Hey everybody. It’s been a long time since I last updated this blog. I need to get on the ball with this thing. Chances are that in not updating regularly, I’ve forgotten a lot of stuff. It’s all good though. On Valentine’s Day my group went to Robben Island, right off of Cape Town. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned there for about 18 years. After we saw the island we spent the rest of the day at Camps Bay which is a really nice strip along the beach on the other side of Table Mountain. I ate two lunches and spent an hour on the beach. I decided to go swimming which was a terrible idea—the Atlantic was so cold that it literally hurt. I spent a total of fifteen seconds in the ocean. Last Thursday I visited Rhodes High School with Julie, Kayla, and Zach. It was part of our School Day. The class split into five different groups and was each assigned a different school to visit. We were supposed to record observations and then report on what we found when we reconvened later that day. Our school was an almost all-black/colored school of lower-middle to middle class kids. Some other groups visited much nicer schools whereas two other groups visited two schools in Langa Township where we live (which suck big time). One of the teachers I observed was only 21. Kayla is 21 and Zach and Julie are both 20. It was weird to think about that. The smallest class that we sat in on had 35 students. The biggest had 40. Surprisingly, the most well behaved class was the biggest.

Last weekend, we went to Simonstown. It was great. We were allowed to take some time to blow off some steam and Simonstown was our weekend getaway. We left on a train after class at 5:17 on Friday. It took about 45 minutes to get there. Cape Town is located on a peninsula shaped like a backwards J. Cape Town is on the outside of the J and Simonstown is on the inside near the very bottom so it’s by a bay. We stayed in the most amazing hostel. It was formerly a convent and school until the 1960s. The upper floor housed the nuns and the bottom rooms were classrooms. At the far side of the hostel, there was a chapel that was turned into a room. The owners had the best dog ever…Lulu!! She is a Rottweiler. When our vans pulled up, I saw the dog and I was definitely concerned because those dogs are typically mean suckers, but Lulu was the biggest softie. Everyone was allowed to claim their own rooms so there was some scrambling for accommodations. Well, I was one of those left over along with Franny and Julie. The owner then said to us that the chapel was open. We were thinking that we would have to sleep on the floor of an actual chapel—we didn’t know that it was converted into a room. When we went in we were so psyched. It was so sweet. It held five people so Susan, Rachel, Franny, Julie, and I stayed in there. The very first night we were there, we bent the bed frame. It was already bent on one side and then we utterly pulverized it. It was bent almost all the way down to the floor. Franny and Julie were stuck with the bent bed for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. On Saturday went to Cape of Good Hope which is the south western point on the African continent, and Cape Point which is the very end of the Cape Peninsula (tip of the J). I walked out as far as I could possibly go. We hiked this huge hill to get to the top by the lighthouse, but you could go out farther if you wanted to walk out further. Franny and I made the walk out. It was undoubtedly the most unsafe tourist thing I’ve ever seen or done. We walked on a thin path on the very edge of a cliff that plummeted around 400m (that’s a quarter mile!) into the ocean!! We made it safely and had an amazing view! Only Kayla, Zach, Franny, and I made it out to the very tip. It was so amazing. On the way there, our van had to stop because a huge group of baboons were just chilling in the road eating. Some of them jumped up onto our van. We also saw ostriches. On Saturday night, everyone gathered in our room for some social time. Needless to say, there was some alcohol and some fun times ensued. Franny was absolutely hilarious. She definitely drank too much. Some one dared her to make out with Mike who was up in bed. She ran up to his room and said “Mike, I’m going to kiss you. Don’t worry; I won’t actually do it (as she put her hands in front of her mouth as if to block her mouth for a fake kiss).” She then lunged in and Mike was like “What are you doing?!” He was completely dazed and Franny said the same thing again and so did he. It was so funny. She told him that she was dared to do it and turned around to show him everyone that had but she realized we weren’t there and was like “oh, jeeze……yeah” and she sprinted out back to the room. She burst in and was like “fuck you guys” as she was flicking everybody off. I was practically crying. On Sunday we had a free day. I went to the beach and chilled with hundreds of penguins all over the beach. That was neat. We returned to class on Monday morning. The train we took back was packed. It was so full that some of the doors wouldn’t close because some people were hanging out of the doors. It was nuts. Hopefully changes in the transport system for the World Cup come soon…South Africa could use some improvements.

We visited District Six today. It was formerly a lively part of the city until its residents were forced out in the 1980s and it was demolished. We visited the museum and walked around the old neighborhoods. Apparently, they are rallying to rebuild it. It was a party district. Think of the French Quarter in New Orleans.

I got super sick a couple of weeks ago. I drank two big glasses of whole cream milk. I felt like dying after that. Literally a minute after class finished I vomited out the window and then two more times in the bathroom. Several days later I heard that the owner of a French restaurant below was upset about that because two of his waitresses had to clean it up. The following week I had to go over there and apologize. One of the waitresses was so pissed when I said sorry. Whatevs.

Techno music is like a sickness here...everybody listens to it. They called it house. By the way, you should look for a song by Lady Gogo. I don’t know what it’s called but it’s SO good. Check it out.

My homestay starts tomorrow (Saturday the 7th). I'm living in a largely black township called Langa on the eastern edge of Cape Town. The homestay family will speak English but I will constantly pick up more and more Xhosa while living in that area. I'm living with a woman (Nombulelo Msizi) who works for an NGO and has three sons. One of them, who is 25, lives with her. I get picked up every morning at 7:00am. I'm the first person to get picked up before school. Hooray. Seven people including me are picked up for class every morning.
Today, we did something called a "drop-off." What happened was that we were all assigned different goals and objectives to complete during the day. Our drivers drove us around the city and dropped us each off at separate point s in the city and we were expected to find our way to the place we needed to study, then find the meet up point to go home. What made it really crazy was that today was the day that Parliament opened so there was a ton of traffic and processions of politicians. There were hundreds of soldiers with automatic rifles all up and down the streets.
I needed to find St. George's Cathedral and examine the religious community in Cape Town. This is where my story gets whack!! So I happened to run into Blake, one of the guys from my program. He had already finished his task when we met up so he went with me to the cathedral. After we sat inside for a whilee we decided to head over to the meet place just so we could figure out where it was so we wouldn't end up getting lost later. While we were walking down a small side street, we happened to walk past a group of three men. I looked at the short man in the middle, proceeded to walk...stopped and then did a double-take. I told Blake that Archbishop Desmond Tutu just passed us! We then turned around and as he was getting in his car (he was driving in a white Toyota Corolla) we approached him, greeted him in Xhosa, and had a little chat with him!!!! In case you don't know who Tutu is, he is undoubtedly the most famous and influential South African today save Nelson Mandela. It was incredible. The crazy thing I learned yesterday was that Cape Town is actually the murder capital of the world....who knew!? Haha. And to think I'll be living in a black township for a month.
The group went out tonight for dinner. It was a lot of fun. So far, I've eaten springbok (like an antelope), ostrich, chicken liver, mopani worms (smoked catepillar-like worms), and crocodile!! Quite the menu.
Cape Town was ungodly hot today. My forhead has not stopped sweating since 9:00 this morning. It's 12:36am right now and my forhead is still sweating!!

Okay.  I get up later today (it's 12:07 am Thursday, January 29) at 4am to go to the airport!  My flight from Cleveland to NYC takes off at 6:10 am.  I'll arrive at JFK in New York City around 8:30 where I will hang around until I meet up with the rest of my group at 2:20.  i have a $10 Starbuck's gift certificate so I might just roam around JFK with some fancy, decaffinated frou frou drink until 2:20 rolls around.  We will then leave together at 5:30 pm for South Africa which will take around 18 hours of flying time.  Ugh...

It's almost surreal to be going now.  I've known for over a year that I wanted to study abroad in South Africa.  I've been telling people over the past year that I would definitely be going, but not until this point has it really registered with me that, yes, I will be in South Africa...until mid-May!  Of course I'm very excited to be going and I know that this is an excellent opportunity for me, but I still have some lingering regrets.  I will be missing out on all my friends from school and the day-to-day excitement of life in Hider House.  I'll be missing several shows my band has this winter and this upcoming spring.  Rock for a Reason at Malone University in April is going to be HUGE and I'll be missing out on that too.  I know that I'll have a lot of friends, family, and love to come back to though, so I can't be too upset!  Yet, I can't help but feel like I've been short-changed/hampered by study abroad (again)!!!!  But, whatever.  Once I get there, I know that it will all be worth it and everybody will be here when I get back.  

If I survive the agonizingly-long flight without killing myself, you can be sure to expect more from me.