So I caved in with the blogging. I feel so very cheesy, but it's easier than typing the same thing 30 times in emails, so work with me here.
I've only been here since Thursday night, and I could already fill up pages of space, so I'll Reader's Digest my time here so far.
Basically it's kind of amazing in this country. It's winter here, so the mornings and evenings are very chilly, but the days are hot and sunshiny. We toured the southern peninsula already and saw a natural African penguin colony, wild baboons and ostriches, and the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point, where supposedly the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. I've never seen clearer ocean water in all my life!
We're living right outside of UCT in a community called Rondebosch. The main part of Cape Town is on the other side of Table Mountain, which we can see from our apartment window. It's a pretty quick train ride around the mountain, but for now we're just trying to get to know our own little area. We've grocery shopped and made dinner and have been real grown ups for about 2 days now, so we feel pretty cool.
I've only been here since Thursday night, and I could already fill up pages of space, so I'll Reader's Digest my time here so far.
Basically it's kind of amazing in this country. It's winter here, so the mornings and evenings are very chilly, but the days are hot and sunshiny. We toured the southern peninsula already and saw a natural African penguin colony, wild baboons and ostriches, and the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point, where supposedly the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. I've never seen clearer ocean water in all my life!
We're living right outside of UCT in a community called Rondebosch. The main part of Cape Town is on the other side of Table Mountain, which we can see from our apartment window. It's a pretty quick train ride around the mountain, but for now we're just trying to get to know our own little area. We've grocery shopped and made dinner and have been real grown ups for about 2 days now, so we feel pretty cool.
A few answers to things I've been asked about a million times, just in case you were tempted to ask:
--The flight was a total of 20 hours in the air, 17 of those being from Atlanta to Johannesburg, which actually wasn't bad at all.
--Money here is in "rands," and the conversion rate is about R7=$1.
--Cape Town is 6 hours ahead of Boston and 7 of Mississippi and everyone else can do the math from there.
--Yes, they all have funny accents; no, I can't understand a word I'm being told about 50% of the time; and yes, even the Africans notice the Southern accent.
--The plan for elephant riding is in the works.
We're still in the orientation process right now, getting ready for classes and whatnot, but we've got a few cool things planned for the next week or so: hiking up Devil's Peak of Table Mountain, dinner at Mzoli's, and maybe some casual shark cage diving. No big deal or anything.
Oh, fun fact: today is Nelson Mandela's bday. Old guy is 93 and still kickin. #baller.
Pictures soonish!
PS: If you just happen to have some old awesome VHS movies lying around, you should probably send them to me. Just sayin.
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