South Africa

wow i think i could live here. i had an amazing time in cape town. i did so much i'll try my best to recap. day one was a waste of 106 dollars because the township music field practica i went on was a flop. pretty upset but i'm over it (I’ll get a refund somehow) . my friend ben got us a tour guide for a few days so we did some pretty cool things. our first day with him we got a tour of the city and visited the district 6 museum. district 6 was once occupied by a large population (all black), but during apartheid they were forced to move into townships on the outskirts of cape town. it was very upsetting to see the photo of how many buildings and just all the activity that was in the area and then drive by what it is now, a big patch of dirt and grass. the apartheid is now over, but after having a good conversation with a local girl, I learned that they still struggle with racism. The girl I talked to was “colored” which means she’s a mixed race. We were at a club and she told me that the bar tenders were ignoring her and her sister and they’d only serve the white people. She was in a better mood when I expressed my opinion, she was almost astonished because I guess she’s never met a white girl like me who believes that we’re just people, we’re not our skin color or the texture of our hair. I learned a lot from just talking to people in the city. When we drove through the township we got a response that I wasn’t expecting. Everyone on the sidewalks would cheer and wave and give us thumbs up to greet us. Having tourism through townships is helping them out a lot. On our second day with our tour guide we went to cape point, the southern most tip of the continent of Africa. The views were sweet. There were huge waves. We saw a lot of animals that day like ostrich (which I ate for lunch- sooo good), baboons, springbok (which I ate the next day, that was my favorite), zebra, cheetah (in a reserve kinda, for tourists to come pet them). I saw warthogs and the list goes on… so I didn’t go on a safari, but I think I did pretty well. I’d have to say my favorite animals that I saw were the penguins. They were so cute and funny. I took a video of some of them walking around…. It amused me. It was nice to have a day off after that. Did some shopping, wrote all my postcards, went to an internet café and made a few phone calls. Caught up on some sleep too. I was planning on going to Table Mountain, but the wind was too strong so the cable car was out of service. I never did go up Table Mountain ☹ I went out to dinner at a place called Mama Africa for someone’s birthday. I had sparkling red wine (didn’t even know that exsisted) and a wild game platter consisting of crocodile, ostrich, kudu, and springbok. Didn’t really care much for the crocodile but I loved all the other ones, they make steak look bad. The morning after I went with my friends and our tour guide to Stellenbosch winelands where we got a tour of their factory and we were shown the process of wine making followed by a wine tasting. I sent a case of wine home (mom and matt- it better be there when I get home) they were like 11-16 dollars a bottle and the minimum per case was 12 so I kinda splurged. South African wine is amazing so it will be worth it. I think I slept the rest of the day because I stayed out pretty late the night before. Ok so heres the part that will shock some people. I know I wrote in my post card to you mom that I did not go sky diving… well I wrote those post cards before I jumped out of the plane. So yeah I went sky diving in South Africa, who else can say that? It was the best thing I think I’ve ever done in my life. If I ever get the opportunity to jump again I’d do it and I wouldn’t even be scared. The feeling was just incredible. For 30 seconds I was falling at 120 miles per hour and after the parachute is pulled it’s smooth sailing for another 3 minutes. I had an instructor attached to my back and he pulled the parachute. I could see Robben Island and Table Mountain from the best seat in the house. Just amazing. I went out for one more fantastic dinner and night of dancing then slept in. Around 11:30 am my roommate and I went to Green Market Square to shop at the market. I got a really cool canvas painting of silhouettes dancing and playing instruments. I bought a wooden mask and a small ebony statue of abstract people kissing… and of course a few things for people back home. It was so hard to leave Cape Town… my description might now sound all that amazing, but the city really affected me. Scientists are trying to prove that all of our DNA traces back to Africa as our place of origin. Maybe I was home for the first time and I felt so attached to it. Everyone felt it. I was almost depressed when we got on the boat. I am getting pretty bored on this ship, my classes are pretty demanding so I feel like I’m cramming in so much in between ports. I only have 44 class days (only 22 class meetings per class) so I guess it is pretty accelerated. I’m used to having the weekends to catch up on work for all my classes, but here I don’t have classes, and there’s no way I’m going to spend my time in port doing homework on the ship. So now I’m on my way to Mauritius… did you know Mauritius has free wifi internet throughout the entire island? So I’ll definitely try to get in touch with people at home when I have free time. If anyone has skype let me know and I can basically call you for free (sort of like aim or msn messenger). Soo mom you should download that program www.skype.com I think. I dunno google it. Well folks thanks for checkin up on me I’ll try to blog again while I’m in Mauritius (I’ll definitely send a shout out to the Desai family!) Love you all! <3Kim