Days 1-3

Okay so I haven’t started my blog because I haven’t had a computer for a few days so I’m going to attempt to fill you in.

After my lovely stay in New Jersey with Jamie Paro, I was dropped off at the Newark airport to make my first flight to London.  I came to a horrifying discovery in the airport that my computer no longer wanted to cooperate. Not only was it a terrifying thought to cross the country without the comfort of my favorite piece of technology, but my procrastinating self left my first assignment untouched with the plan to start and complete it on my flights. So I was clearly off to a bad start. After a frantic phone call to my father, it was time to get on the plane. It wasn’t that my computer was completely broken, it was just that every time I did anything that spinning beach ball of death would appear and my computer would freeze for at least 45 seconds.  But 45 seconds was lucky.  So with every letter I typed and every time I scrolled down the article I needed to read, my computer would freak out.  As I attempted to write up my summary on the airplane, I realized that after about 45 minutes I was only able to complete 4 sentences, and I didn’t like any of them.  So, I closed my computer, cried for 30 minutes, and then watched The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.  Which is a pretty terrible movie.

So the rest of my flight to London was wonderful, slept the entire way. Then when I got to London my best friend Nikky Sweet landed in London about an hour after for her study abroad program Semester at Sea. Lucky for me her program began in London so I spent my 10 hour layover in her hotel room meeting all her new friends with her and getting some drinks at the bar :)

After a few hours, I made my way back to the airport, hugged my neechy goodbye, and left for Africa.  Obviously I sat next to a very fussy baby who didn’t even appreciate my crayons that I had.  So my 11 hour flight consisted of very little sleeping.  I did watch about 4 movies, dozing off throughout The Hobbit, and drank about 7 cups of tea total.  Love South Africans. 

I landed in Johannesburg at 7:10 in the morning, realized I had no wifi, and could not communicate with any of the girls that I planned to meet so we could take the shuttle to the Shoe String Backpacker’s Lodge together.  So I stood outside customs for 2 hours and asked every girl my age if she was on my program.  I eventually found Alie Frankel, a fellow Tulane student, and we made our way around baggage and eventually found the rest of the girls on the program who arrived in the morning. 

We arrive at the Shoe String Lodge, which in my mind was a fancy little hostel with a pool. Nope.  We were shown to our room, single room, which the 8 of us are currently sharing.  I was lucky enough to receive a top bunk…..and then we were shown around the tiny little house that houses various travelers making their way through Johannesburg. The bathrooms are a little worrisome but they do the job, although you do have to trek through the backyard to get to one of them. And I wasn’t lying about the pool, there’s just no water in it and several items rotting at the bottom. We still could tan around the pool, but to our surprise Johannesburg has a real winter and it is damn cold. 

So after our tour I realized it was time to locate an Apple Store and fix my computer.  A few of us were hungry so 3 girls offered to accompany me on the high speed train to the Sandton area to the Nelson Mandela Square.  Which is a wonderful mall that holds the main apple store of South Africa.  To my surprise, we did not feel like we were in Africa.  The mall contained high fashion brands and expensive trinkets and gadgets everywhere, I felt like I was in America. The man at the apple store, who was wonderful, eventually had to be the bearer of bad news and told me that my hard drive was shot and he had to wipe it out. Meaning I would be left in Africa with nothing I previously had on my computer.  I took it shockingly well.  So I left my computer with him to come back to the Lodge, take an incredibly necessary shower, and pass out for about 4 hours. 

I was awoken by the arrival of the rest of my group.  The final 8 had finally made it just in time to join us for dinner, which the owners of the lodge prepared for us. We had curry vegetables, curry beef, some peculiar potatoes, lots of bread, rice, and other scary things I did not dare to touch. We sat around the fire and talked, trying to force ourselves to stay up to at least 10 o clock to try to adjust to the time zone.  I think we made it to about 9:45. So close. But we could not go on. 

Day 2

We woke up for 8 am breakfast, followed by a little information session about the program in general and some South African history.  Lunch was spent in Soweto, a large city outside of Johannesburg, at a cute little restaurant called Wandie’s Place. It was at this time I decided that I needed to be a little more daring with food now so that I don’t offend my homestay mama later.  So as surprising as this sounds, I ate both liver and tripe (intestine) at this meal and obviously hated both.  BUT I TRIED THEM! The tea we keep having here, Rooibos, is absolutely delicious. I had about 3 cups at lunch.  Also during this lunch was an amazing duo (man and women) who sang South African music to us while playing the guitar in a native language that not even our head professor could guess. So we just enjoyed while they made some of us dance with them.

After lunch we went to the Hector Pieterson Memorial.  This was a museum that told the story about the Soweto Uprising. The black youth in South Africa were being forced to speak Afrikaans in their education system, signifying the oppression they faced by white people.  This led to a “peaceful” protest organized by the students that turned into a violent uprising provoked by the police and ended with several deaths, including Hector Pieterson who became the symbol of the youth.  It was a very powerful experience.

The rest of the day was spent lounging. We went to a casino that night and ate dinner there.  It was a girl on the program, Danielle’s, birthday so we had a little celebration.  We’re like not in Africa yet.  But soon we will be!

Day 3

Won’t be as long as the others.  We went to some historical places today.  Honestly I have little to say about them, I spent most of the time looking around and observing the amazing wedding happening at one of them.  I have pictures and videos of a group of what looked like priests in amazing white robes and absurd hats dancing and playing a huge drum and singing. We spent a lot of time at the mall where I finally retrieved my computer and gave Dean, the lovely gentleman that fixed it, a huge cookie.  He wanted chocolate but I hope the cookie sufficed.  I finally have a computer but sadly it doesn’t even feel like mine because everything that was on it is gone! But its ok, he downloaded the brand new software for absolutely free!

None of us are fully adjusted to the time zone so we’re pretty slothy during the day and get rowdy at night.  It’s not good for us or the people that we live with but hopefully we’ll be fully adjusted soon. 

I wish I could post more pictures but unfortunately South Africa’s infrastructure is just not designed for wifi so I can’t upload any here but hopefully I’ll be able to upload a few once I get to Durban.  Definitely not a whole album’s worth but maybe a couple.

The people on my program are great. We’re having such a good time. We haven’t really started the work portion yet but I am pretty nervous about that. 

Flying to Durban on Tuesday, while everyone else drives :). There wasn’t enough space in the cars so he is flying out three of us.  And of course I was one of the lucky princesses.

When we get there we’ll be living in apartments for about 6 days before we move into our homestays! Nervous but excited.

Ok I feel like that’s everything. Sorry its boring. I promise not to have a day by day snooze sesh anymore I just felt like updating y’all for the first few days because I’m in Africa and I can do what I want.