Welcome to South Africa!

We arrived in Cape Town around 9:30 on Monday night after a very LONG trek across the globe (spent the 4^th of July on a plane)!  It’s amazing how slow 20 hours on a plane goes by.  The first flight (8 hours) wasn’t too bad, but I was ready to be done after about 7.  And then we had a 4 hour layover in Amsterdam... which could have been fun, but it was about 6am their time and pretty empty and we were exhausted.  So we found our gate, put our luggage down and took shifts walking around the terminal.  Nothing too exciting, although, Kayla and I finally decided our caffeine levels had bottomed out and we needed to refill.  Of course, there was a Starbucks because Starbucks is EVERYWHERE!  So we waited in a long line of Europeans to order frapuccinos that cost over NINE DOLLARS a piece!  Welcome to Amsterdam, the most expensive place in the world!  Goodness gracious!  But, of course, we got them anyway, knowing we had a 12 hour flight ahead of us.  And boy oh boy, was that a rough one!  They kept showing us on the personal screens our flight path and time remaining... I think it was more torturous than helpful.  When it had felt like DAYS, there would be the little screen reminding us we still had 8 ½ hours to go.  8 ½?!?!?  We’ve only been on the plane for 3 hours?!?!  And that’s how it went for the whole flight.  Sleep was attempted, although we knew we’d be arriving at night in South Africa and didn’t want to be up all night there.  We did have a personal screen and good movie choices, but we all just felt beyond GROSS when we landed – it was over 24 hours from the time we arrived at the Detroit airport to the time we arrived in Cape Town!

           

Corvell, our program leader, was there to pick us up at the airport, as well as the five other travelers who had just arrived on another flight.  We loaded all of our luggage (quite a task, let me tell you) into a van and trailer and were on our way to Deo Gratia, the bed and breakfast we are staying at for the first two weeks.  Before arriving at Deo, of course we had to stop for our first official South African meal since we’d eaten only airplane food for the last 24 hours.  And the location was... McDonalds.  Yes, chicken nuggets and fries was my first meal.  Very authentic.  

           

We were assigned rooms when we got to Deo, which we have for the first four nights.  I am in a separate little “suite” house with four other girls – we each have our own bed and share a bathroom.  We are having a blast in our little house!  So many late night laughs and it’s only night three!  And surprisingly, we have very HOT shower water, which we are taking full advantage of until we move into the main house tomorrorow night.  Unfortunately, the wi-fi is not cooperating at Deo Gratia, so all 16 of us are sharing one computer with Internet.

           

Breakfast was at 10am on Tuesday (our first full day) and I’m pretty sure that was the last time we’ll be sleeping in for the next six weeks.  We had toast, fruit, yogurt, coffee, and cereal.  I stuck with the familiar-looking Corn Flakes-like cereal and stole cold milk from the coffee area (they use warm milk in their cereals here...).  They had a bunch of jam flavors for our toast... not JELLY, but JAM.  Jelly is a dessert here... something like Jello in America?  Very tasty breakfast, overall!  And then, of course, there was the Marmite.  What is marmite, you say?  The name about says it all.  Marmite is a “yeast spread,” I quote from the jar.  Obviously, we all saw this and steered clear.  But Corvell, always encouraging us to try new things, got one of the boys to try some on a piece of bread.  After that, it was decided that everyone needed to take a bite of this toast with nasty, salt-saturated, grainy, I-don’t-know-what-else-to-say-about-this Marmite.  That single piece of bread made it around to all 16 of us and the looks were priceless.  Nasty, nasty stuff.

           

Our first full day here was spent at malls (yes, two of them!) and an animal reserve called Stier.  The malls here are HUGE!  And they have everything you could possibly need – drug stores, electronics, clothes, banks... truly one-stop shopping.  We took care of exchanging money and getting cell phones.  South African money is called Rand and the exchange rate is about 6.4 Rand per $1.  It’s been really hard to get used to the prices here, so we are all getting good at dividing by 6 or 7 to approximate the dollar cost.  Then we had lunch in the food court at, you guessed it, McDonalds!  I have officially eaten more McDonalds here than I have in the past several YEARS in the states.  After mall #1 we headed out to Stier, an animal reserve with Eagle Owls, Bat-Eared Fox, and Cheetahs.  Some of the group paid to pet the cheetahs, but I’m waiting for our chance to pet BABY cheetahs... they are more my size.  They also had a restaurant at this reserve area that is supposedly one of the most expensive restaurants in Cape Town.  We didn’t eat there, but it was very neat to see!  At night, we headed to mall #2 (supposedly, we will stop at 12 different malls during our stay here!).  This mall, La Piazza, is the third largest mall in the world!  It doesn’t even compare to U.S. malls!  We wandered around for a bit and, again, ate in the food court... this time, Canal Wok, an Asian food chain.  Wrong continent still.

           

On Wednesday, we went to Robben Island, which is the prison where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 years.  We learned about some of the other political prisoners and the history of the island and got our own personal tour with a friend of Corvell’s.  We also got to see Nelson Mandela’s cell and spoke to a former prisoner who was imprisoned there for 11 years.  It was fascinating to hear the stories.  Then we went to the District 6 museum for a short time and learned about the people that were forced to leave their homes during apartheid.

           

We had dinner at mall #3, which was right on the waterfront.  It was the official kick-off of our program and we had some good, good food!  Corvell surprised us and had the waiters sing Happy Birthday to Megan D. and I (since our birthdays were a couple of weeks ago) and we got ice cream with some flavored syrup over it – YUMMY!  That’s how they celebrate Capetonian style!  Then Megan and I split ANOTHER dessert, called Malva, which was delicious – a kind of spiced cake with whipped topping!  Finally some South African originals!

           

We have done a lot of driving and it is BEAUTIFUL here!  There are mountains all over and we have gotten some great pictures!  We will be stumbling – I mean, climbing – down Table Mountain in a few days.  Wine tasting tomorrow!  Happy Birthday to my dog, Max, today – he’s 12!  Hopefully I’ll be able to post again soon!  Our days have been very, very busy, but I am loving it!

Love,

Megan