DISCLAIMER: this post is very long because it includes everything from the past 2 weeks. Would love if people are interested enough to read, but please don't think I'm a crazy narcissist as I definitely do not expect everyone to be interested in the whole thing! This is just a good way for me to keep track of everything if I want to look back on it later. Posts will definitely get shorter from now on as classes are starting. Enjoy!
BONUS PIC! Duck face with ducks.
2/6/18
Today was more orientation
stuff and then chilling, HOWEVER I did discover that there’s an amazing Indian
food place literally right next to our apartments so that was pretty awesome. I
got one veggie korma dish for $7 and it lasted me for lunch and dinner. Just
gonna keep telling you about how cheap my meals are because I really will never
be over it. I also went shopping FINALLY for groceries and various necessities
and lemme tell you I am getting so spoiled by my living situation. I live right
across the street from not one but TWO grocery stores, a huge pharmacy, a
coffee shop, etc etc literally anything I could ever need. For dinner, Jen,
Rachel, Alicia and I went to the VA waterfront, which is a touristy but really
nice area on the water with a mall and a bunch of restaurants. We settled on
this fancy Italian place and had a nice dinner. Then when we were by the big ferris
wheel, Rachel lost odds-are and had to propose to a random man. She did it! Cuz
she’s a badass! Got down on one knee and everything! He was really nice about
it, of course, because South Africans are the best. Then it got weird when
another man who saw it happen came over and started inquiring about her love
life and asked her to be his girlfriend. Why do men have to ruin everything no
jk or not jk idk ALSO THIS WAS ALLYSON SILVER’S BIRTHDAY!!! SHOUTOUT LOVE U
GIRLY!!
2/7/18
Today was a “free day”
granted to us by CIEE so naturally we took advantage by all sleeping until
11:30, oops! But then we made breakfast and got ourselves together to go to the
#1 Botanical Garden in the world nooooot to brag but I think that’s pretty
heckin cool. It’s called Kristenbosch (sp?) and WOW OH WOW I have never seen
anything like it. It looks like a magical land out of a Disney movie.
Everything is so so green and peaceful and there are different kinds of flowers
and trees all over. You know what, I may have not thought that was so cool a
year ago but my Ebio class from last semester really made me appreciate how
diverse plant life is wow!!!! My flatmates and I set up a picnic with food and
wine that we brought in a nice shady spot and chilled there for like 3 hours.
We talked for awhile and Olivia brought her pastels and was drawing trees
because she’s super cool like that. It was so perfect and peaceful. Kristenbosch
does this awesome thing every Wednesday night where they show an outdoor movie
at 6 and they were showing the Time Traveler’s Wife, so my friends stayed for
that but I went back. If I’m being tooootally honest about my abroad experience
which I want to be, sometimes it’s really hard to be here as someone who loves
being social but also needs a good amount of alone/down time. A lot of this
week has been spent trying to figure out a good balance between pushing myself
to spend time with people and take advantage of everything here, but also
recognizing that I need time to recharge and sometimes that involves missing
out on something. So anyway this movie was something I felt I could miss but I
will def go next time! They’re playing the Lion King in a couple weeks and I am
more than pumped to watch that while IN AFRICA!
2/8/18
WHAT A DAY! Ok so I’ll start
with a little background info. If ya didn’t know, Cape Town is known for its
beautiful mountains that can be seen from basically anywhere and just have this
unbelievable presence. There are 3 main named mountains—Table Mountain, Devil’s
Peak and Lion’s Head. Lion’s Head is supposedly the easiest one to hike, so my
flatmates and I decided to hike it at like 9am. Now here’s the thing. It’s very
easy to say “I want to go to Cape Town for the beautiful hikes and outdoor
activities and I can’t wait to climb all the mountains and be active yada yada
yada!” What’s not so easy is ACTUALLY climbing the huge mountain in 85 degree
African heat with no shade for the entire 2 hour hike up, especially after a
whole semester of barely working out. It was basically just walking uphill for
an hour and then climbing up rocks for an hour—there were even ladders and
steeples (staples? Metal things poking out that you hold onto?) to help you
climb up hard parts. I legitimately didn’t think I was going to make it at many
points and a few heat/nausea induced tears may or may not have been shed (shoutout
to Rebecca my lovely roommate and coach who insisted on staying behind me and
encouraging me) but alas I did make it up and I am so glad I did! The view was unbelievable;
you get a 360 view of EVERYTHING in Cape Town. This was the first true challenge
of the semester for me and I know many more are to come, but accomplishing it
was suuuch a high. When we got back, I swear I had the best bottled water and
shower of my life. So what did I learn from this experience?
1.
Hiking a mountain in Africa is different from hiking shady trails in Maryland.
2. You
don’t miraculously stay in shape after 8 months of not exercising. BUT I am
more than excited to hopefully get back into shape here.
3. There’s
no high like feeling the breeze on top of a gigantic mountain.
4.
REAPPLY SUNSCREEN!
5.
Workout leggings in 85 degrees is not the move.
6. Pack
2 water bottles.
7. Don’t
be alarmed when you’re on top and your fingers swell up so big that you feel
like Aunt Petunia from Harry Potter blowing up into a balloon.
Obviously I took a wonderful
nap when I got back, and then I went to dinner with Maddie. Maddie is my best
friend of 10 years who I haven’t gone to school with since 8th grade
but now we’re finally back at school together! We’re on different programs (I’m
on CIEE and she’s on IES) so we’ve been very separate so far, but we’re both
studying at UCT. She’s truly like my sister so it was really nice to have
dinner with someone totally familiar, especially in this very unfamiliar
experience of being abroad. I celebrated my hiking accomplishment with a fun
drink and my 2nd truffle mushroom pasta of the week because ya know
I can’t resist some good mushroom pasta! Then Rebecca and Rachel and I had a
movie night with Friends With Benefits, which is on Netflix here because yay ZA
(South African) Netflix, and then I passed the HOOT out!
2/9/18
Ok so today was class
registration and it is a PROCESS. Since not every student here has Internet
access, they do everything on paper and in person. We all came into this huge
sports center (oops I mean CENTRE #southafricanthings) and went through all
these steps to get forms and fill out stuff in order to sign up for classes.
I’ll spare you the details of this process because it was basically me waiting
in line for 2 hours J But the
classes I’m taking are Medical Anthropology, Culture and Social Life, and I’m
probably going to switch into Religion and Politics for my third class. AAAND I
have a bomb schedule starting at 9 and done by 1. All of my courses all seem
super different from anything I’ve ever taken, so I’m actually really excited
about them. Unpopular opinion but I’m eager for school to start—I do well with
routine and I kinda miss learning idk!!! I think it’s cool how you only take 3
classes here so that you go deeper in each subject/class rather than having to
juggle 5 or 6 different ones. Preparing myself though because I’ve heard that
academics are very hard and involved here. Anyhow, it was a pretty excruciating
annoying process getting approval for my classes and finding my way around
campus but everything did work out. We had a nice dinner in where I made a
pretty kickass cucumber tomato feta salad and we just sat around and talked for
awhile which is always nice. Alicia and I lit Shabbat candles and lemme mention
here how grateful I am to have people here who prioritize Jewish life and can
celebrate Shabbat with me. I’m about to watch Three Billboards Outside Ebbing
Missouri on an illegal site woo! Movie was okay, I hope Lady Bird and Call Me
By Your Name win lots of Oscars instead.
2/10/18
Multiple people who have
studied here have told me that I MUST go to Old Biscuit Mill on Saturdays, so
Alicia, Jen, Olivia and I decided to go there this morning around 10. I know
I’m so annoying for this, but seriously there are no words to accurately depict
how unbelievable this place is. It’s basically a HUGE outdoor market that sells
absolutely everything you could ever think of. There are 2 big areas that have
food stand after food stand, selling amazing looking stuff that they often let
you sample—everything from fudge to flavored mayo to Korean food to pumpkin
pancakes to truffle mac n cheese balls. It took me 25 minutes to just do an initial
lap to see what I wanted. I settled on a strawberry smoothie and big bowl of
shakshuka and boy was it good. I kinda wanna cry thinking about how I’ll never
get to try everything there. After we got our food, we sat down on this green
fake grass path thing that they put out under a big tent and listened to this
awesome band play live music. They were really folksy and played harmonicas and
it was COOL. The vibes at this place are insane—everyone just seems so happy to
be there, and there are people of every age. One of the parents was just
letting her baby crawl on the bare ground in the middle of a crowd, one woman
straight up took her shirt off in public in order to try something on; when
people say South Africans are really chill, they mean it. We walked around the
clothing/jewelry/bag area when we were done and it was really hard not to spend
every penny to my name. My roommates all got these awesome African-vibe
earrings that of course they can pull off bc they’re really cool, whereas when
I tried them on I looked like the kooky school librarian but ya know that’s
life. I had to leave earlyish because my stomach wasn’t doing the best, but I
want to go back there literally every week. Incredible. I was feeling very sick
for the rest of the day, and I am very bad at being sick, so that was no fun.
But thank goodness for Mardi Gras Instagrams—when I was laying in bed not able
to sleep I knew I had 30 minutes of scrolling through “mardi pardi” “been
training for this marathon all year” “peaking” instas!
2/11/18
Skipping talking about this
day because I think it was mostly just me being sick and instead I’ll explain
what I was preparing to do the next day. There’s this thing that many students
do the week before school starts called the “garden route”, which is driving
from the Western Cape to the Eastern Cape and doing many cool activities along
the way. It’s when people get their super touristy pictures with animals and
stuff. It’s common here to do it with a travel agency that organizes it and
provides transportation. So my friends and I signed up to do it from Monday to
Thursday with an awesome group called Southern Ambition, and we were assigned a
bus of 19 that we would be with the whole time. Packing for this was bananas
because I’m a chronic overpacker, and I could only use 2 backpacks. But it’s
all part of challenging myself etc etc etc and I did it. Oh yeah I forgot we took the cable car up to Table Mountain and it was pretty views and peaceful vibes and great per ushe and here's a pic and that's all I have to say about that!
2/12/18
We woke up at 4am today and
drove for 5 hours to get to the Cango Wildlife Reserve, which is this really
cool place that houses all kinds of endangered African species. It kinda looked
like a fancy zoo where we were just really close to all the animals, like
standing right over them, instead of separated by glass. This funny dude named
Ed gave us a guided tour where he made a lot of jokes but also talked a lot
about how humans are putting these species in danger of extinction and how it’s
super important to spread awareness about it. My favorite was seeing the lions
because they are just CRAZY majestic! I did enjoy my time there, but I will say
the irony of their lunch café serving crocodile and ostrich was not lost on me.
Before we left, I got the chance to have an “encounter” with one of their
animals. Most of my friends chose the big cheetah but I’m suuuuch a sucker for
babies, so I spent some time with the cubs. V cute. Then we were off to our
hostel. When I think of a hostel, I think of the place I stayed in Jerusalem on
birthright—just rooms and a small lobby where cockroaches ran across the floor.
Ok well if you ever go to Africa and hear someone talk about a hostel or
“backpacker”, know that they are NOT talking about a place like that. We stayed
in one called Afrovibe, right on the beach, with a full bar and restaurant
downstairs on the sand and a big bonfire going as people ate outside. I did not
expect the hostels on this trip to be a whole experience in themselves. We ate
dinner down in the bar/restaurant area, and the vibes were amaaazing with the
wind and sounds of the ocean and music and fire. After dinner, our trip leader
Moses (incredible dude btw) led our group down to the beach. We sat down and
passed around a bottle of Amarula (super sweet yummy desserty South African
drink) as we introduced and shared something about ourselves. We all laughed a
lot and I felt kind of like I was a character in some cool teen beach movie
(not to be confused with the actual movie Teen Beach Movie, just saying a movie
where teens are on the beach). Then we sat in the common room on the wifi for a
bit and then went to sleep. Oh yeah also I realized I forgot my adapter so I
only had my portable charger to last me the whole 4 days. Similar but different
to the miracle of Hannukah. Ok instead of posting a pic of myself I'm gonna post a beautifully awkweard pic of my friend Olivia because it might be my favorite picture to ever exist. Also this is a test to see if she actually reads my blog. Liv if you read this lemme know!
2/13/18
ELEPHANTS!!! That is all. We
went to an elephant sanctuary in the morning and it was magical. I got to walk
with an elephant holding my hand with his trunk. Sweet elephant was named
Marula and I miss him very much. We got to feel all the elephant’s body parts
and feed them and UGH THEY ARE SO CUTE!!! Idk how to describe it they’re just
so big but sweet and innocent and helpless and it made me so happy but also so
sad because I can’t understand how people kill them. We sat down and learned a
bunch about them, like how they have a 2 year gestational period (shoutout to
my friend Rachel who literally did not stop referencing that fact for the whole
day). Then we headed out to kloofing. What is kloofing, you ask? Great question
that I also had all day and did not get answered until I actually did the
thing! It’s basically canyoning, so like repelling into a canyon and then cliff
jumping, swimming, climbing rocks and ziplining. It was absolutely WILD. I knew
the minute they told us to put on wetsuits that this was gonna be legit. We
repelled soooo far off a cliff first thing like theme of the week was will I
make it out of these activities alive??? Luckily I did, after lots of jumping
off cliffs into water and nearly slipping on rocks a million times. I’d like to
shout out my trusty new chacos for getting me through this activity. Wait also
there was this CRAZY zip line. I was the first one to do it and basically they
send you down this zipline and after you’ve been zipping for like 3 seconds you
see that you’re heading straight for a big tree log thing and are like WTF AM I
ABOUT TO DIE but then last minute the guys working the zip pull on something
and you fly up and then are released down into the water. And then our leader
Darren WHAT a jokester SPRINTS over to you and dives into the water and
basically pretends that he’s saving you so you think that wasn’t supposed to
happen. Goofiest and scariest thing ever. Our other leader Warren is my new best
friend I think. He learned very quickly that I need individualized attention
and kept offering for me to hold his hand when we walked across rocks. Chivalry
is not dead folks!!! We ate a quick lunch at a restaurant right by the kloofing
place and then headed to our next hostel. Guys. This hostel. I can’t even. It
was like an adorable mountain vacation house with a fireplace, balcony with a
bar and firepit surrounded by couches, color and cute Africa decorations all
over…so incredibly cozy and perfect. I snapchatted a picture of my friends and
I sitting on the couches around the balcony fire pit all freshly showered, just
talking and reading and playing music, and I captioned it “I wish I could
snapchat a feeling”. Just pure happiness and contentment. The wonderful
volunteers who run the hostel cooked us an amazing dinner, which they called a
“brai”, or an African barbeque. I sat around a table by the fireplace with
friends and we talked about important things like feminism, privilege, and the
pressure that we all feel to have perfect abroad experiences when it’s actually
really hard sometimes. So glad I have friends to have these kinds of
conversations with here! Then we sat outside some more and then went to bed in
our big room of 6 bunk beds. I looked up a bunch of reviews of bungee jumping
on tripadvisor before I went to bed in order to try to prepare myself for the
next day…
2/14/18
After a super yummy breakfast
at the hostel, we drove to do my most anticipated but anxiety producing
activity—bungee jumping, at the highest commercial bungee jump in the WORLD
(there might be a Chinese bungee that’s a few meters higher now but we’ll keep
pretending). I was one of only 7 of us who did it, and I’m so glad I did. BUT I
will say—whoever tells you that the scariest part is approaching the ledge is
absolutely lying to you. The scariest part by far is the actual falling. It’s
just freakin wild like we are not meant to know what free falling feels like,
much less free falling and then bouncing up and down and hanging by your feet
feeling like they’re gonna slip out for a good 45 seconds. I remember just
hanging looking down and breathing heavy and saying “oh my god” over and over
again in the silence of the air. Again, I’m so glad I did it and it was so out
of character and I’m so proud of myself, but it was REALLY SCARY. It’s good
that the people who run stuff here are no-bullshit or I wouldn’t do anything.
When I got to the ledge I was like WAIT WAIT I DON’T THINK MY FEET ARE IN TIGHT
ENOUGH and they were like ONE TWO THREE BUNGEE!! Did not even engage. Also
Warren from kloofing was the same way—I was scared to jump off the cliff and he
was just like “one two three” and I was scared of him so I just had to jump.
Nobody here has time for my anxiety lol. But it’s probably a good thing. Anyway
yeah that was that and I was HAPPY and high on adrenaline and then we had to go
straight to the hostel because things at bungee finished pretty late. We stayed
at the same place as the first night, the place on the beach. Nicole and Jen
and I walked to the beach when we got there and just sat in the sand talking
for awhile, which is definitely a preferred activity of mine. I like when
beaches are quiet and peaceful. We had such a nice dinner there and sat for
sooo long just LAUGHING. We played odds are for way too long. I lost an odds
are and had to stand up and yell “I like to poop” in jibberish. I was more
scared to do that than I was to bungee jump. I literally don’t even know what
we were doing or laughing at but my stomach hurt from laughing by the end and
that’s my favorite kind of feeling! Best Valentines Day ever.
2/15/18
Last day of trip L The activity for the day was canoeing and then
hiking to a waterfall, then hiking back and canoeing back. It was ok tbh I’ve
done stuff like that a lot in the states and was just like meh but I did get
some good exercise and quality time on the canoe with my new friend Nicole!!
Only really notable thing was that when we got to the waterfall, I was trying
to climb this huge slippery rock and I slipped and started sliding straight
down it and then knocked into Nicole and she started sliding down it and I bled
a little and have a huge bruise but it hurt my ego more than my body I think.
We gave up on climbing the rock at that point because we are #quitters. Also
when we were walking back I did a full banana peel slip and fell on my back in
front of some young adult men hikers. Really don’t know where my balance was
that day but it sure was not with me during that activity. There’s not much to
say about the rest of the day, we just drove like 6 hours back and I ate a fun
chocolate bar called Aero. Oh YEAH omg I can’t believe this was all one day, it
was my roommate Rebecca’s birthday HAPPY BIRTHDAY REBECCA!!! Her 21st
even!! We went to the waterfront to have dinner for it at this place that
reminded us so much of the Cheesecake Factory. Like this big fancy place in the
mall that had a booklet as their menu and served every type of food possible. I
got a pizza with guacamole and salsa and sour cream on top and I think it was
better in concept than in practice but I still enjoyed it. Then I showered
HALLELUJAH and we all passed the heck out because in Rachel’s words we were
SPENT.
2/16/18
Idk this day was dumb we just
walked to campus to try to sign up for societies which are what clubs are
called here, but we kinda had no idea what we were doing and failed. Guys I
have such a love hate relationship with campus here. It’s beautiful but it’s
ALL uphill. Like 99% of the time you’re walking up or down stairs. I did
Kabbalat Shabbat on the balcony with Rachel and Rebecca which was so nice.
It was beautiful out and I haven’t been to/done a kabbalat Shabbat service
since camp. I’m so lucky to be able to be connected to my Judaism even here in
Cape Town, maybe even more than I normally am at school. Jen and Rebecca made
dinner while I was napping because I’m the absolute worst, and then we lit
candles and had dinner around our tiny uncomfortable kitchen table/I probably
can’t even call it a table bc it’s literally just a tiny counter in the corner
with barstools. Butttttt all the fun started at 2am when Alicia got
violently ill and we went to the hospital at 3:30am!! I got her permission to
put this in my blog, as now she’s feeling better and it’s not too soon anymore
to joke about the fact that we literally ubered to the hospital in the middle
of the night. #memories #friendship #roomielove #neverleaving #touristinmyowncity
#abroadchangedme
2/17/18
Went back to Chabad for lunch
today and it was lovely as always and not much to say other than that because
it’s just plain great! Then I slept for a long time seeing as I went to sleep
at 5:30am the night before, and then I went out HAHAH and got very reminded why
I don’t like going out. We went to this place and had to pay to get in, only to
discover that the average age there was probably like 35 and people were
dancing in ways that made me feel uncomfortable like I’ve never felt before.
Sad! So we left and wandered around for the whole night like actual freshmen
and ended the night at McDonalds which obviously was the highlight. I think I’m
gonna start dressing up and pregaming to go out and then JUST go to McDonalds bc
we all know that’s the best part of going out anyway. Grandma Hannah is back
and better than ever. Pce!
2/18/18
Aw today was so nice! We went
to Camps Bay, which is this awesome beach area with the best view ever and some
really cute restaurants. We had brunch and then lay (I think that’s the right
form of lay in this sentence ugh that one always trips me up) on the beach for
awhile. This guy was selling sunglasses and literally tried to convince me he
was selling real Ray Bans for $20 and I laughed in his face but I did buy a
pair that I got down to $15 bc I need sunglasses and they were cute. I read my
book on the beach, right now I’m reading A Thousand Splendid Suns. It is so sad
but sooo good wow. Something that’s been a little tough here is navigating all
the times that you pass homeless people or are asked for money for various
reasons. I give some change sometimes, but obviously can’t give to everyone. I
keep thinking about this man who came to talk at camp staff week this past
year; he used to be homeless, and he talked to us about his experience. He said
that being homeless and having to beg for money is such a dehumanizing
experience and that even if you don’t give money, stopping to smile at someone
and ask how they are makes all the difference. I so get that in theory, but I
also feel awful doing that and not giving anything, so it’s a lot easier to
just ignore someone. But I think I’m gonna try to be better and push myself to act on what he said. Just something I’m
thinking about because it’s really constant here (especially today at the
beach) and very hard to watch. But also important to be reminded of our
privilege and not just get caught up in the mindset of “wow abroad is amazing
Cape Town is beautiful and completely perfect”—there’s still a ton of poverty
here, and the contrast between that and the people brunching and tanning at the
beach is very startling. Anyway sorry I’m rambling but just something I’ve been
noticing. Classes start tomorrow so our 2-week vacation is over, but I think
for the most part everyone is ready. Here's to a good first week!
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