Time: 23:25
Days abroad: 98
Thank you all so very much for the lovely Happy Birthday messages and facebooks and everything else! I promise, I am working on e-mailing everyone back, I just wanted to post a quick blog update to show you all some of my weekend...
Friday...
I woke up to this lovely sign outside my door...compliments of Ashleigh, the nicest house-mate in the world :)Then, I decided to skip my Friday lecture (Happy Birthday to me) and go into town with some friends. A couple of us took a tour of the Shimansky Jewelers diamond cutting workshop at the V&A Waterfront....it was pretty cool to see how they made all of their fancy jewelry.
After our tour, we headed to a bridal expo where we made up a elaborate story about my friend Loren getting married so that we could get some samples. And they were not in short supply. I sampled cake, cupcakes, chicken, truffles, a chocolate fountain, drinks (both alcoholic and non), and about all the cookies I could handle...which is a lot of cookies. the expo went on all day and they were showing coverage of the royal wedding on screens all over the place (let me say, I am quite disappointed that I have to share my day with William and Kate for the rest of my life). Then, to keep up the charade, we got Loren a makeover and into a pretty dress:
I have to say, by the end of the expo, I was pretty bummed that there actually wasnt going to be a wedding...because the one we were planning was pretty spectacular.The wedding expo happened to be in a warehouse next to the Cape Town World Cup Stadium...so I included a picture of that for you guys as well:
After our day of wedding planning, we headed back to UCT and the southern suburbs. I am very proud of our traveling abilities that day...we took a mini-bus from mowbray into the city (5 rand), walked to the waterfront, took a mini-bus from the waterfront back to the taxi rank (3 rand 50) then the UCT shuttle from the downtown campus back to upper campus in Rondebosch (free); overall 8 rand 50 to get all over the place...about $1.10And because I had my camera, I walked home from upper campus to share a little beauty with you.
Remember the picture of Jameson Hall I posted several weeks ago? it had the little white car driving in front of all the stairs...anyway, this is the view from the same spot only facing due east instead of west:
I walk by this gorgeous view of the city all day long between my classes...not too shabby. unfortunately, my house is at the bottom of that hill...Walking to and from campus, I pass through this cool little tunnel under the N2 freeway...this is going home so it is all downstairs...imagine the morning hike. Maybe you can begin to appreciate my rock-hard calves...
I took the next 2 pictures from the roof of a building on middle campus. The building I was standing on was constructed by the Dutch East India Company in the 1700s and it became the center axis around which the University of Cape Town was built...I'll put up a picture of that building at a later date...for now:
This is Jameson Hall with Devil's Peak in the background (The N2 runs between me and the rest of the picture)And...
This is the northern half of UCT's upper campus. Table Mountain is on the left in the background and the building with the pillars on the right hand side is Jameson Hall (the center of upper campus) with Devil's Peak in the background. The red-ish bushes line the N2 freeway and the green bushes block the rugby fields from view. Pretty spectacular, huh? This is what I look at on my hike to school...at least I have a visual target, right?Friday night I went to dinner with a couple of friends in Claremont at a restaurant called Greens. It sounds healthy but it was actually delicious. I had pasta with a chicken, bacon, cream sauce...basically a heart attack in a bowl. When I got home, Ashleigh and Sara had gotten me cupcakes! and balloons! and toy story napkins! They are so sweet.
Saturday, I got up and did a little homework then I went to a place called the Old Biscuit Mill with some friends. The Old Biscuit Mill is a touristy market where there are about a million food stalls. I had a delicious steak wrap and a strawberry smoothie...we wandered around some of the shops and headed home. I did homework most of the afternoon--I have a lot of papers due this upcoming week.
Sunday...was homework day. All day long. I did venture down to the Pick N Pay at about 1ish and THEY FINALLY GOT SOME CHICKEN IN STOCK!!! yay! So I bought some chicken. And some celery, cherry tomatoes, and broccoli. Then back to the homework.
Monday (today) was ANOTHER public holiday...I could definitely get used to this South African calendar...I worked on a paper in the morning then I had a tour of the Groote Schuur hospital heart transplant museum. The first ever heart transplant was performed here in Cape Town at the UCT hospital so they have a whole section of the hospital donated to the museum. including the actual operating rooms where the donor and recipient were operated on. It was an incredible museum...made me want to do some surgery. Interesting fact for this post: in Dutch, 'Groote Schuur' means 'Big barn'. The land where the hospital is was originally developed by the Dutch East India Company in 1657 and it was a huge farm with, well, big barns on it that functioned as part of the grainery. In 1893 Cecil John Rhodes bought the land, restored the big barn, and had a house constructed on it which he called 'Groote Schuur', for obvious reasons. His house is actually still standing...I'm hoping to go see it before I leave, and the land was donated to UCT. Hence, the UCT hospital's name. kind of an interesting fact for you all...
The museum, as I said, was incredible...very very informative. The original heart recipient only lived for 18 days after receiving his heart, he died of pneumonia before he got out of the intensive care unit. The second heart transplant in the world happened 3 days after the first in America. The second one at Groote Schuur was about one month after the first, and that patient live 18 months. The third transplant performed by Dr Chris Barnard at Groote Schuur was on a Colored woman who live for 13 years after the surgery. Now the surgery has become a routine procedure in hospitals around the world...this was one of my favorite places I've been in Cape Town so far...really neat...
anyways, I came home and finished my paper (bo-ring) and took a million years to upload those pictures for you guys (sorry I didnt take any of the museum, my little camera broke and I didnt want to carry the big fancy one through Mowbray after the museum at dusk...it was scary enough carrying myself through there after I parted ways with Serena at the ShopRite...so i didnt take it with me...If i have time to go back i will definitely take it).
Well, I'm off to bed. I actually have all of my classes tomorrow. For the first time in 2 weeks.
I hope everyone is well stateside!
Missing you guys!
Love
P.s. i hope you enjoy the pictures...I'm trying to be better about sharing...megabytes or no :)
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