Tour of the Cape

Yesterday, all of the study abroad students (including those on other programs at UCT) went on a tour of the Cape. We had to wake up at 6:45am (yikes) and boarded buses to go all around Cape Town. I immediately fell asleep, so I didn't take too many pictures at the beginning sorry. But I did at the end, lucky for you guys. So this post will have a bunch of pictures of what we saw. But before I show you pictures, I want to update you on some basics.

I'm still loving my apartment, and still pretty sleep deprived. Last night was the first night I've gotten more than 5 hours of consecutive sleep. And so far, I've gone out every night except for one (I know, I'm a party animal). Of course, the one night I didn't go out our neighbors behind us decided to have a huge raging party. Because the walls are so thin, it honestly felt like there was an effing party in my room all night long. I barely slept. I'm thinking tonight we'll either go see a movie or just relax in the apartment. Our last roomate moved in today, she has been here for 3 semesters and plans to move here after her graduation back home! Hope I'm not making you nervous mom and dad.... Last night we went to a Mexican restaurant for our friend Teddy's 21st birthday (kind of anticlimactic over here...) and it was pretty delish, although it was more or a Mexican/African fusion restaurant. And because we had such a big group, it took literally 2 hours for our food to come. Oh and last night my room key fell of the stupid key chain they gave us here and I had to pay 200 rand to get a new one (by the way it's about 7 rand to 1 US dollar). Everything here is SO cheap! It's awesome.

Okay, so here goes with some pictures. I'm gonna start off with another pic of Table mountain because I'm sort of obsessed with it. This pic is pretty amazing (if I do say so myself), it was right as the sun was coming up so it looks like there's a spotlight. They also have these HUGE spotlights that illuminate the mountain at night which is gorgeous. We all can't wait to climb it, which is about a 2 hour hike.

Okay this is a pic of Lion's Head, which is the mountain right next to Table Mountain. Still pretty beautiful, not as pretty as Table though.

Our first sight was at some cool beach that I forgot the name of. It was FREEZING and as you can see, I did not dress well at all. Here's a pic of me and my friend Brekke (yes, I do indeed have friends!) She's from NY, goes to Tulane, and lives on the other side of our little town house.

The next stop is one that I think Cal, Charlie, and Geoffrey (if you are reading!) will like the most. And I know you boys are animal fanatics so you probably already know this, but for those of you who don't... they have penguins in South Africa! So we went to go see them, they all live on this beach and are totally adorable. I took the liberty to take a video of them waddling around cause I figured you would all like that, but the internet is too slow/is eating up all of my credits on the internet I buy, so I can't share that with you. Instead, here are some pictures. They all walk around together in groups of 2 or 3 and it was pretty cute watching them walk to the water and back to their little nests again.

After seeing the penguins, we went to another township. While there, they served us some delicious African food (which, by the way, is totally amazing... I take back what I said before). The high schoolers/middle schoolers then did a long performance... and I mean long. A lot of dancing, singing, rapping, and acapella. Some of it was amazing, while some of it was sort of bizarre. The whole time, a woman was announcing who was doing what. But as it went along, my friends and I realized that the woman who was speaking was actually a man. Here's a pic of the cross dressing man:

The last stop on our tour was Cape Point, which is on the southeast corner of Cape Peninsula. Contrary to popular belief, it actually isn't the southernmost point in Africa, but that isn't to say it isn't still beautiful. When we got off the buses we did a hike/walk all the way up to one of the oldest lighthouses on top. The view was STUNNING. Here's a pic from the top!

I wanted to leave you guys with this video, but I can't so here's a picture (which won't do it justice). At the township, the last performance was done by these two little boys about 10 years old. They did a Michael Jackson tribute dance and WOW, they were so amazing and adorable! Definitely the most talented out of all the performances. Miss and love you all. If you want to skype anytime, just throw me a text first and we can do it pretty easily.