First Week

Hello everyone! Sorry that I haven't posted in a while, it's been a pretty hectic first week. So here's what been happening since Tuesday: after Robben Island we all went to Brazen for the pub quiz, my team failed miserably even with the help from Aunt Molly. At this quiz you can win free bar tabs which includes food so I REALLY wanted to win but the South Africans know all these weird facts like who won the Canadian Grand Prix and such so we got killed. After the quiz we all hung around there for a bit and then as a group went to a few of the other bars or as they call them here the pubs. Wednesday, we all woke up and made it to class which was pretty boring. Around lunchtime is when I realized that my debit card was missing so I freaked. I ran back to my room and looked for it everywhere then checked online to make sure no one had used it; thankfully no one had. After searching ALL day I decided that it was gone and cancelled it. Two hours later I find it right outside my door in the hallway. Needless to say I was angry. So for the past few days I've been living off my American Express Card which is widely used here so I got lucky. My new debit card should be here in a few days (thanks mom). I'm just going to skip to Friday because nothing else fun happened Wednesday or Thursday. Friday option one and two all had class together up until 1:00 and then we had a lunch break but then at 1:30 option two students had our orientation for volunteering!! I was really excited to find out where and what we would actually be doing. The teacher, Grant is extremely intimidating and slightly scary. He split us up into groups, mine has nine people in it and will be volunteering somewhere called Pebbles. He didn't give us any information about it so hopefully it'll be nice. I am kinda mad though because we'll only be with the kids for 7 days and I was under the impression that we would be with them for longer but I'll take what I can get. Here we also received our course syllabus and all of our homework. This week alone I have a 4-8 page paper due, a few journal submissions, a 30 minute presentation, and two tests. I will be locked in my room all week not having a life, YAY! After that we had a Braii, which is like a BBQ. We had to bring our own meat and drinks, I brought ostrich and Black Label which is the cheap beer here. Ostrich was surprisingly very good! I was soo nervous but I'm glad I tried it. After that we went out to Catwalk which was like a techno club, so I  sat outside with a few friends who weren't into that either. Saturday was by far my favorite day! We went to Cape Point and Boulders Beach which were absolutely gorgeous. First we went to Cape Point, which is the southern most point of Africa!! It was stunning, words or pictures cannot even describe. It was quite the hike up there but it was totally worth it. Before we got there the grad assistant kept warning us about how bad the baboons are and how they love food so I was super excited to see some giant baboons but unfortunately the only ones we saw were when we on the bus and they were playing in the street. We did get to see a lot of lizards and dassies who's closet relative is the elephant even though they're tiny, furry animals! After Cape Point we went to Boulders Beach where the penguins live!! It was amazing, they're just right there in front of you! A few were just feet away, I fell in love. After about two hours there we were walking back to the bus and a few people stopped at the little stands where you can buy some really cool things and can barter the prices! We finally made it back to Stellenbosch and I decided to take a quick nap before dinner .. well that nap turned into me sleeping until 12:30 - 1:00 am so dinner was out of the question. We had a free day today so eight of us girls decided to go on a wine tasting. We went to five vineyards and paid 350 rand which is about $50! It was a lot of fun and really interesting. The vineyards were beautiful! At one you would look out the giant windows you would see the mountains and all the vineyards. When we were driving to each vineyard   I would look out the windows and see these gorgeous houses and vineyards and then see a few shacks, which were very depressing and sad. The gaps between the classes here just blow my mind. According to one of my teachers the black middle class is growing but it still just boggles my mind the way some of these people live. It makes me feel very fortunate. Tonight, we're going out to dinner with everyone so that should be fun!! I uploaded some pictures to Facebook and I am in the process of uploading the rest of Snapfish so everyone who doesn't have a Facebook can see them! Here's the link to my pictures: http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3853573026/a=5151520026_5151520026/


Enjoy!