Season Finale

Last day in Cape Town, getting on a plane at 6pm today and I come home on Sunday at 11am. That travel time consists of a 9.5 hour flight to Dubai and then a 16.5 hour flight to LAX... yikes. It's going to be rough.

I didn't end up going Shark Cage Diving, it got cancelled due to the weather. I did go to a USA vs. South Africa soccer game at the stadium which was awesome...we won! Last night we stayed up and went up to Rhodes Memorial to watch the sun rise, a great way to say goodbye. See you all soon!

Love always,

Julia

Probably the final round of musings...

Since I'm leaving on Saturday (gulp) this will probably be the last round of my musings on South Africa. Here goes:

1) Iced Coffee does not exist. Well, it does, but not in the sense that we think of. Iced Coffee is basically hot coffee poured over ice cream.

2) Bagels are very, very hard to come by. If I do find them, they are awful.

3) Kids here, instead of handshakes or high fives, do this little flip with their thumbs. It's really hard to describe, but it's really adorable.

4) People say "Shap Shap" a lot, which means like cool or yeah or really anything

5) Finals at UCT were very much like Harry Potter's O.W.L's (yeah, I know I'm cool for slipping in a HP reference). They set up in huuuuge rooms with millions of desks and its very serious/formal.

6) They refer to "grades" as "marks," and instead of saying "take" an exam, they say either "write" or "sit" an exam.

7) It's super hot here now! Wow!

8) I've become addicted to milk chocolate here. My two favorites are Cadbury Dairy Milk and something called a Chomp bar. I will miss them both dearly.

That's all I got for general musings. I'm incredibly relieved to be done with finals, and have basically just been hanging around since they've been over. Hello 2 month vacation! I'm feeling very sad about leaving here, I feel like the time has gone by so quickly. I also had to say bye to my CHOSA kids recently, which was an intensely emotional experience that solidified the fact that I really am leaving. Sorry to be negative, because I am also thrilled to be going home to the fam and Sami and iced coffee and bagels and Chipotle and free internet and no airtime for cell phones etc. But I think everyone gets the mixed emotions. That's all for now, going to go soak up some rays! Preview for the next post: I may be going shark cage diving, plus I may put up more pictures of my CHOSA darlings. That's all.

Jules

Namibia Addendum: highs and lows

I forgot to mention all the funny/highlights/lowlights of the trip. Here is a little addendum to my last post.

-When we got to the airport in Cape Town, one of the people at check-in told me that I had not yet paid for my ticket. She say I had chosen the "pay later" option, and then proceeded not to pay later. Yup, sounds like me.

-Our last night in Windhoek we stayed in a hostel. It was a room for around 10 people and it was the first time that I had stayed in a hostile with people other than just my friends. Of course, we get stuck with a complete weirdo. He was probably 50, overweight, suuuuuppper weird and socially retarded. It was rather uncomfortable. The worst part, however, was that he was a HUGE SNORER. Literally, I slept in the car because I couldn't handle it. It was not normal. It sounded like he was dying. Dad- he gave you a run for your money.

-When sleeping in our tent, there were some pretty extraordinary animal presence. Not only did my friend Stew and I see some weird animal in the dark with green eyes, but we also heard some pretty terrifying howling all throughout the night.

-At one point, my friend Stewart accidentally took out 2,000 Namibian Dollars instead of 200. Aka, she is now stuck with N$2,000. Sucks for herrrrr

-My friend Nicky totally wiped out while sand boarding and we have an awesome video to prove it

-My friend Izzy could NOT pronounce Swakopmond for the life of her. She continually pronounced it as spelled, "Swa-KOPE-mond" when really it should be "SWA-ko-mond"

-Our sand boarding instructors were total pot heads!

That's all the highs and lows I can think of for now. Enjoyyyy

Namibia!

Helllooooo everyone!

As promised, here is my post about Namibia. I just got back yesterday and had to study for my two finals today... which is to say, I'm exhausted and so happy to be done with them. 2 down, 2 to go. Namibia, for the record, is the second least populated sovereign country in the world after Mongolia. So it is pretty much a ghost town (country). A whooooole lot of sand. We flew in to Windhoek and drove straight to Swakopmund, the 2nd biggest city in Namibia (isn't really saying much). We walked around and got dinner, not surprisingly almost every single restaurant was completely empty. It was very bizarre. Here is a picture of the beautiful sunset on the beach.

And here is a picture of the map of Swakopmond... huge right?

The next morning we woke up extra early for our first day of activities: Sandboarding! I've been wanting to go sandboarding since the day I got to Africa, so I'm very happy that I finally did it! It was a lot of fun, tough at first, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Here is a picture of the dunes that we boarded.

Pretty unreal, right? After exploring the scenery we got debriefed and all suited up. Here is a picture of me and my friends getting ready to head up to the dune:

Notice that we are all wearing practically the same outfit.... awkward. Moving on, the next step is to get to the top of the dunes. Unlike snowboarding, however, there are no chairlifts...no ATVs, no nothin'. That means that we had to walk up. Not just the first time, but every time. I'd have to say, being my lazy self, that was probably the worst part. It was incredibly hot and walking up a steep dune in snowboard boots is not an easy task. Here's a pic of me braving the dune:

Once we got to the top, it was go time. Here is a picture of me shredding bru! (I actually was not shredding, but somehow this picture makes me look super cool and athletic... which I didn't really look like in action. I did get good by the end)

On our last run, our guides asked us if anyone was brave enough to try the jump. Seeing as I have somehow become some sort of fearless freak, I decided to go for it (despite the fact that I'm not so experienced). Here's a pic of me catchin' major air... lekker! (that means cool in Afrikaans) (I don't know why I've assumed some sort of South African surfer bro dialect for this post... I'm tired and have a final in 2 hours)

Next up on the Nambian to-do list: Ride a camel! We went to a cool place that suited us up with some awesome head dresses and we were off. Here are pictures!

The ride itself was kind of anticlimactic, but fun when the camels started trotting! My friend Stewart and I felt particularly close with my camel (as close as you can with a camel), Ronnie, so here's a picture of us kissing him!

After our jam-packed day we got some much needed rest and woke up the next morning to head to Sossusvlei, the biggest dunes in the world! It was about a 6 hour drive, not because it was far, but because we travelled via nonpaved roads. Take a look at the road and the absolute NOTHINGNESS surrounding it:

We passed this pretty hilarious sign on our drive, so I snapped a pic:

When we got to Sossusvlei, we headed straight to our campsite to set up our tent. Here is a pic of us setting it up. Yes, it would have been nice to have guys with us to help. But yes, we did manage to set it up ourselves, although I'm pretty sure tents don't traditionally need to be tied down to trees as an extra safety measure.

And here is our completed campsite. Pretty gorgeous with that tree, huh?

After setting up shop we decided we wanted to check out the sunset since we were only going to be there for one night. We climbed up this awesome dune and enjoyed some drinks as we watched the sun go down. Here is a picture of the dune we were on. Looks pretty Lion King, right?

And here is a picture of the breathtaking sunset:

After sunset, we rushed back to our campsite to start a fire and make dinner. We cooked pizzas (ambitious), but they ended up tasting like a weird sort of calzone/pasta/quesadilla. Not entirely bad though. Here is a picture of my friend Izzy cooking:

The next morning we woke up at 5 am (gulp) to catch the sunrise. Here is the sunrise on the way to the dunes in the car:

And here are the expansive dunes:

We climbed up top of one of the dunes:

And seized the opportunity for a photo! Here is a picture of me and my friend Stewart:

It started getting extraordinarily hot and so we went back to our tent, packed up, and headed for Windhoek. On our 2nd six hour drive on nonpaved roads, we got a flat tire. Luckily, one of my friends knows how to change a tire! Even still, some really nice guys helped us out.

Okay well that's all I have from Namibia. I hope you enjoyed the long post with many pictures. I am now going to get ready for final number 3. Last final is on the 11th WOOT WOOT. So scary that I leave here in less than two weeks.... eek.

Love always,

Julia

Garden Route!

Molweniiii everyone!

This past weekend I went on the Garden Route which is basically a road that goes across the bottom coastline of Africa. There are a million things to do on it so it was jam packed! It was about a 6 hour drive to Knysna, which was our first destination. There, we got to walk with elephants which was incredible! Here are pictures.

The next stop was in Plettenburg for the big attraction- Bungy Jumping!!! I can't believe I did it! It is the biggest bungy jump in the world, 216 meters. It was absolutely mindblowing and terrifying and I NEVER want to do it again, but I'm very glad to have done it. Here are pictures:

If you want to see a video, here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyU8fuwgJ2Q

After recovering from that, we went to the beach. It was stunning! And I got to put my feet in the Indian Ocean. Note the weird rainbow nail polish I have going on. That was from Rocking the Daisies, still haven't gotten around to taking that off.. oh well (I secretly like it). Here are pictures:

We cooked dinner that night at our hostel and got to bed early so we could get started early the next day. Here's the view from our hostile:

Our last stop was an Ostrich farm, which I've been wanting to go to this whole trip. It was absolutely hilarious. Ostriches are literally the stupidest animals ever, and every time I looked at them I cracked up. They just look so dumb. Anyway, here are pictures. We got to see them in each stage.

Cracking out of the egg:

Babies!

Adults:

Me being attacked by ostriches:

The best part by far, though, was riding the Ostriches. It was just ridiculous. I don't have pictures, but I do have videos. Too bad I can't post them....

We drove home a different route that was further inland, which means more mountains. Here is a picture of the road and mountains.

I think I will leave you with a picture of us on halloween... Happy Halloween!

Cliff Jumping and Chundering

Yooo readers!

Sorry it's been awhile since my last posting. And sorry to disappoint you again, but I didn't take any pictures at Rockin' the Daisies because one of my friend's camera got stolen and I didn't want to risk it. However, the festival was really fun, musicians from all over the world were there. It was kind of like Coachella, but more worldly and African. I'll see if I can get pictures from some of my friends to post so you can see the decorations and art and stuff.

As for my adventures recently, I've had a few. First I would like to share with you this event I went to called Trolly Races. Basically, a bunch of UCT students organize themselves in teams and use grocery carts to build "trollies." They then race down this very, very steep hill (which was littered with broken glass) wearing ridiculous costumes and acting rather drunk. It was pretty ridiculous. What I didn't know when we got there, but found out rather quickly, is that there is an added component to this: vomit. Or rather, "chunder," which is what South Africans call it. A big part of the competition, teams must vomit on each other and other team mates. They drink food coloring so as to have colorful vomit and "mark their territory." As a self-proclamed "vomit-a-phobe" this was pretty not fun and disgusting for me. Anyway, I didn't take pictures of the puke cause that's gross, but I did take pictures of people racing and my friend who participated as a member of the American team. Take a look.

Onto more important things.... This weekend a bunch of my friends and I went on an awesome hike to this place called crystal pools. Basically, there a bunch of beautiful "pools" with huge waterfalls and cliffs to jump off of. The mountains are right by the beach (only in South Africa), so we went down to the beach to explore first. Here are some pictures of the beach

Next we went on about an hour hike to the first pool, which is were I jumped. Here is a picture:

And THAT little dot in the picture below, about 1/4 of the way down from the top is ME! I still can't believe I jumped. It was about a 30 foot jump and most definitely the scariest thing I have ever experienced. It was totally safe (not to worry readers; ahem, mom), but still... there's something about jumping off of a 30 foot cliff into water that goes against every bodily instinct.

After recovering from my jump (which consisted of a lot of screaming and shaking), we got dressed and walked to the second pool. This one was much bigger and there was NO way I was going to jump again. A lot of my friends did jump though, despite the fact that they were advised not to.

Instead of jumping, a bunch of us just swam around the pool, went to the waterfall and goofed around there, caught some rays and just enjoyed how beautiful it was. I even found some wild lilies, which I don't think I've seen in the wild before, but have decided they are my favorite flower. Here is a picture:

That's all I have for you now. It is officially the last week of classes here which is so weird! I still have about a month here, but it's surreal that it's almost coming to an end. We have a break after classes until finals start and I will be traveling to Namibia so check back later for cool updates.

Tosiens (bye in Africaans),

Julia

Lion's Head, Clifton, and CHOSA kids!

Molweni readers!

I guess it's sort of been awhile since my last post, sorry about that. Not too much has been going on over here, but we have some fun big plans for the weekend. We're going to a music festival called Rockin' The Daisies, so keep an eye out for a post soon. This weekend was one of the best so far! The weather is all of a sudden taking a turn for the best... it's been STUNNING in Cape Town. I took advantage of this by going to climb Lion's Head on Friday afternoon. Here are some pictures from the view up top:

On the way up..

From the top....

We stayed until just about sunset and then headed back. We saw someone paragliding right near the mountain and it was INCREDIBLE looking. Don't worry parents, I have no plans to do that (yet). After our climb we got some delicious milkshakes at this cute place called Mr. Pickwicks that is famous for them... they were yummy. We spent the rest of the weekend at the beach. Instead of Muizenburg, the beach we have been going to, we decided to explore Camps Bay and went to Clifton Beach. This area is probably my favorite of Cape Town so far... to the point that I can almost see myself living there. There are super cute restaurants with amazing sunset views, fantastic beaches, and a great feeling all together. Here are pictures from the beach/Camps Bay area.

We swam in the water, which was bone-chillingly cold, and climbed some rocks and some people even did some rock jumping. Being out in the sun all day, naturally we got a little bit toasted at the beach this weekend, and to soothe our pain we got drinks at this place called The Grand and watched the sunset. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera but I will try to get you all a picture at some point from one of my friends.

And finally, I will post some pictures of the kids from CHOSA. I'm going to skip out on names and details, but if you're interested in some stories about the kids let me know.

Here are a bunch of pictures of the little kids, the ones who are not in my class but end up flocking to me for entertainment before class begins.

This is a picture of my class, busy at work with some poetry collaging:

Here are pictures of the property itself and kids flocking all over the place. The babies are all kept in a separate room, that's why they are behind bars.

Our project is to come up with a way of educationally and productively engaging our groups of kids. Me and my co-teacher came up with the idea to make a magazine. We've been teaching our kids how to write poetry, short stories, comic strips, draw self portraits, family crests, etc and are about to start compiling them. I will bring back plenty for you all to see! That's all I have for you now, I'm currently at a coffee shop on Long Street called Mugged (clever, huh?), doing some Dickens reading (On p. 168 of 800...). Keep a lookout for updates next week.

Byyyyee,

Julia