Cape Town!

We have arrived in the beautiful city of Cape Town and are going to spend the next 3 weeks taking our history class and getting to know the city. This past week we traveled from Maritzburg for 4 days down the garden route. The garden route is beautiful and parts of it reminded me of driving the 1 in central california. We spent the 1st night in Port Elizabeth and moved onto East London the next day. In East London we were right next to the water again and a large casino and mall so we got to eat out for lunch and dinner which was fun and a great treat. The next day we drove to George and stayed at a retreat center called Carmel which was on a mountain overlooking the coast and was incredibly beautiful. We stopped at the bungee jumping place on the way to George and some of our group threw themselves off of a really tall bridge. That afternoon we got to go to a big cat refuge and looked at baby white tigers and cheetahs. The next day we took a day trip to the cango caves. The caves are huge and breathtaking- they were so much bigger then i was expecting and the formations were so cool. The used to hold concerts in the 1st chamber and the acoustics are incredible and we were able to persuade our guide to sing some Zulu songs with us which was a lot of fun. After the tour we came back to Carmel for the night. The next morning we drove the final stretch to Cape Town and got there mid afternoon. It was thanksgiving so our wonderful coordinators had arranged for us to have a thanksgiving meal together which was wonderful. We had turkey, ham, rice and vegetables, and pecan pie. They'd even decorated the dining hall red white and blue for us which was a nice touch. The next day we had orientation and got to know the city a little with our "cultural mentors" who are college students from the college we're staying at that are getting paid to hang out with us. At the college i was sharing a room with Janet, on of the CLC's that used to go to the college, so she invited me and a few of the other girls to go to breakfast with her and one of the other mentors. We got up early and walked to Olympia bakery, one of the many coffee shops and bakeries near the campus, and we got chocolate croissants and coffee and had breakfast walking down the pier. It was such a lovely way to start our time in Cape Town and i am very excited about the amount of good pastries so close to me! That evening we went to dinner at the Anglican church in Oceanview- the church that's sponsoring and arranging our homestays, and we got to meet our host families. Caitlin and I are staying with Virginia and Bernadette, two sisters that are Afrikaans teachers at the nearby high school. So we had dinner and the youth of the community put on a talent show for us and we went home with our families. We've only been in homestays a few days but it's been lovely so far. Virginia and Bernadette are very sweet and easy going and host people pretty frequently so it's been very easy to settle in and be a part of their lives. School is almost out so they've been pretty busy grading papers but we've had time to do some fun things and it's been really nice for me to sit in a home while they're grading and watch cartoons or read. We haven't had the opportunity to do that in a while and it's been nice to not be busy. Saturday we took the train downtown and went on a scavenger hunt for our history class. We got done with the assignment pretty quickly but it was a great introduction to the city and will help us plan later activities and excursions after class. After our expedition into the city we came back to our Oceanview and had dinner with Virginia and Bernadette. We visited one of the other host families after dinner and got to talk to the girls staying there and listen to hilarious stories from their host mom which was very fun. And this morning we went to church which was a little confusing because parts of it were in Afrikaans and it was very structured but Caitlin and i had fun trying to figure out what was going on. So we've been busy but it's very exciting to be here- Cape Town is beautiful. It's not like any other city i've been before- kind of a small San Francisco with more of a European pace and feel but also distinctly African. I am so looking forward to getting to know it better in our last few weeks here.