I can't believe it's almost ending...bittersweet

Date: 31/05/2011
Time: 20:14
Days abroad: 127

Once again, I’ve been MIA on the blog front.

I just get so excited about living my Cape Town life that sometimes I forget to come back and write about it!

My last post was May 18^th…and all about Lion’s Head…so let me go back here and see what I can recall from the last 2 weeks. ..

May 20^th was our last official day of lectures on campus, our last day volunteering, and our CIEE formal farewell dinner. So, a busy busy Friday. We took all our boys at the Bonnytoun youth facility KFC as our Young in Prison farewell party. I am going to miss those boys so much. They taught me a LOT these last 6 months. We spent most of our 2 hours on Friday taking pictures, eating chicken, and letting them reflect on their experience with Young in Prison. Most of them were so thankful to us for coming out and spending time with them. They loved all of our activities and really I think they just liked having people around to talk to who actually listened to what they had to say. What a cool experience for us and for them. (p.s. i am not allowed to post pictures of the boys...sorry, you'll have to wait until i get home for those)

CIEE’s farewell dinner took place at Calvin Grove which is a fancy country club place in the Newlands (one suburb further out of town than Rondebosch). It was a Sophiatown theme…Sophiatown is like a 60s African Oscars celebration…I’m not 100% sure…anyways, the placemats were records and the RAs all performed a hilarious little dance for us. Overall a night filled with food and merriment and fancy clothes…not too bad, as far as formal dinner events go anyway…

Me, Loren, Kamilah...

Bonnie and I
Ashleigh, Buhle, and me.

I spent that weekend and Monday and Tuesday studying because I had my first 2 finals on Wednesday the 25^th. I woke up very early and got ready to climb the mountain to take my first exam and I left my house at about 715AM (my exam was at 8) and it was MONSOON raining outside. Serious torrential downpour. Well, a very kind civilian pulled up next to me like a block from the base of the big hill and offered me a ride to upper campus because “nobody likes to write a final exam while they are busy getting the flu”. It seemed like very reasonable logic to me, so I hopped in her tiny Toyota.

After my second exam (at 5PM) I was supposed to go to Observatory (yet another suburb) with some friends to eat at a ribs and wings place called Sticky Fingers. Well, I called Loren when Ash and I finished out final to find out where to meet her and she told us to get to Leslie Social (which is a building on campus) NOW. When Loren says to get somewhere now, it means there is free food, so we made a beeline. Now, apparently May 25^th is Africa Day. And there was a big gathering after a talk in Leslie where they were serving wine, cocktails, and a TON of food. Well we ate and drank and met a large group of people from Tennessee who had just arrived in Cape Town the previous day and are doing a one month exchange, though only 2 weeks are in CT. So we talked to them for a long while, then headed to Obs (late) to meet a friend of a friend. We had wings and spent a couple of hours in the restaurant talking to the waiter and the bartender who were both Zim, then headed home. Oh, we also convinced the guardian angel driver to stretch the boundaries of his drop-off zone slightly and drop us off and pick us up at the border of Mowbray and Obs… :)

Thursday We woke up to BEAUTIFUL sunshine so we decided to hike up to the Rhodes Memorial, which is a big memorial built into the hill above campus. We rounded up 7 girls in total to climb up and picnic and admire the views:

(Roe and mercy sitting on the steps)


Loren and Ash sitting on a lion :)

Once we were done with lunch and hanging out, we went to check out the little café they have at the memorial and they had DELICIOUS desserts. So I got brownies and ice cream…

Friday, Friday…I went into town with beautiful Bonnie. She had heard about a terrible exhibit at the National Gallery (an art museum in the Company Gardens) so, naturally, we had to go see just how bad this artist was…it was…Interesting. Hahaha. See some of his work here. (Link credit to Bonnie)

After the art gallery we walked in the Company Gardens for a while amongst the pigeons and the nappers and eventually wound our way to Long Street where I introduced Bonnie to the now famous Royale. We split a banana smarties milkshake (smarties in SA are like knock-off M and Ms…not the same as smarties in the US) anyway, Bonnie dropped a piece of banana on the table. Well, a kid stopped to ask us for rands. Which is normal, and expected because we sat outside but when we refused he decided he wanted that piece of banana covered in ice cream. Well it took him a solid 10 seconds to pick it up because it kept slipping through his fingers and the whole time his arm was all in Bonnie’s personal space. She was looking across the table at me like I don’t know what to do right now! After he FINALLY got the banana and left I couldn’t help but just bust out laughing. It was terribly sad that he was begging but the whole situation was so ridiculous I couldn’t help but laugh until I had tears in my eyes.

This is the National Gallery. And a statue of Jan Smuts...with a bird on his head! hahaha
The Company Gardens...
Bonnie and our milkshake.

Saturday was so much fun. I went to dinner with a Zim waiter-man that I met in January who works at one of my favorite places to eat in Rondebosch. Well, we went to dinner and watched the Champions League final (which is a soccer game, just to inform all of you Americans) because Barcelona was playing Manchester United and Barcelona is his team. After dinner (and a extremely inappropriate amount of pestering from some rude Botswana-ian guy sharing our table—place was packed) we met up with some of the waiter-man’s friends and roommates (who were all awesome…it was like having my own personal African male posse for the night…and what could be more fun than that?) we all piled into a taxi and went downtown where we danced and drank and were merry until far too late into the night...that’s what your 20s are for, right?

Since Saturday, my life has been pretty uneventful…avoiding monsoon rains by staying inside a lot. Haha. Today, Stephan, one of our night-time security guards, spent his day off escorting us to Gaitesville, which is a Coloured community nearby, to get Gatsbys and these delicious donuts called koeksisters, mm-mmmmm. Loren, Ashleigh, Sara, and I went with him and got 2 gatsbys. One boerewor sausage full-house (which means they add egg and cheese) gatsby and one chicken. They were delicious. I can almost consider myself a Gatsby expert since I’ve had 3 different gatsbys from 3 different places…I am definitely going to have to try and re-create one of these sandwiches when I get home.

Anyways. I cant believe June is upon us and I only have TEN DAYS left in beautiful ZA. I have 2 more finals to survive (June 7^th and June 8^th) and about a zillion other fun things to cram in before those tests…wish me luck on my speed-racer 10 days to fit in everything I’ve missed thus far. And a few things I haven’t missed but MUST do again before I leave…

See you all so soon!

Love