A little too much fun in the sun

Last night I wasn’t able to go to the Superbowl due to some miscommunications and safety precautions for travelling at night.  So, I got a pretty good night of sleep and got up early to bring dirty clothes to the Laundrette.  The nice women weigh the clothing and 5kg is a load.  Then, they give you a ticket and a time to return to get the folded laundry.  It costs R39.50 per load, equivalent to about $5. 

We caught a bus to school for our first time on NMMU campus for an orientation bit.  We listened to information from 9-12 and then had yellow rice and curry for lunch, compliments of the university.  After lunch we headed down the boardwalk towards Langerry.  What we thought was a 30 minute walk was actually an hour.  But, there is a cool breeze, which is obvious enough for the 2^nd Windiest City in the World ;) haha.  It definitely cools things down though. 

After we got back to Langerry, the beautiful beach was too hard to ignore any longer, so we headed down to read Poli Sci and lay out.  We talked to our lifeguard friends for an hour and they made terrible fun of us because we asked if there were coupons in the newspaper for the grocery.  At about 3pm, we ran down the boardwalk to the store and figured the phones out to some extent.  Then we ran back and got ready quickly for the rugby match at NMMU from which we just returned.

We grabbed a kombi to the match and it was fabulous!  There is one guy to yell on the streets and get people to ride, gather their destination, and get their money, another controlling the BLASTING music, and the driver is “in the zone.”  We piled about 20 people, maybe more, into the kombi and just jammed on the way to school.  It was amazing that they just kept pulling over and fitting more people in the vehicle.  Then one of the guys came out with us and showed us where the stadium is. 

It was a packed and hoppin’ joint.  There was a huge group of people taking up about half of the grandstands singing African songs, popular American music blared the whole time with an Emcee rousing the crowd not just during breaks, but the whole time, and we sat in the beer garden which any student can of course enjoy.  Although I didn’t understand the game, it was fun to be at such a lively event.

Despite liberally applying sun screen, I resemble Mom’s favorite childhood “pretend-this-is-communion candy,” the Pinkie.  I haven’t decided if I am joining the CSB/SJU group and other international students to the after-party of the rugby match at a bar down the way.

Love from the Beach Bum

The First Days in PE

Hello Friends!

I arrived in Port Elizabeth last night, and we went out right away.  We went to DnE nightclub and it was very similar to San Diego.  It was an open air bar with a pool table, pool, dance floor, beautiful starry sky overhead, and hippy-ish, tanned, surfer-y South Africans.  The owner was a Scot who came to PE in 1994 “for a bit” and has stayed sixteen years.  He was jamming some pretty sweet beats, however it will take me some time to get into the SA dancing style.  We had trustworthy taxi drivers that showed us safe parts of town and where all of the alleged drug dealers live.  So, we know the safety tips of the concerned taxi drivers of PE.  At the end of the night, some of the group wanted to grab a McChicken sandwich, so the taxi driver took us through the drive through.  It is utterly bizarre that the driver is on the opposite side of the car, driving on the opposite side of the road, and even the drivethrough went the opposite way around the McDonalds than the ones in the US.  It will take me a while to observe before I am comfortable driving our group on road trips.  It will be an adventure that’s for sure.

Today, we took a group trip to the grocery, went to the beach, made an apartment dinner with all of the roommates, and now we’re planning to go to karaoke night at a bar in walking distance.  Today was a great day.  We shook off a bit of the jet-lag.  Taylor, my roommate found a very cool grasshopper on the beach that is well-preserved (a.k.a. crunchy).  It is yellow and black striped with vibrant orange, red and yellow wings, with the exceedingly cool orange and black striped antennae.  He is a quasi-monument in the apartment.  I also had time to do some yoga today which was very refreshing.  I am ready to go out now, and we are waiting for the rest of the group.  The best part of the day was probably playing in the waves with a new, fun swimsuit and realizing that it was February!  What a great realization for a Wisconsin/Minnesotan who wore spandex and wool socks the last three days.

The gist is: I am safe, travel was not very fun, but I’m here now, and I am ready to have a great time.  We leave at 9:45 tomorrow morning for Bush Camp on the interior of the country.  It will be much hotter than PE since the ocean breeze will be lacking.  But, we will have the opportunity to meet other international students who are studying at NMMU this semester.  The packing list asks us to bring clothes that we don’t mind getting dirty… and previous students on the trip advised us to bring clothes that we don’t care about.  They implied that they were never able to get them clean again.

Talk to you after Bush Camp!

Lots of Love to all of my “Followers” out there (see link on the right). xo