I made it to Cape Town safe and sound, moved in, and start class on Monday, which I thought meant it was time for the obligatory long study abroad email. If this is too long, feel free to skim or just look at the pretty pictures, but email me back and let me know what you're up to!
For the final dinner of CIEE orientation we went to a restaurant called Marco's African Place, which apparently is legendary for good African food and music. Between the end of entrees and the beginning of the dessert the live band really began to kick it up, and we slowly started standing up and dancing a little bit. As they kept playing it became a full on dance party, moving tables out of the way, and more people coming in from other sections of the restaurant. The whole place of maybe a couple hundred people dancing like crazy to this great live music. And we were in the center, open area, so we could see all around. It was a very cool experience.
On the first day of university orientation, as opposed to CIEE program orientation, they took us on an all day, 8am to 6pm tour of the Cape Peninsula, from the downtown of Cape Town to the Cape of Good Hope.
First we drove through down town Cape Town while our tour guide pointed out some cool stuff. Theres a building that used to be used as a slave lodge, and is now a museum, theres a big garden that used to be owned by the East Dutch Trading Company, and old buildings with cool architecture, and lots of place to walk around.
Then we drove through the 'really nice' area of Cape Town. I think its about the equivalent of Malibu in LA because its houses built up on the hill looking over really dramatic views of the coast, with ridiculous contrations to take the residents from their driveways to their houses and from their houses down to the beach. Around there we stopped to walk around, and it was just a beautiful beach. They actually build into the beaches little concrete walls in some places that trap the water to form small pools for swimming in, so that you don't have to battle big waves and rocks. Pretty creative solution, it seems.
Our drive continued around this windy road along the coast that was both pretty and nerve wracking.
We stopped for lunch in one of the townships along the way. The townships are left over from apartheid. The one we stopped in was called Ocean View. A couple decades ago, all the residents lived in another area called Simons Town, and were forced to evacuate because the white rulers had decided that God told them that land was only for white people. So we had lunch in their community center, and they had some of the kids who hang out there perform for us. A few of them were amazing break dancers, which went over really well. They eat a lot of meat here, so we had chicken and lamb in two different kinds of stew/curry-like sauces.
Then we finally went to the Cape of Good Hope. It is the most south-westernly tip of Africa. First we climbed up a path along the craggy coast up to the light house, where you can see off the coast of Africa, and they have a cool sign post telling you how far away different cities are. For example, Beijing and New York City were about equadistant away, and the South Pole was half as far away. Then we walked back down and along the other side of the cape, where we were basically walking along the top of cliffs overlooking the beach. There were these really long steep steps that went down to the beach, but I didn't have time to explore. Part of the path was wood planks lined with plans, which made me think of the dunes on the Jersey shore holding the beach in.
We slowly wandered back, and drove through a town that has a ton of penguins (yes! penguins in Africa!). We were supposed to stop and see the penguins, but we ran out of time, so we're supposed to go back another time. We did, however, see baboons, and we saw ostriches... on the beach.
Today, I had the honor of experiencing UCT bureacracy. Registering for classes is a multiday experience. On Wednesday, we 'pre-registered', which entailed standing in a number of lines (I'm sorry, queues), to ensure that yes, you had paid your fee, and yes, you indeed have a study visa, etc, and waiting for two people, on slow computers, to enter your data into their system (this point becomes important later in the story).
Today (Friday) was actual registration. First I woke up an hour and a half before my registration time in order to get signatures to pass out of pre-reqs. We were warned this would be difficult, but despite not finding the Head of Department, because he decided not to come in today, I was able to easily substitute the signature of two of my potential professors, who were actually quite nice.
Then you stand in yet another queue to fill out your paperwork and then sit down with an advisor. Lucky yet again, this 'advisor' turns out to be the professor for another one of my classes, and also quite nice. Its a class on Film & History and I told him some of us were thinking about going to catch part of the film festival (www.encounters.co.za) tonight, so I think I'm on his good side already.
So I think I'm doing excellently. Then I go stand to have someone enter my data into the computer and hit a wall, because I'm not in the system. This now means I have to go to the Humanities Department, suck up to the secretaries, and then watch as they close the window because theyre on lunch, even though they have all my paper work and hope it doesnt get lost. I then decided to head down to the international office to see if I could rush anything along, and apparently, the woman who theoretically entered my information into the system on Wednesday actually signed my forms without hitting 'send' or 'enter' or whatever, which was remedied.
I had to stop by my residence, and Felicity, the Asst. Director for my program was about to head over there, so she gave me a ride, but this included many stops and errands along the way. Long afternoon later, the woman in Humanities tells me I should be in the system and to just check back on Monday. So I'm crossing my fingers.
I've been starting to meet the regular UCT students who live in the dorm with me but so far theyre not all back from winter break yet. So far so good, though.
Lastly, the weather... It's not so much that I'm not used to cold or to rain or even to today's hail, because despite running away from seasons for three years, I still remember... Its that the weather changes every twenty minutes. Sunshine in the morning does not mean there will not be vertical rain later in the day. Last night looked like a hurricane, because theres a palm tree outside my door, and it looked exactly like the shots the weather channel shows of Florida. On the plus side, though, the frequent switch between sunshine and rain results in lots of rainbows. I think Ive seen more this week than previously in my life.
Now, tell me what's going on back home! Apparently everyone thinks that since I'm gone, only Africa is interesting, but I want to know what's going on back home, too. (And if you want to give me any crib notes on the news, that would be appreciated, too).
So long! Good wishes to everyone!
- Lauren
Album thus far, and should be updated as possible... facebook album
PS Im checking USC & Gmail, but soon I'll have a UCT email, and that's easiest, though I'll be fwd-ing USC & gmail to UCT. Should have internet in my room in a week or two.
