It’s been a few days now since arriving in Cape Town and I’ve loved every second of it. Although most of my time here has been structured around orientation programs, we have had a lot of free time in the evenings to go out and see the nightlife here. We moved into our house on Saturday and it’s been really fun getting to know everyone on our compound. Our compound is called Highstead and it’s composed of 3 different “houses”. There is one larger house with about 15 people that is what you would think of as a traditional house. The other two are mainly just large hallway/living areas with bedroom doors that open up into the large open space. I live on the bottom floor of the “house” with 7 other students and an RA. It’s been really nice to start cooking again, and I know that we will have some fun group dinners during the semester. Our first night at the compound we had a traditional South African meal called a braai. It’s essentially a barbeque, but any South African will quickly deny that fact, with chicken and sausage like links called boerewors. One of our RA’s, Jaryd, grilled all of the boerewors and chicken and all we had to do was prepare some salads. You eat the boerewors and chicken with a spicy (possibly pickled) veggie condiment called chakalaka and a roll. It was such a delicious welcome meal; I don’t understand how vegetarians last here because all South Africans seem to eat is meat! Since then I’ve spent most of my time getting to know my direct housemates and other people living at Highstead. The weather has continued to be absolutely gorgeous with warm mornings and afternoons and clear chilly evenings.

One BIG event that we did on Sunday was the Cape Peninsula tour. We all boarded buses Sunday morning and drove through downtown Cape Town and the waterfront on another wonderful day. Eventually, we began driving along the scenic coastal road that wraps its ways around the mountains. Our first stop was on the water to admire Table Mountain and the 12 Apostles mountains. The mountains are terrific in their size and I could barely accept the reality of them being right next to me. We moved up and around the mountains and viewed all of the coastal towns and beautiful waterfront homes. If I could retire anywhere in the world at this moment, it would have to be in one of these beachfront cottages; there are white sandy beaches, turquoise waters and even a little protection from the Southeastern (the strong winds that plague Cape Town). We also stopped at a penguin beach that day J! As we were getting closer to the park, we saw a penguin just waddling down the street! The penguins are pretty small and are what used to be called jackass penguins (because they bray like donkeys), but apparently Americans complained about their name so they have since been renamed the African penguin. Although we had to view the penguins from a boardwalk, they were really easy to spot (there were babies too!). We stopped for lunch in a town called Oceanview, where we will be spending a weekend in two weeks with a homestay, which used to be a township for “colored” people. Racial terms such as black, white and colored don’t have the same derogatory connotations that they do in the states. Colored is a term that is used to describe people of mixed race. During Apartheid, colored people were forcibly removed from the nearby city Simon’s Town with beautiful sea views, to the inland area of Oceanview. Now, there is obviously free movement throughout the town, but it remains mostly colored. We went to the highschool to have some delicious food (which had an Indian influence) and watch performances by the students. Afterwards we finished our day at the Cape of Good Hope (the most south western part of Africa) and trekked to the old lighthouse as well as all the way to the bottom of the cape. Our hike overlooked more turquoise seas and sheer cliffs, but the pathway was tricky with the wind so you couldn’t always admire the views. This rocky terrain is also ostrich territory, so we saw a view lone ostriches along the way. Once we made it to the bottom we took pictures with the Cape of Good Hope sign and loaded up onto the bus to head back home. We were all exhausted so we made sure to sleep all the way back home. Since then, nothing much has happened except for more boring orientation talks…but fun free time J

On a side note, yesterday was Mr. Mandela’s 93rd birthday! People here don’t call him Mandela, however, and instead call him by Mandiba, which I think is his Afrikaans name. We missed the festival yesterday because of orientation, but are thinking about going to the second day of the festival down at the waterfront in the evening.

I have preregistration today, which is essentially just getting clearance to sign up for courses on Friday. I don’t think any of us are ready to start classes so soon; honestly, I’ve been trying to keep that thought in the back of my mind for some time now because it’s just been so much fun enjoying the scenery.  I’ll be adding pictures to the previous facebook album, so just click on the link in the last post and you should be able to see pictures soon!