Last Day at Brooklands

Today was my last day at Brooklands Primary School. After spending three weeks with the 3rd graders it was difficult to say goodbye. I made a slide show of pictures about myself, Michigan, and the USA. They LOVED it and had so many questions to ask me. All the students made me cards (most heart shaped) and wrote me letters and gave them to me as they left. SO CUTE! I wish I could take all the students home with me, but I guess the letters will just have to do.

Tomorrow, the whole group is headed to the Southern Cape for some baby lion petting, zip lining, cave exploring, and most likely the big bridge jump....Hopefully I make it back alive!

Oh, and Mom, Dad, and Sarah get here on Friday! SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!

Me and my fantastic class!



One of my students and the card she made me :)



More pictures from my many adventures!

Due to the slowest internet EVER, I can't seem to load many photos right now :(
I was also planning on loading pictures from....
-shark cage diving
-the ManU soccer game
-our west coast trip
-the close baboon encounter
-cricket
-climbing Table Mountain

Hopefully I'll have better luck later this weekend.

Standing infront of the field at the Ajax Cape Town vs Manchester United soccer game in Cape Town Stadium!

One of our baboon friends. We drove up to this pull off where we were supposed to see a beautiful view of coast of Cape Town, but this big guy was sitting there with a couple friends so we couldn't get out of the car.

Sunset on the beach at Langebaan, the town we stayed at last weekend.

 

 Standing at the most southern point in Africa, Cape Agulhes, where the Indian and Alantic Oceans meet!



Hello!

Wow! So much has happened since my last update. Last week at school, one of the first grade teachers was out for the whole week. Nataly (another MSU student) and I found ourselves teaching the class by ourselves all week. Holy craziness!! We survived and what an experience to have under our belts! This week, I spent a day with a 4^th grade class, a kindergarten class, and a 3^rd grade class- helping the teacher this time, not teaching alone!

This past weekend, the whole group met up again and headed to Langebaan, a town right on the water. We stayed the weekend at a bed and breakfast called Friday Island located directly on the beach! The weather was absolutely beautiful and we spent the weekend playing in the ocean, exploring the coast, star gazing on the beach, and eating delicious food! We also visited a San village where people live in huts, make their clothes from animal skins, and start fire with sticks. While on the walk through the village, I saw a ZEBRA IN THE WILD!!

Tonight the group is getting together to learn how to play cricket. This should be very entertaining…

Tomorrow, assuming the weather forecast stays true (sunny and 67!), we’re headed to climb Table Mountain. FINALLY!

Our lovely pyramid on the beach at Langebaan.

The Scrupulous Turkadillos at Bloubergstrand.

Life with the Host Family

Hello everyone! As of last weekend, the group said goodbye to one another and we split up to different cities and towns within Cape Town to live with our host families for the remaining four weeks. We were spoiled with heated blankets, showers, and internet in our first two weeks and now the majority of us have found ourselves with cold houses, baths only, and no internet. Luckily for me my host family has hooked me up with a heated blanket AND a heater in my bed room! But because I have no internet at home and very VERY slow interenet at school, this may be the only post for a while...Sorry!

As for my host family, I am currently staying with Hilary, the principal of Brooklands Primary school, her husband Francis, and their 29 year old daughter Helga. They have another daughter, Carolyn, who is married and has a 20-month old daughter, Morgan. Hilary and I pick up Morgan on our way home from school every day and she stays with us until 7:30 when her mommy comes to pick her up. She is definitely a handfull, but luckily she likes me and I have become her new playtime buddy (she does not like many people other than mommy, daddy, granny and pops. So they were all very curious to see how she responded to me).

For the past week, I have been working in a 3rd grade classroom, surrounded 28 very excited students. They are all so curious about America and they LOVE the fact that I have blue eyes and that when I talk, they think I sound like I am from television. Also, because I am from America, they think I know every American.... "Do you know a girl named Liz? You should know her. She is also from America!" "Are you friends with Justin Bieber?" They also tell me  that I am more beautiful than Barbie....hahahahaha

I think this week I am going to go around and observe in some other grades, see how things are outside of 3rd grade.

Yesterday, the group was reunited for the Manchester United vs Ajax Cape Town soccer game in Cape Town Stadium, the stadium where the World Cup was held in 2010. IT WAS SO COOL!!!!!! Of course it rained for part of the day, and because we sat so close to the field (ROW 10!!!!!!) we did get a bit damp. But it was totally worth it!

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll be able to keep you posted with the events of my final 3 weeks here!

A Few More Pictures!

Since I seem to have decent internet right now, I'll try and post a few more pictures!

Cape Town Waterfront

The crew in front of the University of Cape Town!

Haut Bay. Unfortunately the rainbow didn't show up very well in the picture.

Lion's Head

Well today was supposed to be Table Mountain climbing day. But....in true South African fashion, it decided to rain over the mountain. So we decided to do the second best thing and climb Lion's Head! We got 3/4 of the way up before it started raining and we had to turn around :(  Mom, Dad, and Sarah- we're definitely climbing it when you come!! 

The path up Lion's Head. 

The group on the hike up (before it started raining)

I'm Still Alive!

Ahhhhhh sorry everyone! I am completely failing at this whole blogging thing :( Too many activities, not enough time, and really crappy internet. Here are a few highlights of what I've been up to....
- went to Robben  Island, did some exploring, took an awesome boat ride where we saw the whole coast of Cape Town
- went wine tasting. These South Africans have some high percentage wine!
- ate A LOT of delicious food
- went to a craft market and tried out my negotiation skills (I'm pretty bad at it...surprise surprise)
- listened to some pretty awesome guest speakers at the University of Cape Town
- dipped my feet in False Bay and saw a lot of surfers 
- climbed to the most southern point of Cape Town- Cape Point
- went to the Cape of Good Hope
- SAW SOME PENGUINS!!!!! 


This weekend will be filled with.....
- climbing Table Mounting (pray for no rain! we've been putting this off for days due to rain)
- shark cage diving!!
- Touring around Hermanus

7/11/12 - My new penguin friend!

Me & Anna at the Waterfront. 

Jumpin around in False Bay!

7/11/12 - Me on top of Cape Point!

Happy 4th of July from Cape Town :)


Ahhhhh I finally made it! The last 2 flights went very smoothly and we made it to Cape Town with all our luggage :)  (Unfortunately another group's luggage never made it out of Detroit...yikes)


Well, it's absolutely freezing here. It's beautiful outside, high 50s and mostly sunny. But in the house, we're all wearing multiple pairs of pants, warm fuzzy socks, jackets, and even some hats and mittens. Thank goodness that there's a heated blanket on my bed :) 
Because winter in Cape Town is so short and mild, none of the buildings have central heating. Therefore, they just suck it up and freeze for a month or two. So, I'm going to suck it up and freeze! 


Yesterday we arrived in Cape Town around 1:30ish, had a very quick "South African" lunch- Mc Donalds (ha!) and then made ourselves at home in our beautiful bed and breakfast that we'll be staying in for the next two weeks. The couple that owns the house- Paul and Adele are absolutely fantastic! They make us delicious breakfasts and take care of just about anything we would ever need. Here's a picture of the outside of the house. It's pretty awesome! 

Today......WE GOT TO PET CHEETAHS!!!!! Holy muffins it was so cool! We got to pet Enigma, a 4 year old male cheetah. SO SOFT! It was towards the end of the day and he had ants in his pants and we're not allowed to pet him if he's not laying down. But he finally cooperated and laid down! Ian not only got to pet a cheetah, but he also got peed on by the cheetah. That's definitely a once in a life time experience :) 

We were supposed to go wine tasting after the cheetah encounter. But we may or may not have gotten lost a few times on the way to the cheetahs and ran out of time. So at dinner we decided to do a little wine tasting of our own :) Looking forward to doing some actual wine tasting soon!


Tomorrow is Robbin Island and District 6 museum day. Yay history!


We have to fight for internet here so I may not be able to post for a few days. But I'll hopefully update you all again soon :)

Happy 60th Anniversary!

Well, after a very noisy flight, complete with multiple screaming babies, overly chatty men, and one hour of sleep, we arrived in Germany! We mastered the S-bahn (train) and spent the day wandering around Frankfurt. A little sight seeing. A little eating. A little more sight seeing. A lot more eating. Since we were all exhausted, we decided that once we got back to the airport it was going to be group nap time seeing that our flight didn't take off for 4 hours. Well, terminal B42 was not feeling group nap time. Apparently it's South African Airways' 60th anniversary of flying from Frankfurt to Johannesburg. This means cake (a HUGE cake) and beverages (coffee, tea, juice......South African Wine!) and oodles and oodles of people. So we're sitting here, eating cake and drinking wine, waiting to for our flight. Classy. I guess we picked the right day to fly to South Africa! Hopefully this service continues onto the plane :)


Oop! Now there's a microphone and inspirational speakers. And gifts! What is this?! I'm just hoping the pilot stays away from the wine...


Alright, I'll let you all know when I arrive in Cape Town :)


Tschüß!

Just to rub it in a little....this is what I ate for lunch :) 

Host Family!

Yahooooooo! I finally received my school placement and my host family that I will be living with for a few weeks in Cape Town! I will be living in Brackenfell, a town northeast of Cape Town. I've tried to find out more information on the town but I'm not having much luck :-/ I did notice, however, that Brackenfell is bordered by Durbanville, the town where my relatives live!  

My host mom, Hilary, is the the principal of Brooklands Primary School! She is married and has two daughters; one is married and living elsewhere and the other still lives at home. My family has never hosted anyone before so hopefully they know what they're getting themselves into with me! 

As for my school placement, I was supposed to receive a teacher whose classroom I would be observing and teaching in, but apparently I get to pick my own when I get there! I do know that I will be in a 3rd grade classroom and I will be focusing mainly in math education. Yay math!!

If you go to this website   https://plak.co.za/moreinfo.php?id=21951   scroll down until you see the map of the area, there will be a button "street view" right above the big map. Click on that and you can see the school I will be teaching at! *Please pay special attention to what they call speed bumps*


4 DAYS UNTIL I LEAVE!!!!

Alright, due to the fact that you can't respond to posts on Tumblr (or at least I couldn't figure it out) we've switched to Blogger! Hopefully this one does what I want it to...