Ocean View Township

I spent the night Friday and Saturday in a Township called Ocean View with a host family. The Township was made in the 60's when coloured and black South Africans were forced to relocate into designated areas. It was originally barren undesirable desert land in a valley in the middle of the Cape Peninsula but now has become a well connected community.

In terms of housing there are some apartment style buildings, some small houses and an area of corrugated alluminum shacks as well. This picture^ was taken from my host family's front porch.

On Saturday we walked down to a farm near the entrance of the Township where there were all sorts of random attractions. Camel rides were 150 Rand for a half an hour tour down to the Atlantic side of the Peninsula. The camels were mellow and had a really nice stench going on from chewing the cud.

After camel riding I played basketball with the Ocean View team and went back to my host mom Francis' house for a Braai.

Mzolis Braai

Every Sunday droves of people show up to a restaurant called Mzoli's in the Gugulethu Township outside Cape Town. They do a traditional Braai which is essentially a South African BBQ cookout. For about 30 Rand ($4-$5) each you get probably a pound and a half of meat. We got a wonderful meat salad of lamb chop, chicken, and sausage.

After buying your meat you take it into the kitchen area where they have around 10 wood-fired ovens packed with sizzling meat. Due to the fact that Sunday is the busiest day, it took around an hour and a half for our food to cook.

In the mean time I kicked it with this guy (Emilio) and his girlfriend. He kept the Brandy and Tab cola drinks coming while we danced to the afro/trance music.

It was probably the most live Sunday I have ever had, as my group ended up staying until around 6pm.

Devil's Peak

Yesterday I hiked Devils peak with a couple other kids from my program. Initially we intended to only head up to Minor Peak, the lesser of the two untill we found ourselves only about an hour from the top. It was 4 hours of mostly trail hiking with some exposed rock scrambles, which made the PB & J at the top fantastic.

Today I registered for classes and took a mini bus into Cape Town City center to check out the city and eat dinner.

Penninsula Tour

Last week I went on a tour of the Cape Peninsula stopping at several amazing locations. The first picture is of Seapoint, a up-scale suburb of Cape Town that has 3 awesome beaches, many high end resorts and several small outcroppings of land covered with dream homes. We also visited a Township called Ocean View that is located in the middle of the Cape Peninsula where we had lunch and watched several dance performances. One of which was a tribute to MJ... lets just say they did an awesome job.

After this we visited Bolder beach, where penguins randomly appeared in 1980. They just kind of took over a very small area on the coast and now have a national park to call home.

We ended the tour at the Cape of Good Hope (the southwestern-most tip of Africa), where my camera battery proceeded to die. The first week has been great. A little difficult to stay plugged in given the lack of internet infrastructure in Africa but I should have 3 gigs of internet per month once I register for classes.

Acclimatization

It definitely takes a couple days to be sure you are looking the right way before you cross the street down here (they drive on the left side of the road), but Cape Town has an unbelievable amount of cool attributes and amazing people. Public transportation is extremely unreliable and pretty much useless other than the few regular trains that take you to neighboring cities. So instead these http://cdn.radionetherlands.nl/data/files/imagecache/must_carry/images/lead/Cape%20Town%20taxi.jpg) buses drive from neighborhood to neighborhood with guys hanging out the front left seat whistling and yelling the destination of the bus. Pretty hectic and intimidating at first, but once you are taken by someone from Cape Town on one you realize how perfect they are at only about $1 per ride. After about 8pm they get kind of dicey for Americans to ride and are especially unsafe if there are no other passengers in the van. So taxis are the go to late night transport. Stoplights here are called “robots,” people often say “are you keen to….” As in “would you want to..” There is also a ton of other slang that I haven’t even figured out. The government, schools, and businesses are all run in English so although there are 11 different languages being spoken, almost everyone is conversational in English.

Going out at night could mean a bar close to campus, one in the next neighborhood over, or a trip to Long Street in downtown Cape town (Google it). Long street is an unbelievable mix of people from all over the world (predominantly Europe/Africa), with probably 50+ bars/pubs/clubs/pool houses/swanky piano clubs etc. I can’t even begin to describe how far a conversation can go after asking someone “how’s it going?” in a bar on long street. Last night I met and talked with probably 10 different people for 10-30 min each. People from Luxemburg, England, Holland, Zimbabwe, Ireland, South Africa, USA and who knows where. To put it shortly, Cape Town is amazing. I am 5 days in and I am already sure of the fact that I will be living here at some point in the future.

I just recently moved into the residence halls and will be doing orientation at UCT next week. The first week has been very busy and I haven’t really been able to bring my camera with me everywhere. I promise more photos to come.

First day in Cape Town

Arrived in Cape Town yesterday at about 11:30 am took a shuttle from the airport to UCT for R180~$30 and checked in at Fuller Hall for the night. I stayed in the room that is the 10th window from the left in the building on the left side of the image. Yesterday I tried to stay up as long as possible, by going into town to an internet cafe and grabbing dinner at a grocery store on main st. Ended up passing out at 6:30 pm after laying down for the first time in 36 hours.

Today I ate lunch with a group of 100 10th grade students from 20 different schools in the largest Township in Cape Town. They were at UCT to see what university life is like and maybe have a chance at continuing their education. Everyone in my program arrives today so it will be interesting to see how exhausted I probably looked yesterday. Its 70 degrees and beautiful here!

Dubai International Airport

Arrived in Dubai around 7:30 pm local time after a 14.5 hour flight! Had to get outside to feel the 100 degree weather. The airport is enormous with pretty extravagant architecture. I was offered a flat rate cab ride around all the sites of Dubai by 3 different "cab companies" and had to turn them down. Given I was by myself at 11pm in Dubai with cash, camera, and a laptop I don't think they were just looking for the $80 they quoted me. The standard layover in Dubai is 8 hours so on my way home in November I should be able to see the city with a legitimate pre-arranged taxi service during the day time.

There are exclusively Volvo taxis out front for all you Laurelhurst moms out there. Also indoor zen gardens with coy ponds for anyone who knows whats good.

Hard to tell with the low quality but the ceiling of the main concourse was pretty much all mirrored which made for some cool pictures. Really excited to arrive in Cape Town and it looks like my first week should be nice http://www.weather.com/weather/5-day/Cape+Town+South+Africa+SFXX0010. Hopefully I can keep the blog updated as often as possible.

I will be arriving in Cape Town, SA on July 11th. Check my blog for updates on all that I am doing while in SA.