Can We Change Our Reservation? (My Week On The Garden Route)

This trip was crazy. It was rushed madness yet unbelievably relaxing all jumbled into one 5 day excursion. An issue we had the entire time (of which I have derived this title) was getting to places late and needing to change our reservation. I don’t think we made it on time to a single thing this entire trip, mostly because every place we went was so awesome we wanted to spend more time there and consequently missed our reserved time for the next activity.

Day 1:

We left extremely early on Sunday the 5^th. The first day was filled with a ridiculous amount of driving that reminded me back of the many long bus trips in India. Our first stop was at Stellenbosch where we participated in a wine tasting extravaganza! As well as taking a tour of their animal preserve. We saw African sheep (my favorites), foxes, meerkats (Timmons), and cheetahs. It was the hottest day imaginable so walking around the beautiful estate was very oppressive. I decided against petting the cheetahs because it was expensive and they were so sedated that it would have been pretty much like petting a giant house cat.

Once everyone else had their fix of kitty petting we were headed off for our longest drive of the whole trip, 4hours… that turned into 7hours. At that point stopping off at gas stations is the only relief from a cramped, noisy (because our damn driver insisted on blasting the radio) and over all just uncomfortable situation.

But once we finally got to our resting place it was all worth it. The Backpackers (that is what they call hostels) we stayed at the first night was so beautiful. There was a pool, a brai (BBQ) area, a sitting/dinning room and even a pool table. Since it was Sunday night (i.e. Super bowl Sunday) I thought it was pretty necessary to stay up late to watch the game. One other kid from the program stayed awake with me and by the end we both thought it was quite worth it, since the game was really good.

I was only able to get 2 hours of sleep before our next adventure. So at that point I was quite sleep deprived and riding on adrenaline (which makes everything way more fun).

Day 2:

Our first stop was the Cango Caves, which were pretty gravy. I really wanted to go spelunking though. Caves are so much fun to explore and these ones were seriously beautiful. One of the chambers we went into used to hold concerts, how cool is that! I would have loved to go to a concert in an underground cavern.

One of the best parts of the caves was the cool relief it provided from another oppressively hot day. But I had to deal with it because our next stop was the OSRITCHES!! They were my favorite! Those birds are so freaking weird. I got to ride one, hold a baby, and pet them. Plus I tried their food (which was nasty and tasted like gerbil pellets) and stand on their eggs (which are ridiculously strong and the equivalent to 24 hen eggs).

I have decided that Ostriches are pretty much dinosaurs, or at least as close as I’ll ever get. They totally could be the modern T-Rex. I have this really funny image of a giant group of Ostriches (T-Rex’s) standing around a campfire talking about how they are going to survive extinction.

Ostrich 1: “Hey guys, the only logical way to proceed with ‘operation: protect the species’ is if we disguise ourselves as something no one would suspect. It’s not going to be easy but it’s the only way.”

Ostrich 2: “I got it! This is what we’ll do. If we shrink ourselves down and hide out as the dumbest animals/birds alive, who would ever suspect us?”

Its brilliant I tell you! They are just biding their time before they can take over the world. This means we all must be getting on their good side ASAP. This is why I have decided I am going to raise one from the egg so that it will love me and will not let its brethren kill me. Also they are super adorable, which is just an added perk.

After our Ostrich encounter we headed to the town we were going to spend the next two nights in, Knysna (k is silent). We had the best lunch I have had here so far at this really cute seaside café (it was so good we ended up going back there for lunch the next day). 

The Backpackers that night wasn’t quite as beautiful but it was really cute and we were the only ones there. One of the girls in my program (who goes to UMass) teaches kickboxing, so we had a kick class out on the lawn. After kickin’ it in Africa I did some yoga to stretch out, it was the most relaxed I’ve been in a while. Since I hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before I was super tired and went right to bed.

Day 3:

Elephants and Monkeys, what could be better? I wasn’t going to go to Monkeyland because again very expensive to walk around and look at monkeys. However, the guy who was in charge of our tour paid for me to go in without my knowledge and than made me take the tour (I did not complain). It ended up being really cool and I am glad he made me do it.

We saw King Julius! (Ring tailed lemurs). They were the best part, by FAR!! We also walked across one of the longest extension bridges. There were these howler monkeys that looked like little Rastafarian men but bared his teeth and looking like you could rip your head off.

Oh, speaking of Rasta’s, we also went to a Rastafarian village in the morning. It was not my favorite. Although I would really like to have a theological conversation with someone who grew up there, I think that would be super interesting.

The Elephants were still my favorite part of that day; they are magnificently wise creatures. We got to feed and pet them. It would have been awesome to ride one but because we were late, they rides were all booked up. I enjoyed them immensely anyways.

That night we had a brai. I have had so many of these since being in S. Africa. They are really fun, but S. Africans seriously cannot get enough BBQ’d meat. Regardless, I had a really yummy veg. burger with cheese. My friend Ally and I decided to sleep outside in the hammocks that were in our yard.

Best. Decision. Ever.

Day 4:

Bungee day! I did not participate in it, because as much as I would love to fling myself off the tallest bungee bridge in the world, I hate the sinking feeling that falling provokes. I know that I would be ok with the heights and the jumping but the second I got into the air and I began to fall that damn feeling would kick in and I would HATE the rest of the experience.

So instead a bunch of us went zip-lining on the “canopy tour.” It was the first zip-lining place in all of Africa and it was quite spectacular. I had a blast and do not regret missing bungee jumping at all. They even fed us some yummy cheese and tomato sandwiches when we were done.

The place we stayed at that night was like the Garden of Eden. It was so nice! I would go back and spend a month or more there. The next 24 hours were probably the best day/night I’ve had since I’ve been here.

The place was in Jeffery’s Bay, which is a famous surf town near Port Elizabeth so obviously the next day was our day to test the waves. I ended up staying awake very late playing pool and foosball. Because I had made plans to watch the sunrise over the ocean the next morning, I just stayed up until than. My friend Ami and I watched the sunrise and then did Yoga on the beach. After being up all night, I was so pumped to surf.

Day 5:

And surf I did. Up until this I was feeling as though this trip was fun, but nothing had blown me out of the water, yet... After surfing I was sold, on the trip, on learning how to surf and on life. It was brilliant! I was really getting it by the end. I even got to catch the top of the wave (with the instructors help) when no one else did. Again, I love J-Bay and need to go back and bum it there sometime in my life.

This was our last day on the famous Garden Route tour and we had to rush to the airport at Port Elizabeth to catch our plane back to Cape Town. It was a magical week and I am so glad I got to take a trip before school started. The friends I have made in the last week because of this trip are amazing. My goals for this week were to strengthen friendships and figure out my classes, only one of these was accomplished but in my opinion it was the one of greater importance. 

A Swing And A Miss (Stuck At The Second Apple)

First things first, what does the second apple mean?

Well, it is an inside joke from my study abroad program. During our orientation they had some guy come in and talk to us about culture shock. He was hilarious and for some reason decided to use apples as an analogy for the different stages people normal go through during a cultural transition. The first apple was supposed to represent excitement, awe and happiness. The second: frustration, being uncomfortable and homesickness. The third: acceptance.

For my entire stay so far I have been wavering between the first and third apples. Today, however, I was stuck in the second apple because alas, it is the first day of classes. No more adventure trips and long weeks of tourism. I have to buckle down and get to the reason I am here... education.

This past week I have been off the grid on a giant road trip along the Garden Route (which I will post about in the next few days) so coming back to Cape Town was a mixture of excitement at being back home and worry about classes.

My worry was not ill directed, in fact with the amount that went wrong I probably should have been twice as stressed. I woke up a 7:30am determined to get to class on time and figure everything out. I had to go online to find where my classes would be. This ended up taking me over an hour so that I didn’t leave my flat until 8:50am for a 9:00am class. Needless to say I was late, well I would have been if I had made it to the class at all. I spent an hour looking for the room that this class was meant to be held in and also scouting for another class that met at the same time that I want to take instead of the one I am currently signed up for.

I went to campus with the intention of finding and going to some part of two different classes and ended up not finding or going to either. 

This started my first day of classes off horribly and not much got better as the day went on. Thankfully that was the end of my scheduled classes, so I headed to the Interstudy office to use the computer and see what else I needed to do. That went fine and I got a bit of a chance to regroup, except discovering some schedule conflicts.

It turns out one of my classes is on Hiddingh Campus which is a 10-15min bus ride away in the actual city of Cape Town. The issue with this is that I have a class on Upper Campus that ends at 10:45am and according to every bit of info I have (accept the syllabus my professor sent out) this class off campus starts at 11:00am. That doesn’t give me much time to get there. If it does turn out this class is actually at 12:00am (like my prof. posted) than my back up plan will need to severely change. So either way there will be a conflict.

What is my backup plan? And why do I need one, you ask? Well as I said before there are two different classes at the same time that I am planning to take. One (the religion course) is everyday from 9:00-9:45am the other (history) is Mon, Tues, Wed from 9:00-9:45am. However, The second one I am technically not allowed to take because Semester Study Abroad kids are not supposed to. But if I am not allowed to take the history course I will need to sign up for a different one some other time. I would than take a history class that is on Wed, Thur, Fri 12:00-12:45am, the same time in which (according to my prof. said) the class off campus is at. It turns out even studying abroad I will always have some issues with my class schedule. Such a dilemma. 

In order to keep myself productive for the rest of today and not slip into a complete failure of productivity,

I decided to try and sign up for clubs/societies. When I went to go do that I realized I had no idea what half of the societies listed even were. So that didn’t happen… Later I got lunch and surfed the Internet some more to try and figure out my class schedule, which ended up being very much a waste of time as nothing more bore much fruit. I finally gave up and just went back to my flat feeling drained from a day where I did absolutely nothing of importance.

As I said before, a swing and a miss…

Hopefully something changes over the weekend and I can figure everything out before Monday rolls around. 

P.S. I mentioned the Garden Route (look it up), which was awesome and will be a whole other blog post that is coming up, probably sometime this weekend.  

O-Week

Wow, it seems to have been an entire week! Time’s just flying by and everything gets better and better by the day.  This week I had so many adventures.

We went to the farmers market (Saturday) at the Old Bisket Mill in the Cape Town suburb, Observatory. It was great! I finally got my fix of fresh veggies and pretty much bought out an entire produce vendor for like R65 (which is around 12.5 $). It has lasted me the entire week (and more).  They also had amazing prepared foods, smoothies, cheeses and breads. We are planning on going again tomorrow and I am psyched. (p.s. we did go today [Saturday]and it was just as good. I got fro-yo, a bagel sandwich, a muffin and iced tea.)

This past week was SSA (Semester Study Abroad) Orientation, so we spent most of our time with about 500 other international students going through the exact same orientation stuff as we did with Interstudy the previous week. It was a bit frustrating but I guess the more you hear something the more likely you are to remember it.

As a part of the orientation (the best and only different part, well besides the drumming class, which I loved) we went on a peninsula tour. This consisted of hanging out in a tour bus all day driving along the coast and getting out at designated spots. We got to see S. African PENGUINS!! What little cuties they are. We also got to hike up to the lighthouse at Cape Point and than hike down to the tip of the Cape of Good Hope. That was a really fun day.  We stopped for lunch at this town called Oceanview and the locals provided us with entertainment. There were a bunch of kids that sung and danced for us. It was very impressive; I was definitely not expecting them to be as good as they were.

At the end (ish) of this tour we saw Ostriches in the wild!! It was brilliant! One thing on my bucket list while I am here is to ride these “majestic” birds.

I also got to see/hang out with two S. African friends of mine (Hari Bhajan and Atma) who I went to school with in India and who I haven’t seen in years. They were both in Cape Town visiting from Jo’burg. Bhaj’s parents own a farm outside of the city so he came down to see them and Atma’s grandfather (who lives in Cape Town) had a big birthday party. It was really quite nice. They crashed on the tiny couches in my flat (probably not that comfortable but oh well…) for two nights. We went to the beach twice. The first time we were climbing on the rocks by the coast. On this occasion I was walking with them, kind of behind and not paying the strictest of attention and… I got attacked by a shark! I sustained some serious leg injuries.

No, not really. I just scraped my self up thinking I could jump father than I actually could onto a very slippery, wet rock. Now I have some hardcore battle wounds. J

The second beach trip was a little less eventful and WAY colder. Cape Town is a peninsula so there are two different oceans on either side. One side is the Indian Ocean, which is lovely and a perfect temperature, the other is the Atlantic, which is ridiculously cold! I was really shocked at how cold the water actually was.

That night we had a nice Tapas dinner with a bunch of people from the Interstudy program at a place called Forks. It was extremely classy, and I was surprisingly full by the end.

Yesterday I had a free day since I preregistered for classes before we went to the beach and dinner. A girl named Ally and I decided we wanted to go to the beach. We went to one on the Indian Ocean side so we could actually go in the water. The thing about that side of the peninsula is it gets REALLY windy. Yesterday was a windy day by nature, so it was like a hurricane out there. This meant really nice waves and a completely deserted beach. It was great (minus the sand in my face from the wind).

We had taken the train there and chose not to pay the R8, since they don’t really check (or so we thought). Once we got the beach there was a guy there taking tickets. Thinking fast we chose to go the dumb, lost American route. It worked… ish. We told the guy we had bought tickets but we couldn’t find them anywhere! We asked if it would be all right to just buy the ticket right there. He said fine and we proceeded to buy only our return tickets… (hehe, definitely wasn’t my idea) ;) So this meant we were kind of obligated to take the train home. On our way back we accidentally missed our stop and wound up in a suburb about two away from Rosebank (which is where our apartments are). Lets just say this was a part of town they would NEVER take us on a tour. Ally and I were walking around looking a bit confused (because we were) and some guy came up to us and was all, “you girls look really lost” we replied, “that’s because we are.”  He than asked us where we wanted to go and once we told him “Rosebank” he looked at us and kind of chuckled as he said “you are a long way from Rosebank, just follow this street down to the main road.” We did just that, found a minibus (they are a really funny system, which I will have to tell you more about later). We made it home fine, but after having to pay for the minibus only ended up saving R1 on the whole trip… thus is life. It just shows that if you are meant to do something, the universe will make it happen.

Today was class registration day. This meant a looong day of standing around waiting in queues. At the present moment I have two classes I am for sure taking and either one or two that I don’t know about. I am taking an Art History class called Art Narratives: Traditions and Tensions and a The History of South Africa to 1900 for sure. I might be taking Religions Past and Present and another 100 level history or art history class, otherwise just one 200 or 300 level history or art history class. I have to figure that out soon though…

I also attended my first Brai (what they call a BBQ in S. Africa) yesterday. The University put it on for everyone, they called it Freshers Brai, so I assume it had something to do with Freshman. We are having our own Brai tonight (Friday) for dinner because last week we decided that we were all going to cook/eat dinner together on Friday nights.

It has been really fun getting to know everyone in the program. I feel like after two (ish) weeks I am finally getting comfortable with everyone. I think that my goal for the next week (before classes start) is to A. figure out my classes and B. strengthen all the friendships I have started so that once we are all on our own schedules they don’t fall through the cracks.

I shall leave you with a few things I find weird/comical

• ·      Buying electricity at the grocery store (yes, now you can add that to the grocery list)
• ·      The National Shark Sighting Code (which I will have to look up and post at some point.
• ·      Megabyte Internet system (we pay for our internet by the megabyte)
• ·      Darcys (they are weird fat gopher looking animals that we saw on our hike to the Cape of Good Hope)
• In England they call University Uni, which I think is pretty cute but here they call it Varsity, which to me sounds a bit funny.

Thank you and goodnight.