Getting my feet wet.

So in about 30 minutes or  so we are going to be leaving to go on a African safari and it is my birthday. Wow!! This is going to be an amazing time. Well, I will blog about today later on. 

So I left off on Wednesday. So Thursday, we went on an all day excursion to the southern most tip of South Africa. It was beautiful trip. On the way to the Southern most tip we stopped and took about boat ride to go see the seals. I took a picture of one but my camera battery is dead so that is why I haven't been able to post the pics. I will try and find a charger or something so I can get my pics posted. It started raining/pouring on our boat ride out to see the seals. Some of us tried to hold off as long as we could before going underneath the boat. The rain was coming down sideways so eventually we decided to get inside the boat. Even though it was raining, I went outside and took some pictures when we got to the island the seals stayed at. It was crazy. They were are just chilling in the water and on the island. It was a great site. Argh. I wish I wouldn't have forgot my charger. Well after the seals the boat brought us back to the shore and we got back on our bus. After a few miles or kilometers, how ever you would like to say it, we went to a beach where penguins hang out. It was so funny watching the penguins walk but at the same time, it was so cool to actually see penguins. The beach we went to check out the penguins was on the Indian Ocean. Since I have been to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and put my feet in them, I decided to do it in the Indian Ocean as well. Burr. It was kind of cold putting your feet in the Indian Ocean, since it is winter down here. Well, after this we went to the Cape of Good Hope which is the Southern most tip of Africa. Aaron, Hillary, our guide and I climbed our way to the Light House. This was great because I got to ask our guide about his life. He is Xhosa, so this means he speaks with 'clicks'. It was fun to listen to and try to speak ourselves. He tried to teach us a few words to say but man was it hard. It was a lot of fun getting to know him and hearing his story. Basically, he moved to Cape Town to study from a small village. Then the city life was hard for him so he moved back to his village to work. He got into a fight with his boss and got a phone call from the lady he is currently work with in tourism. So, he decided to move back to Cape Town for work. He told me that he pretty much has 1300 Rand to spend a month after he pays bills. This is equivalent to 200 American dollars. I don't know what I would do if I could only spend $200 a month. After this we walked down to where our bus was at and once again, it started pouring. So for the second time, I was totally wet. Oh well, I am in South Africa. Once we got on the bus, it was off for home. Everyone was tired and beat. So basically we all took naps on the bus ride back. Once we got back we all grabbed a quick bite to eat and came back and hung out for the night. Some of us played euchre as others blogged or played phase 10. It was a good relaxing night. 

I have to cut this entry short since I have to get ready for the safari. I will try and blog again later today to talk about my birthday experience yesterday and today. Hope everyone is well back home and just know that I am learning so much and having such an amazing time. There is too much to actually blog about. I feel like I have so much to say but since I want to try and experience a lot of stuff over here, it seems like I don't have enough time to write it all out. Off for the day. :)

Finally an Update

Well I finally got my computer and internet figured out. For some reason it would not work in my house so I needed to go into the other house and use theirs.

So where do I start. First off, in Minneapolis we saw Rev Run from Run DMC. It was pretty cool. After that we hoped on our first flight. It was from MN to NYC. It wasn't that bad. Then when we got to NYC we had a 7 hour lay over. So, we all decided to just hang out and grab some food. We also played some cards and got to know each other better. Then we hopped on our 17 hour flight which was split up into two 8 hour flights with a 1 hour pit stop in Senagal. It was a long flight but has really been worth it. We arrived in Johannesburg early so we had plenty of time to get to where our flight was. We were all worried that an hour and a half would be enough time to get to the gate since we had to go through customs and check in. But we made it.

The first night we were got settled in, hung out and met the InterStudy hosts. They are an amazing group of people.

The second day we went to University of Cape Town for our orientation and got a tour of the campus on the way. It is such a big campus. There are a lower, middle and upper campus, they are named that way since the campus is on a hill. The buildings are so beautiful. Most of them have vines growing on them and they are like old English buildings. It is so hard to describe them but that is kind of going to be the way with a lot of things. As I mentioned before we went campus to get orientated with the area from the InterStudy people. This happened after the tour. The people at InterStudy are so much fun. The like to have a good time. After the orientation, we got a ride down the the Waterfront to grab a bite to eat and go shopping. The mall there was so crazy. There were a lot of expensive stores there. I kind of felt a little out of place. Everyone from InterStudy and the group ate and grabbed some drinks. It was a lot of fun just to sit down and get to know everyone a lot better. Everyone is so great. They are fun and full of energy. I can already tell this is going to be a great experience. After lunch we walked around the mall again and everyone said that there were girls from America's Top Model where there. I had no idea who they were. Me and Cole went up to them and asked if we could get a picture with them. They agreed. Afterwards we were waiting outside the store for others in the group and the models came up to us and invited us to one of their's birthday party. So they gave us their phone numbers and told them to call them. It was crazy. It is going to be very different going from this mall to the township next week. I honestly can not wait. After all this we went back home and hung out again. This was all on Tuesday, May 27, 2008.

On Wednesday, May 28, 2008. TJ, David and I went to the grocery store to make breakfast for everyone. We got up at about 6:30 am to get to the grocery store and found out they were not open but it was all good we found the local "friendly 7 eleven" to buy it all. We bought eggs, bacon, bread, fruit, milk and OJ. It was a lot of fun to cook for everyone. It was interesting seeing Cape Town in the early morning. There were a lot of people out on the streets setting up their vending stores in front of the Grocery Store. I was just still in shock that I am here. We got back and made everyone breakfast and got ready to go lecture. In lecture, we learned a lot about the history of South Africa and the apartheid. It was fun but it seemed like there was a lot of information to remember. It was really interesting afterwards when the lecturers from South Africa asked us questions about the US government and who we are going to vote for in this election. It was a great conversation and interesting to see what people from other countries thought about the US. Afterwards, we went to the District Six Musuem which is a museum for the people that got moved out of there housing due to the fact that they were colored and the white people wanted their land. It was really interesting seeing and hearing from some one that lived in this area at this time. It is such a sad and shocking story. After the tour through the musuem, we went to some shops downtown Cape Town and a marketplace where there are a lot of street vendors. It was interesting bartering with them and just walking around the area. After this we were on our way back to our shuttle and saw some sort of demonstration. A lot of police cars were there arresting people. It was crazy to see and experience because we were told to stay away from all that stuff and it was happening right in front of the place we were getting picked up. Once we got picked up, we got home and went to eat a place called Nando's. It is basically a KFC but with different sauces and stuff. It was pretty good. At night we went to a local bar and played some pool. It was a lot of fun going out and seeing what the local night life was like. Since it was just Wednesday, there was not a lot of people out but we still had fun getting to know each other more. It is so much fun getting to know everyone. Everyone is so much fun. Well I am going to cut this short for now but tomorrow I will blog more about the great trip we went on today.

I know I say interesting a lot in this blog and that will probably happen in other blogs but everything here is so amazing and this is a great experience. I am still in awe of the fact that I am in a country that I never thougth I would be in. It is going to be so great and I am so excited. I will be posting pictures later, hopefully.

This Summer

I will be blogging my summer experiences in South Africa and Venezuela. I will be in South Africa for 3 weeks and the home for 2 weeks and then off to Venezuela for 6 weeks. I am going to be in both places for school but this will be my first time outside the United States. So this will be a blog of my adventures and my experiences in these different countries.