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 :)