Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah

“Mister Bluebird on my shoulder

It's the truth, it's actch'll

Ev'rything is satisfactch'll

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay

Wonderful feeling, wonderful day!”

Whoever designed the UCT semester schedule needs to have a stern speaking too. I arrived in Cape Town three weeks ago, but am only about to really start classes tomorrow. How is that real?  The end result has been a dream vacation, but my body is no longer able to sustain the level of partying that we were hitting this last weekend. Suffice it to say that my housemates killing 2 bottles of Jose Cuervo in 2 days is the level we were getting to. Definitely something I shouldn’t be repeating any time soon.

After returning on Wednesday from the Garden Route, I took Thursday to perform what South Africans call “admin” which is the same thing as errands. Thursday night we had heard about this place to go out called Mercury, a little bit off of Long Street. It was a pretty cool place. At first there was some live music which was kind of bad but eventually it ended and they starting playing the music that South Africans like to listen to at bars, which is a very eclectic mix of American Top 40 and 80’s jams.  We ran into a bunch of Americans there, and generally had a good time. For some reason or other, everyone decided to leave that spot, and so we all ended up going over to Claremont, a more student-oriented bar area closer to UCT. This is when my culture shock started to get a little hectic; we left the bar and there wasn’t a cab waiting on the street like there normally is in DC. Then, a couple of cabs pulled up, but the standard practice here is to haggle with cab drivers to get yourself a good price to wherever you’re going. The cab drivers can tell we are American from our accents, and will try to do anything to get more money out of us, so I was getting madder and madder that no cab would bring us for a good price. I guess that’s just one of the annoying parts of traveling. Finally we found a cab that would take us, and so we got to Tin Roof in Claremont and the line looked really long, so two friends and I cruised to Pig & Swizzle, the seedy bar that we went to at the very beginning of the semester. Since the crowd seemed really strange and kind of sketchy, we left and walked down the street to Cybar, the bar that is right down the road from my house. Again, we were the only white people in the bar, but luckily some friends came and met us and we hung out for a little bit and chatted with some locals. Eventually, only me and my friend Kayla were left, and since I didn’t feel too hot at that point so we walked up the street and went home.

Friday was the “first day of classes.” I put that in quotes because apparently it is known among South Africans that that day isn’t important for class, so no one actually goes, except all the exchange students. I had a class at 9AM, and it’s actually almost the same as a class I took at GW but it will be from an African perspective so that’ll make it more interesting. I actually spoke a couple of times in class, and at one point started a debate. I can’t wait to start participating in class here and getting to talk more and more with some South African students! The rest of the day we just spent out home, laying out for a while and then cooking some dinner. Friday night at midnight was actually Ashley’s 21^st birthday, so we decided to make it a really fun night. We had a really fun pregame at our house, and a bunch of people showed up also, so that made it more entertaining. We went to a place called Tiger Tiger, a very local student hangout in Claremont. This is one of the very few places in South Africa where on most nights males have to be 21 to get in, so I was nervous I wasn’t going to be let in, but I breezed right past the bouncer. Apparently, this is because I was showing him an American driver’s license, and that immediately screams “will spend a lot of money.” Unfortunately, that proved true, as I bought a number of drinks at the bar. But it was a really fun club with great music and I got to see a bunch of people who had just come back from the Garden Route and jam with them so that made it all the more fun. Apparently, however, we were only there for about an hour or so before we came back home, and after hanging out for a little while I went to bed.

Saturday was our trip to Robben Island! CIEE (my program) provides us with up to 5 activities per month that we can get comped, and so Remy, my RA, set us up with a tour of Robben Island. We took cabs down to the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, the area seen in most of the pictures of Cape Town you ever see. It is a really beautiful area with shops and restaurants and a giant ferris wheel. After a short boat ride, we made it out to the Island. The tour was really informative as we drove around the island. I didn’t know too much about it aside from what I had read in Long Walk to Freedom, so to hear more of the history was really cool. For instance, I didn’t know that it was once a leper colony, and that there are over a thousand graves of lepers who died on the island. With only 100 residents of the island, that’s at least 10 leper graves per person. So after the island tour, we were brought to the Maximum Security Prison, and met a former prisoner who was going to give us our tour. It was incredible to see just how horrible the conditions were out on the island, and to remember that so many of South Africa’s leaders of today had to spend so many years in these conditions. Then, came the moment I had been waiting for: a visit to Nelson Mandela’s cell. We didn’t have much time at the cell, so I could only just snap some photos quickly before I have to leave, but it was very moving to see how the national hero of South Africa spent 18 years.

After the trip to Robben Island, we grabbed a quick lunch/dinner at the Waterfront, and then came back to Rondebosch to chill out for a little bit. All of a sudden, we realized that the sun was starting to set, which was hindering our plans to watch the sun set from Signal Hill, a park right by Lion’s Head. So, me and 5 other people packed into the 1970 or so beetle that Anders had rented for the semester, to attempt the drive. I have never been laughed at so many times by the people we passed while driving, but I have to admit I would laugh too if I saw a group of Americans packed into a beetle. After a very adventurous drive, we might it to the top, but unfortunately had already missed the sunset. We still had fun, though, because Devonshire always has fun when we go anywhere. After a little bit up there, we walked down the road to get a view of Cape Town at night. I don’t think I’ll ever lose the sense of awe I get every time I see Cape Town lit up. This city is absolutely magical at night.

Finally, we came back home to start getting ready to go out for Ashley’s 21^st birthday. We all ended up drinking a lot, but it was just Devonshire for the most part here and we were all having a blast just hanging out before we left. Finally, it was time to go, so we went down to Mercury again because they were having a dubstep concert. I ended up in the second wave of cabs, and so we went down to the street to try and get one. So, Daniel starts flagging some down, and haggling to get a good price. Unfortunately, this was when the police showed up. Apparently, a lot of the cabs I’ve been taking have been illegal. Some guys buy little taxi signs and just put them on top of their cars and pick up people. Now I know not to use any more of these taxis, as one of them even ended up being cuffed in front of us. All in all, 4 cabs were pulled over while we were trying to go out. Eventually, we made it to Mercury, and I was annoyed because there was a line (I haven’t yet had to wait on a line in Cape Town), but it was TOTALLY worth it. Saturday night was one of the most fun nights I’ve had in Cape Town thus far. There were a ton of American kids there, but way more South Africans. The place was super packed, and everyone was really into the music. I spent a while upstairs listening to the dubstep, but then met some friends at the downstairs bar where they were blasting 80’s jams again. All of us were getting SO into it and loving it so we ended up having a great time down there, which was a lot less crowded. Finally, we left, and I really wanted McDonalds, so my cab driver drove us over but unfortunately there were cops surrounding McDonalds, so we couldn’t go. TIA. Finally we got back home around 3 and everyone was still just hanging out and having more and more fun. I eventually started to get a little tired so I lay down on a beach towel in my backyard, chatting with Kayla and Daniel for a while. I got cold, so I went and got my blanket from my bed, and brought it downstairs because we wanted to watch the sunrise. However, I ended up sleeping on the living room couch, and did not make it to the sunset.

Today, after I woke up on the living room couch (which was one of the funniest feelings I’ve had), a bunch of us decided to go down to Muizenberg to lie on the beach. So we suited up and went off to the train station, and it was only along the way that we realized that on weekends trains only come once an hour. The wait for the train was pretty painful; we realized that we would eventually only have about an hour or two at the beach. TIA. But, it was a nice relaxing beach day. After we came back home and had a house meeting we all just decided to stay in and relax. I spent the night in the kitchen, kicking it with my housemates, and realizing how lucky I am that I got assigned such a good group to live with. I literally wouldn’t trade Devonshire for anything.