Rainy Monday

Hello all.
For those of you who've been asking, I am somewhat recovered from my cold, although it's still hanging on. The extremely rainy weather today and yesterday ptobably didn't help. So where did I leave off... Jenny and I went for a drive along Chapman's Peak on Satrurday, which is along a cliff and probably one of the most scenic areas. We took abuot a hundred pictures. After that we headed through Noordhoek and got some info so that we can go horseback riding later in the trip. Then we headed down to Simon's Town and Boulder Beach to see the penguins. They make these insane loud sounds like donkeys. All the baby penguins were loosing their baby feathers and it basically looked like they were all afflicted with some sort of horrible disease. We stayed in Saturday night as we were a little tired from driving around so much (actually just Jenny doing the driving. I'm in charge of teh radio :) ). On Sunday morning we picked up Kende and went to Denise's house, which is where Jenny used to board before she moved in to this house. She made us this gigantic brunch. Afterwards, the three of us headed out to the craft market at Greenpoint. I picked up quite a few things (yay presents). It started to rain while we were there, which made for a good negotiating point as people probably weren't going to sell that much. We got a little wet, but it was fun. Sunday evening Jenny and I went down to the waterfront (the part that's indoors) as it was pouring rain. Today we stayed in for a while as it was still pouring (and when I say pouring I mean the rain is actually flying in all directions and you can barely see anything). Then we headed down to the waterfront and went to the Two Oceans Aquarium, which was amazing. We got to see the seals being fed and all kinds of wildlife. We went over to Long St. for a while to check out some stores, but now we're up at campus to get some time online. We're going to be headed out on a little road trip tomorrow up to Clanwilliam (along the West Coast) and coming back on Friday. Hopefully lots of you will post messages in the meantime!!! I just sent out a bunch of postcards, but I need some other addresses. Dad could you send me yours (or Jo or Annie) and can someone from MCCS send me the address to the call centre? How was the concert Annie? Jo- sorry I can't bring you any wine. We're limited to how much we can bring into the country and I'm using my allowance for me! Val- any updates on plans to be in the UK?

Having a car is wonderful

Well it has definitely been an exciting two days. Yesterday was all about the food. I met Jenny at UCT after her class was over and we had lunch at the food stand that is run by Hare Krishnas. It's vegan and amazingly yummy. They give you these big pieces of dairy free carrot cake for dessert that is easily the best I have ever had. The whole meal costs the equivalent of like $4. We hung out on campus for a while to use the computers and visited with Jenny's friend Kende during his office hours. He works in Jenny's program (he's studying something else) and is a visiting student from Ethiopia. Sometime next week I think we're all going to go for Ethiopian food nearby. He's really fabulous and lots of fun. Afterwards we came home to wait for the car rental place to drop off the car, which took forever. Everything here works on a very slow clock. When we finally got the car (it's a Daihatsu), we picked up Jenny's friend Sadie and went to the African Cafe for dinner. It's this very touristy restaurant where the serve dishes from all across Africa. Each different room is decorated based on different tribes or themes. There are 16 different courses and you get served some of each. Pretty much everything was fantastic. After you are served each thing, you can order more of anything you want, however you basically never want to eat again from all the food. There is also entertainment, with singers and people with drums who come through to the different rooms. All in all a very enjoyable experience. Now that we have the car, we decided to head for wine country today. It was pouring rain here when we left, but fortunately rather sunny where we were headed (general Stellenbosch, Paarl area). If yesterday was about food, today was definitely about drinking and driving :) . In total we visited 5 vineyards, which means 25-30 wine tastings. I may have been slightly tipsy at certain points. I got a couple of really good bottles of wine for less than it would cost me to get some Cochon Mignon at Provigo in Montreal. We also got to do some cheese tasting and I picked up some really yummy cream cheese for breakfast that has fresh apricot mixed in. South African wines are fantastic. It's fairly easy to get a sweeter wine (which are the ones I like) because of the length of the growing season. We tried all sorts of different things. There was even one (that I really did not enjoy) that had a sort of lingering flavour of bacon. In between our wine tasting excursions and whilst sobering up a little, we headed towards the Taal monument. Here, that name translates to mean the Africaans Language Monument. Basically, It's a large phallic statue representing white supremacy that sits on top of a mountain for the entire countryside to see. The whole idea was rather strange. We took a wrong turn at one point and drove along a poorly paved road, which we took to mean that the government was making a statement and not fixing the roads to get to the racism monument, when really we had just turned left instead of right. Once we got there it was actually in a really beautiful area in a nature reserve with an amazing view of the wine valley. So far today has been the highlight of the trip, but that may be partially a result of the large amounts of wine consumed. (Just a side note, the Hotel that runs the wine tours in the area is called the Stumble Inn! Hehe) We got some great Indian food for dinner and are pretty much just vegging tonight, so I thought I'd let everyone know what's going on!

Sunday May 22nd: Jenny and I had been running around like crazy and I came down with a cold, plus the weather was kind of icky, so we just stayed in for the day. I read and Jenny did some work on her assignments. Nothing overly exciting. On Monday Jenny and I ran around and did a bunch of errands on campus and around town (I may or may not have stopped by the gift shop at the rugby stadium). We had to stop by the med school campus for Jenny to pick up some readings, so we also went to Obs (Observatory) which is nearby. It's this cool area with all these sort of beatnik shops and restaurants. We stopped for lunch and had some pizza, which is not at all the same, but still yummy. We also went in to this store that sells all sorts of nuts, dried fruits, spices, grains, as well as Dutch pastries (yum!). I I picked up some caramelized macadamia nuts, which were unfortunately not nearly as good as they sounded. On Tuesday, Jenny had an all day class so I basically stayed in bed all day, getting up briefly to watch E! True Hollywood Story as I pretty much felt like my sinuses were going to explode. Today was much more interesting. I wasn't feeling quite 100% yet, but better enough to go out without horking on everyone. Jenny and I took a minibus into town and went to the District 6 Museum. It gives a history of this really interesting part of Capetown which I am sure I will not explain properly, however I will try to give a basic idea. A lot of different cultural groups were living in this neighborhood and getting along relatively well, which wasn't happening in other areas. During Apartheid, all blacks and coloureds were forced out of their homes and into different areas based on race. This area was preserved to a certain extent and a museum was established over the past few years. The whole situation is much more complicated and interesting, but that's my brief and probably somewhat inaccurate explanation. If you're interested, you can check out their website at www.districtsix.co.za . Afterwards we went to the shopping centre to catch a movie and get some lunch. I also managed to pick up some cold medicine which I had been previously unable to do and got sinutabs as they were the only non-sketchy looking drugs I could find. I subsequently ended up stoned out of my tree and sort of walking around aimlessly bumping into things. I got a giant coke and perked up a bit before the movie. We went to see Red Dust, which is a a South African production with Hilary Swank about the post-Apartheid Truth and Reconciliation trials. It was absolutely amazing and I highly recommend that anyone see it if it comes to Canada or it eventually pops up on DVD. It was a really interesting take on the political situation here and really moving. Anyways, right now we're just hanging out here watching TV. We are getting our car tomorrow, so we'll be able to go out in the evenings. Keep the postings coming! I love hearing from all of you!!!

Val: Any chance you're going to be in London on June 11th?
Leslie: Were you able to mail that letter to the states that I had left?
Annie: I want boy related news.

To anyone who is emailing me at hotmail, it takes a million years to access it so if you can, try and post here. It's much much quicker for me to access.

Lazy Sunday

So this is my next update:
May 19th: Yay! My birthday! Jenny and I went down to the waterfront for the day. We tried to go to Robben Island, but the ferry was sold out. We ended up walking around and looking around at all the shops and the interesting sights. Along with happy hour, they also have something called cake hour, which is absolutely fabulous. We had some cake and tea on a terrace and watched the buskers. I picked up a great cd. After we got back from the waterfront, we set up for a BBQ (which here is called a braai). Some of Jenny's friends came over and we all grilled in the yard. Ostrich meat was absolutely amazing, I highly recommend it. It's like eating a big juicy steak except is has no fat or cholesterol. All in all it was a great time.
May 20th: The weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we decided that it was a good day to go to the beach. We went to Camp's Bay, which is the big popular beach near here. During the summer it's completely packed, but this time of year it's pretty much completely empty. We sunned ourselves on the sand and I decided to go in the water, which everyone else seems to think makes me crazy. The water is absolutely freezing cold and there are sharks, but I had a good time. After that we went back to the waterfront to catch the ferry to Robben Island as we had reserved tickets earlier that day. All of the tours are run by former prisoners. The guy who was doing our bus tour was incredible and completely hilarious. He had been the Secretary General for the NAC and had been imprisoned on the island during Apartheid. We got to see the different prisons and buildings around the island, as well as tons of wildlife. There were a few different endangered species (we saw some Oyster Catchers, but I can't remember the names of the others). After the bus tour of the island we get a tour of the prison and we got to see the cell where Nelson Mandela was kept. The whole thing was really intense but totally amazing. After the tour was over we got to go see the penguins!!! They are so cute but apparently if you try and pet them they bite and could take off a finger. It's sort of bizarre as they live in bushes and you sort of assume that penguins live in cold places, but I guess not. We met Jenny's roommates Jason and Truda at the harbour and they gave us a ride back.
May 21st: We got up really this morning as we had to walk up to the UCT campus to take a shuttle to Jenny's volunteer project in the townships (Nyanga). It was the women's graduation today and they all came and got their certificates and there were all sorts of speeches and stuff. It was really amazing to see that this program is making a difference in people's daily lives. It's sort of a community centre that is set up in one of the townships and they offer programs such as HIV/AIDS education, health, business, entrepreneurship, and a whole bunch of other stuff. The women brought their children and there was food and lots of picture taking. After we got home we came and relaxed a bit for a while. Jenny used board with this woman named Denise and she came and picked us up and we went for high tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel. It's probably the best hotel in Africa and is ranked as one of the best hotels in the world. It's very old colonial. There's this huge buffet of finger sandwiches and tarts and cakes with fresh berries and fresh whipped cream. It's basically enough food that you'd never eat again. Each person gets their own teapot (like actually a large one) and there is a huge selection of different teas. Very yummy. Afterwards we drove up to Signal Hill and saw the amazing view. I of course took plenty of pictures. We drove back through Camp's Bay to watch the most beautiful sunset ever over the ocean and Denise took us for cocktails at a very posh restaurant overlooking the beach. I had a very yummy Mandarin Mojito (Ne, this is definitely the next drink we have to make. You'll love it). We were generally pretty tired after the long day so we just came back home to hang out. We are currently watching the Eurovision Song Contest (Holland didn't make it into the finals. We're not a musical folk). My favourite so far is the Moldovian Ska. I'm hanging out and using Jenny's laptop. I'll try and post this later if I can. We're hoping to go to the craft market tomorrow at Greenpoint, but it looks like it might be raining, so who knows. I will attempt to respond to people's postings, but the internet at the house is slow so I might not have time to read them and post. I definitely will though next time I go up to campus with Jenny.

Recovered from Jet Lag (hopefully)

Well I'm back at campus with Jenny again this morning. We're going to get lunch here and then I'm going with her to her volunteer project in the townships. Yesterday I went into town with Jenny and he friend Amy. Amy's in the same program and we stopped by the place where she works. It's an AIDS/health clinic (it's called Walla Nani, which is the Xhosa word for embrace), but they also have a sort of small craft market for job creation. All of the money made actually goes to the people making the crafts (Dad, I got you some pamphlets, as they sell stuff online and I thought you'd be really interested). After that we went to Green Market Square, which is a rather large craft market. It was definitely an interesting experience. If you even glance at anything on one of the tables or make a half second eye contact you get a sales pitch. It's sort of overwhelming but you get used to it very quickly. For anythingyou want to buy they tell you it's about twice as much as it's worth (if you have an American accent) and then you have to haggle for the price. I picked a few interesting things, but I'm trying not to spend a bunch of money right away. We drove around the cape on the way home as driving through town during rush hour is insane. It was rather windy and the waves were at least 15 feet high and absolutely amazing. We got to see some of the really exclusive communities (Brad Pitt's new house) which are all really beautiful and right on the ocean. We went to a restaurant called the Fat Cactus, which is African style Mexican and was actualyl very good. The portion sizes here are actually normal and you don't feel like you're going to die from eating a giant plate of nachos. We also got some frozen yogurt at this really cool place near where Jenny lives on the way home. After that we pretty much just stayed in as it's not safe to be out at night without a car and Amy had to go home. Jenny and I got to watch Survivor though!!! It's a season behind here but I still got my fix. They actually have way more American TV here than in Canada. It was a big rain storm over night and is probably the most insane rain I have ever seen. It's pouring like crazy, but it's in every direction because of the wind. We went and did some groceries this morning as we're going to have a mini-party for my birthday tomorrow. We got some ostrich meat that we're going to bbq! We also got to take the mini-bus the other day, which is completely bizarre. It's basically just this large van/taxi that drives around with a guy yelling out the window for people to get on. Then you cram as many people as possible in and it makes different stops. It's really economical at like R3 (like 60 cents) and will take you to a lot of different areas. It is definitely bizarre though and I would have been scared out of my mind if I weren't with someone who knew what they were doing. That's pretty much it for now. Gonna go get some lunch. Mmmmmm....samosas.

Arrived!

Well I've arrived in Capetown in one piece. I am at the University computer lab while Jenny is in a meeting about her community project. It looks like I might be going with her this Wednesday to help out or just observe. The flight was good; it was probably the best travelling experience I've had so far. The flight to London wasn't bad, but I didn't get much sleep. Some lady yelled at me for changing into my sweatpants in the bathroom at Trudeau airport and started banging on the stall door and screaming. Where did she expect me to change? The middle of the terminal? Rob Lowe was at the gate next to mine, but that's about teh extent of the excitement for that leg of the trip. The first flight was pretty uneventful, I didn't get a huge amount of sleep though. I got into Heathrow at about 8 am on Sunday morning, with all my bags checked all the way through to Capetown. I took the tube into meet Jerome at Picadilly Circus. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Not a cloud in the sky and about 20 degrees. We just happened to come across the changing of the guard as it was starting and saw the whole thing, which was cool. Instead of taking a tour bus (which is ridiculously expensive like everything else in London) we decided to walk and saw pretty much all the major sights (Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, London Bridge, Tower of London, etc...). Jerome had a cold so he went home mid-afternoon (aftre we stopped for a pint) and I just wandered around for a while. I found this fabulous book store that I would love to just live in and also just sat down and had a coffee at this great Cafe next to a fountain. I felt oh so European! After while I started to get tired (and had a little sun stroke) so I headed back to Heathrow on the Tube. Unfortunately the showers at the airport were being repaired and I jsut ended up falling asleep on a bench at my terminal. The flight ended up being fabulous. Even though it was almost 12 hours long, it's by far the best flight I have ever been on. There were loads of extra seats (each person had about three), so I got a whole section to myself, which made it a lot easier to sleep as I could actually lie down. We all got personal entertainment systems, and the service was exceptional. We even got some nice South African wine in little personalized bottles. I woke up at about 6 am just in time to see the sun beginning to rise. It was unquestionably the most breathtakingly beautiful thing I have ever seen. The sky was still starry and the land just went on forever, but the sun is just this incredible deep orange color. It literally took my breath away. Flying into Capetown was amazing too, as we flew around the coast a bit. The beaches are just amazing. After I got in, Jenny and her friend Claudia picked me up at the airport. Driving to her place was sort of surreal. You have to drive past the Townships (shanty towns), which is a major shock. Actually seeing people living in huts made of metal pieces is sort of humbling. I went back to Jenny's for a while to get unpacked and showered. She lives in this gorgeous house that is very Dutch Colonial. We walked and took the shuttle over to her campus here as Jenny had to go to a meeting, so here I am. The walk over was really nice. There are so many different types of plants and trees. The air smells amazing. It's incredibly windy, but there's this great ocean smell. It's not like the ocean in BC, it just smells incredibly wonderful. So I'm just hanging out here for a while and thought I'd post something just to let people know I'm alive. SOrry if it's a bit long, but I'm going through enormous culture shock and everythign seems exciting right now. Let me know how everything is going with you guys!

Night Before

Well it's the night before I leave and I basically feel like puking. I know, lovely. Just a minor amount of travel anxiety. My plan is to stay up all night and then sleep on the plane and hopefully trick my body into avoiding lots of jet lag. We'll see how well that works for me. I'm headed out at 8pm tomorrow and I'll post something when I arrive on Monday.

Cait in South Africa

Hello all. I'm heading to South Africa on May 14th, so this is just to keep in touch with everyone!