ORIENTATION

Day 1: Today was glorious. It will be better explained through some pictures, which will hopefully be up in a week or so. It was the first day of our University of Cape Town orientation, but it was basically a day long bus tour of cape town with some pit stops…really cool pit stops. Leaving early in the morning, we drove all over the place. It takes about 10-15 minutes to walk down to campus from our house. There were 6 buses full of all the international kids going to uct. It also kind of made it impossible to meet anyone because you were on a bus most of the day so everyone stuck with their groups. I had 4 muffins and two croissants for breakfast…never refuse complementary food. The main event of the day was Cape Point, which is the end of Africa. Unreaaal. More details via pics. We also stopped at a middle school where the kids performed singing and dancing for us, and where we ate lunch. The weather was beautiful, almost 70. all the locals keep saying that they're in disbelief about how nice it's been. July and august are supposed to be constantly rainy. Apparently it rained for 8 days non stop and ceased to rain right when we arrived. I hope this sunshine during the day keeps up. It still gets freezing around 5. !!!!! discovered an excellent grocery store!!!! The one I went to earlier this week is 'in the middle'. Although it is pretty safe and legit buying fresh produce there, I was still sketched out. And they had no turkey. And some funky things. However right next to Pick n Pay is the excellent Woolworth's. it is like the Whole Foods of our neighborhood…well not that great and fancy, but definitely the best around. It's pretty expensive but I think investing in safe food is worth it…and they have soy things…and turkey…whoaaaa. But of course I'll still buy the regular staples at cheap places. The one that's right at the end of our street is ShopRite, which is the sketchiest of all but will do for the basics. Also adjacent to it is the liquor store which will be fantastic when needed. A few seconds down the street is "friendly 7 eleven". And right across the street is KFC.

- Today's fish was not burnt.

- One of my roommates is sick and my throat has started hurting. There will be blood.

- The remainder of the week will be hellish, with registration for classes/safety talks/ sex talks/ dry orientation things.

Going to read the constitution of the republic of South Africa (Kevin's class) or Running with Scissors (Casey's gift…so far excellent and hilarious! I was cracking up on the plane ride).

Day 2: what a long day. Today was basically sitting in a lecture hall for hours, listening to various speakers discuss campus safety and such. Although they were all extremely nice and welcoming, I could barely stay awake. We were told not to use the phone for calls or texts while walking on campus, because strangers wandering around might notice it and mug you. Also not to carry backpacks on your back, and avoid aimlessly wandering around the school. I still can't get over how huge the university is. After standing in line for lunch for about an hour, we were told they ran out of food and we should go to 'upper campus' to grab something. Well, upper campus is quite a hike. I went with two of my roommates and by the time we returned we were quite late for our next meeting (but the sandwiches we got were giant out of this world, and les than $3! Food is so cheap here. Also when the cook called out one of the sandwiches, the girl who I think it belonged to refused to take it because she thought it was getting too cold. I obviously took the free meal and enjoyed it thoroughly in addition to what I already had). During the break for lunch they had a bunch of tables set up in the hall advertising different agencies that can arrange trips for international students. I got almost every single brochure because everything sounded exciting. One trip in particular is on my mind for spring break. Post lunch was actually a 2+ hour examination to test our English comprehension. I thought they were kidding. After going over the instructions for nearly 45 minutes because no one could understand the African instructor, we sat in a classroom for a couple of hours taking this ridiculous test. Some of the instructions included questions such as "how much money did you spend traveling to school in grade 12" and "did your school have electricity". The actual test was reading articles about African crafts and answering questions with an essay at the end. Some random math problems in the middle. I guess it was formatted like the SAT's but it made me laugh. After that was over we got to see an African drum band; we also each had our own drum and were taught the basics of playing it…it was totally rad. Some fabulous finger food followed the performance, along with another band that was playing many interesting instruments. I brought back home 8 fruits with me from the free dinner, including a pineapple that I think was just there for decoration. Also 2 cans of juice. We finally returned home after a ten hour orientation…= exhaustion. Only five of us attend UCT. The other two girls in the house are at the University of Western Cape, about 15-20 minute ride from here. And the other 4 Arcadia (the agency I'm here through) kids are at the University of Stellenbosch…I think they'll be here a lot on weekends which is cool. All 11 of us are together once a week however for Kevin's class…Contemporary Issues in South Africa. Didn't have my camera today because I figured that I wouldn't need it during boring orientation but I regret not capturing the drummers.

Today's walk to school seemed longer, maybe 20 minutes. Also the weather actually resembled winter…cold, windy, and rainy.

Day 3: Registering for classes at this university is a pain in the balls. We reluctantly got an early start to the day to go and listen to some more drawn out lectures about every possible topic. The longest was our sex talk, equipped with an extremely visual demonstration of related thing…it was put on by HIV/Aids club students. Reps from the U.S consulate also showed up to discuss voting while abroad. We got some more delicious sandwiches for lunch again at 'upper campus'. A mini tour of the campus followed, but I had to go locate the Commerce building to figure out what periods/times/days my classes would be held on. It is a most chaotic and complex process and the University staff admit to the craziness of it all…tomorrow and Friday will be hectic. I gave myself a speedy tour of upper campus…our school is enormous but so beautiful.In addition to class we also have tutorials, which I suppose are like T.A sessions but mandatory and supposed to be really helpful. Finals here count anywhere from 50-80% of the final grade…jeez. Also what I thought would be small classes with all Americans kids are actually supposed to be huge 200-person lecture halls with mostly Africans…that'll be quite the adjustment. Classes seem difficult and I'm still in the process of trying to work out a decent schedule. We had our first class with Kevin today, which was held at the University of the Western Cape (a very nice campus but a lot more ghetto than UCT and older). It was a guest speaker that looked someone like Casey's Uncle Steve and his soft spoken voice of course put me to sleep….some interesting stuff that he talked about though (African gov't system). We decided to go out for dinner because it was relatively early and we returned…I feel like that's barely an expensive, considering how cheap the food at restaurants has been so far. We walked over to the Observatory, or the "obs", a neighborhood that is popular for bars and restaurants about 15 minutes away. I was thrilled when we arrived at the House of Asia (?) and they had an all-you-can-eat Sushi buffet for about $15. When we were seated everyone admitted to not liking Sushi and wanting to go elsewhere…a disappointment but I'll have to return there at some point. We went to a cool spot named Babbos, which I guess would be considered Italian food. I had some delicious butternut soup (a little over the edge with the dairy) and a large salad, and some tasty bread on the side. The pizzas looked delicious and had some crazy combinations of topics on them…no one was willing to split something spontaneous (picky eaters) and I knew I wouldn't be able to finish a whole one by myself. Took a cab to return home, as it was after 'safe hours'.

Our street smells of piss and is deemed to be much more dangerous than I thought.