babboons, ostriches, and penguins

My blog is losing steam already... that's not a good sign.



Yesterday we went on a Cape Peninsula tour via about a dozen coach busses. Let's just say a group of about 500 Americans tends to stick out.. not touristy or embarrassing at all. But yeah, IAPO (which is the international students program or whatever) organized the tour for alllll the study abroad students from different organizations. I think we all know Interstudy has it in the bag for coolest/hottest/smartest study abroad kids.. haha, we pretend we're locals because we've been here a week longer than everyone else and get really territorial about it. And we all recognize the maturity and justification (or lack there of) of feeling that way. As long as we know we're stand-offish and crazy haha. But anyways, the tour was really pretty. We went down to the beach where all the jackass penguins are (I'm not kidding, they really call them that), and they are absolutely adorable. And we came to the conclusion they're really not built for anything. Tiny legs and wings that don't work... I'd be pissed if I was a penguin. But they were really cute. And smelly. Our tour ended up at the Cape of Good Hope, which is the most southwest tip of Africa. You can hike up to this lighthouse and it has one of those signs pointing to different cities in the world. New York was 12,000+ kilometers (whatever the hell that means). It was absolutely gorgeous. Had me a nice little margarita on the "top" of a mountain, no big deal. Afterwards we were all tired, hot, and slightly crabby so we were glad to go home. But I'm proud to say I saw my first three African animals in the wild: penguins obviously, babboons, and ostriches! Ostriches are huge, I didn't really realize. Ostrich is so yummy too.. mmm. Then we got a late start to La Med, and I don't really want to talk about it. But I don't really ever wanna go there again.. it sucked.



Today we had some orientation activities.. including a language proficiency test. Required of all international students, but guess what the language is here? English. Yeah. So for the 475 out of 500 international students that are american... really? You need me to prove I can speak english even though it's kind of my first language? Stupid. It was a long ass test too. But afterwards we caught a bit of the UCT (University of Cape Town) rugby match against Stellenbosch, which is about an hour from Cape Town so they're huge rivals. It was really cool. And then we attended an African drumming workshop and it was soooo sweet. So I'm pretty much a pro now, no big deal. It was really fun though, I wish I would have taken pictures. That's pretty much the only thing I haven't taken pictures of here.. I have so many to post but I'm lazy and it's expensive. So.. sorry. :) So after the mad crazy drum sesh, they served us food and I came to find out today that americans are vultures when it comes to miniature sandwiches and chicken skewers. Like, it was borderline embarrassing and frightening. These poor catering waitor guys were getting jumped with their huge trays of food.. it was actually really funny to watch.



Also, I signed up for my spring break trip to Botswana and Zambia! I'm so excited. We're going on safari for a week or something. Camping out in the bush, sleeping in tents (I hope I hear lions roaring at night haha), and of course sunset booze cruises are included. I highly approve. And then we're flying to Zambia to see Victoria Falls, one of the seven wonders of the world. And apparently the most extreme bungie jumping spot in the whole world. I don't know if I could handle that though. Skydiving I'm totally down for but bungie jumping feels like I'm leaving a lot to chance. But jumping out of airplanes is fine.. I can't explain my logic so don't expect to understand it I guess.

Well it's go time. Peace, love, and chicken skewer ninja tactics.

Love,
Nicole