Sorry I haven't posted anything in so long, I've been really lazy haha. Since my last post, things have been going well, pretty normal schedule, class in the morning, a few a night, beach on Friday. Last Wednesday a bunch of us went to the UCT v. Stellenbosch rugby game, Stellenbosch are our rivals, and it was at their place. All the UCT-ers gathered at the bus stop to paint faces, drink, and get ready for the 1 hour trip to the wineland decked out in white and blue. The bus ride there was fun, pregaming and chanting the entire way. We finally arrived at the amazing Stellenbosch stadium to find tons of Stellenbosch fans. UCT was outnumbered in fans by a ton, we had about 2 corners of the stadium. The game was a lot of fun, yelling at their fans, but we ended up losing. After recovering from the rugby game, Saturday we went to this Bird Zoo and Seal Island. The bird zoo was a lot of fun, hilarious commentary and jokes, along with the great company made it fun. It was really cool though to see the birds, and even had some little monkeys jumping on our heads. Seal Island was awesome too, there are two of them, so unfortunately this isn't the one where the sharks attack them, but it's basically the same thing.
Sunday we went to this place called Mzoli's Meat, which is one of the townships. They bring out huge bowls of meat for each table and you just reach in with your hands and grab whatever you want, no utencils. There were tons of people, loud music, little things you could buy, and the weather was perfect after accepting the fact that we were going to be sweating profusely the rest of the day haha. We met a couple people on the trip with us and made some new friends from South Africa. After arriving back at school we all decided to jump in the pool near the gym in our clothes to cool off. It was a nice weekend.
The week was pretty normal, just planning for our Garden Route spring break that is coming up soon.
Over this past weekend (March 13 and 14), I learned how to drive a manual car, and on the other side of the road, courtesy of Emma and Ian. They were patient and great coaches, producing a decent driver within 45 minutes haha. After I drove, Ian took a turn, and Emma brought us to this lookout point up on a hill, where we could look out over the entire city, it was so awesome. We also stopped at Lundudno beach, one of the coolest beaches I have seen since being here, with huge waves and a relaxing beachAfter that we decided to stop for a celebratory beer at Arnold's, where we also enjoyed crocodile ribs and amazing prawns in honey and ginger sauce. We were running late, but made it home in time for "brinner"- breakfast for dinner- which our housemates made. Great Saturday.
Sunday we went to Muizenberg beach once again, but it was too windy so we didn't stay there. Instead we ended up walking down this really cool walk along the ocean to another little beach with a built in wave pool, that the waves actually came over the walls and filled it up. That was a lot of fun, although the water was pretty cold. Ian, Nora, and I hung out on this little beach for a few hours, and I ended up taking a nap. We walked down to Kalk Bay after to catch the train home. While we were at the train station this man and his little son came up to us and started talking about how we were American. We talked to him for a while, and heard his opinion on the Apartheid and how it still heavily exists despite what people say. It was really interesting to hear his thoughts and point of view, helping to give us a little more perspective on SA. He also plays in a band in Muizenberg on Wednesday's, so I think we are going to go try and catch a show when we can. We finally caught the train home, and hung out for the rest of the night.
This week should fly by: St. Patrick's Day (the best day of the year) is on Wednesday, so we are hosting a braai (bbq), and having friends over for some food and drinks. Hopefully heading to the beach a few times, but mainly getting ready for spring break, because we leave on Saturday morning!
I hope everyone at home is doing great, miss you guys.
Uncle Mike- the food is fine, pretty normal, only thing I miss is the milk haha.
That's it for now from Rondebosch.
