010
8:30am came extremely fast this morning!! Sadly all the hot water was gone so I took a freezing cold 2 second shower haha and we loaded our backpacks up and headed to the Wild Oats Market which was 20 minutes from Buffels Bay. It was so cool, lots of different stands selling all sorts of African art, carvings, jewlrey, clothes, etc.. the best part was the side with all the different foods J mmm just infinite stands of any kind of home made delishious food you can think of!! I had strawberry and banana creeps that were made right in front of me.. and they were DELISH!! We stayed at the market for about an hour and a half then headed off to “The Big Tree” which was like a 30 minute drive. We all wanted to go hiking there, but sadly when we got there it was only a 2 minute walk from the car haha so we saw the tree, which was massive but the whole think was over in like 5 minutes. Our car of people decided to drive to the next town Knysna and check out the elephant park J We figured we could maybe go feed the elephants and eat lunch or something! SO much better, we got there and saw they offered a sunset Elephant ride, so the seven of us were not passing that up!! We ate at the restaurant there which over looked the reserve the elephants lived on & we saw them while we ate!! It was so beautiful and peaceful there! At about 4:30 we watched the safety video and then hopped on the bus where they drove us to meet our elephants!! There were 3 of them, Harry, Namib and Tosha!! They are seriously the most beautiful creatures & they have the most innocent eyes! I LOVE elephants now!! They split us up, 3 people on Harry, and 2 each on Tosha and Namib. I was on Harry, the 22 year old leader of there pack!! He was MASSIVE but so adorable! We had to walk up steps on the deck and ho on the ellies which was too fun! Their skin is so tough that they don’t even notice you stepping on them! The ride was about 45 minutes and so amazing! The elephants walked us to their watering hole, and got a few drinks and then walked us back! The view from the reserve was amazing too! It was one of the coolest experiences of my life. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ride an elephant!!!! Once they elephants brought us back we were given buckets of elephant food, some kind of grain pellots, to feed them!! This was so fun because you just put handfuls of the stuff in their trunks and they toss it in their mouths lol Harry was so greedy, we would feed him one by one and he just kept going in a circle to get more food from us haha. After we fed them the manager asked us if we wanted to walk with the trainers and elephants back to their stalls because it was their bed time! Seriously, is that even a question? Haha it was so cool getting to walk and pet the elephants on their way to their beds!! Its funny because they look like they walk so slow but you forget how huge they are so we were having to jog to keep up with them!! After the trainers put them in their stalls we got to watch Tato the baby elephant eat!! Aw he was the cutes thing ever!! While I was standing by his stall he wrapped his little trunk around my leg, So precious, then his buddy put his trunk on my purse and left a little surprise booger for later hahaha gross but hey never though an elephant would use my bag as a tissue!! Haha. Sadly the experience had to come to an end, but when we left we were given photos and a dvd of our adventure!! The Dvd is SOO cool, I cant wait to show everyone at home! Its too long to upload on the internet so you guys just have to wait till January!
When we got back to the Hostel, there was a huge party going on because there had been a surf competition earlier that day, so there were tons of people there! We put our stuff up and joined the festivities lol They even did an auction for the surf benefit so that was cool to watch! One of the boys in our group turned 21 at midnight so everyone was having tons of fun partying with him! Hahah we were supposed to set alarms for 7am the next morning too… that happened .. not lol
Sunday August 8, 2010
Some how we all managed to sleep through alarms but thankfully people from the other group found our hostel room and woke us up because we had to make it to Tsitsikamma in Plattenburg Bay which was about an hour and 45 minutes away to get the hike done before bungy jumping! It was sososo beautiful!! The hike was up a HUGE mountain right on the ocean and half way through we had to walk over a 75 foot suspension bridge over hammer head shark nests!!!! The hike took about 2 hours total, but it was breathtaking when we got to the top! There was this cool porch thing at the very top that let you overlook the whole path and the cars down below as well as the gorgeous ocean!! It was a perfect day out as well because the sun was shining and a nice breeze! Luckily it didn’t start raining until 5 minutes after we finished the hike! I was freeking out because I was scared to bungy in the rain but the place says they bungy in any weather! It took us like 15 minutes to get to Bloukrans River Bridge, where we were about to jump the highest commercial bungy jump in the world, 216m high!!!! I have never been more nervous in my entire life! After we paid they put our harnesses on and we met the guide to walk us under the bridge on this tiny cat walk hundreds of feet in the air on top of what looked like chicken wire!! Haha that was almost more scary than jumping off the bridge!! They gave us instructions and then we waited for our turns to go once we made it to the middle of the huge bridge!! I had no clue that when we paid they put us in order by the numbers on our hand so luck me I had to go second!! Haha I saw the first guy in our group get pulled over to get the straps and bungy put on his ankles and I was freaking out and I figured I would go in the middle, but then the bungy man came over an looked at our hands and did the finger motion “you’re next”… I about fainted haha! But I didn’t wan tot chicken out because I knew I would regret it! It took about 2 minutes to get all straped up and ready to go! Once they had your feet all wrapped up you had to put your arms around the two guys and they hoped you over to the edge of the bridge. Genius me, I looked over and saw the hundreds of feet of rocks, trees, and ocean/river below me and I almost lost my pb&J from earlier haha. I got a few tears and told the guys I couldn’t do it, and they said just look up, you can do this and then they told me to realease them from the choke hold I had them in and get ready to go! Haha it was so crazy I put my arms in a T and took a deep breath and they counted down 3, 2, 1 … and then they said Bungy and I dove off the bridge and free fell for 45seconds!!!!!!! IT WAS THE CRAZIEST FEELING IN THE WORLD!! It is so hard to explain, but I closed my eyes when I first jumped and everything just seems still, and when I opened them I was soaring through the sky like buzz lightyear after 50 redbulls!!!! The craziest part was that it was raining and I was flying faster than the rain drops so they looked like they were standing still!! SO CRAZY!! Haha they whole time I was screaming & after the terror let out I was having a blast!! I hope that everyone bungy jumps once in their life so they can know what it feels like because it seriously is indescribeable.. haha the only thing I can really say is that I felt like a complete bada$$ because I felt like I was kicking gravity’s butt haha!! After the first plunge the bungy pulled me back up and I shot down again just screaming OMG, MOM, HOLY MOLEY… $@*% hahah once the bungy stopped they started to pull the cord back up and a little dude on a different cable came down and hooked my harness up so I wasn’t hanging upside down any more and pulled me up with him back to the bridge… he scared me when he first got there though because I didn’t see him and the whole time I was talking to myself saying OMG that was SOO awesome & Dear God please don’t let my feet fall out of this thing hahahah. He just laughed because as soon as he got there I latched onto him like a spider monkey till we got back to the bridge. After that I watched all of my friends go and had the best time dancing to the music they had blaring!! Once we all finished we headed back across the scary cat walk down to the picture place where they gave us DVDs of our jumps and pictures!! Haha I re watched the DVD and it is So funny! I can’t wait to show you guys when I get home!!! I feel so cool now baha.
We headed back to a different Hostel in Plattenberg where we all got to stay in the same room this time with 12 bunk beds, 1 shower, and a kitchen! WE threw all our stuff in the rooms and walked to a near by restaurant for dinner and to celebrate Reza’s 21st bday. This place was delish, I had a yummy steak and split a few bottles of champagne with the table and had a great time! After dinner we were all so tired so we stayed in and played drinking games with everyone for a while and then passed out!
Monday August 9, 2010
Happy Women’s Day! I love South African Holidays that give us days off of school! Lol We left Plattenberg and headed to the Canga Caves which were about 2 hours away. We took a 90 minute tour of the +800,000 year old caves which were so HUGE and awesome! I have never been in a cave before, but it all seems so surreal! It was pretty warm down there too, which was weird because I figured it would be cold. Either way the tour was really cool and we had a neat tour guide pointing out all the different stagtellites and structures that were over 800,000 years old! So insane, it’s actually where some of the San Bushmen lived apparently! After the caves we jumped back in the car and headed home! We got a tad bit lost and took the wrong highway for about an hour, but it was the best wrong turn ever because we drove through the most amazing scenery, the pictures don’t do it any justice! Mountains, and beautiful pastures, rivers, rocks, adorable little towns, amazing rainbows, and the most beautiful sunset ever. The Garden route was seriously breath taking and I can not believe I got to experience it! After about 30 pb&J’s our Road trip came to an end around 8pm. It felt good to get out of the car, but it was one heck of a trip! I had the best time of my life J I absolutely LOVE South Africa!!
Monday, August 2, 2010
SHARKS :)
August 2, 2010
Sorry it has been so long since my last post, I have been so busy lately & its so hard to find free time! Hopefully I will be a little more frequent with updates! But last week was great, just went to classes, worked out a little and went to a few different bars on Long Street! Nothing super special, but I definitely enjoyed my first week of school at UCT! Still trying to find my way around the huge campus and getting used to the different ways they do things! Mostly all good experiences with school except for today when I got so lost trying to find the building to turn in my first Game Theory assignment… After the 30 mins of running around cluelessly, I finally found the correct building, but I missed class L Thankfully my prof posts his videoed lectures online so def not a big deal J
I had the best weekend though!!! Friday we had amazing weather & I actually got to wear shorts & my fab steve madden gladiator sandals to class J we all took it pretty easy Friday night and just hung out at our mentor Emma’s house in Mowbray for the night! She made us the delishous little desert things called “Fondents” I think… it was like a little caucer of a warm chocolate brownie with gooey chocolate in the middle J haha it was SO GOOD!! & Saturday we were picked up at 8am to go to Robben Island! We rode on a huge boat over to the island which I was so surprised was so big! For some reason I thought that the prison was the only thing on the island.. but I was def wrong.. there are a lot of different places there… Some people even live there & there is an elementary school on it! We saw a few penguins too… but obviously the best part was seeing the cell Nelson Mandela spent almost 30 years in… it was such a cool/sad thing to see… It’s crazy imagining spending that many years in a room that is nearly the size of a closet… Our tour guide was an ex prisoner who actually was in prison with Mandela or as they call him Madiba! The whole experience was really cool & im glad I got to see the island! After we got back we spent the day at the V&A waterfront which is a big marina with lots of ships and restaurants and shops and the Huge V&A mall! We ate at a delish place overlooking the ocean and we had fish & chips!! So good! After lunch, we shopped a little and went to the movie Inception.. which was SO Amazing!! It was funny though because the way they do the movies here is so different from home.. when you buy a ticket, they give you an assigned seat.. so the 3 of us that went didn’t even sit together because we bought our tickets right before the show… woops.. & when we walked into the theatre, there was no one in there which was weird because the show started in like 2 minutes.. but I guess that’s the luxury of buying your tickets early… you have a guaranteed seat! At least we know for next time!! J
Bright & early at 5:30 am Sunday morning the shark van came to pick us up and drove us 2hours to Gaansbaai where we went CAGE GREAT WHITE SHARK DIVING!!! J What a start to shark week!!! It was sooooooo AMAZING!! We went on this huge beautiful yacht that actually holds the record for the fastest time traveling around the world! So cool! On the way out to Shark alley where we did the cage dive, we saw 2 whales and a few penguins!!! When we got to shark alley they gave us the safety instructions & told us to get in groups of 6 and grab wet suits to start the diving J of course our group booked it down stairs & we were the first ones!! Haha the water was pretty cold, but thankfully the wetsuits helped out & once we saw Jaws it didn’t even matter!! Seriously though it was amazing, when we were in the cage a 10ft great white was chasing the chum right in front of us!! & he even rammed our cage!! It was Awesome!!! We were in the cage for about 10 minutes I think… but it was cool because we kind of just bobbed in the cage till the Dive master yelled down when the shark came and then we would grab a huge breath & go under the water and grab the handle bars to look at the huge shark!! After our turn was us we were given towels & a minute of hot shower time! Then we changed, grabbed snacks & water and headed up stairs to watch the sharks from the deck, which was still awesome!! They were humongous!! I think we ended up seeing about 7 different great whites while we were there!! On the way back we saw a huge whale just hanging out blowing water out his blow hole lol I got a really nice video of him too!! I wish that internet didn’t charge by the mb though because im probably going to have to wait until I get home to the US to upload it… but it was so cool to watch!! They fed us lunch/dinner when we got back and then after we were taken back to Cape Town! The driver had a downloaded copy of Toy Story 3 though so that made the ride home nice… I kept falling asleep thought because the whole day was so exhausting, but so worth it!! We finally got back to our flats at about 8pm!! Such a fantastic weekend!!! South Africa never ceases to amaze me J
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