Cheetah attack!
Nice Cheetah...
Giraffes at Kragga Kamma
Zeebra at Kragga Kamma
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
More Pics!
Sardinia Bay, Port Elizabeth
Cheetah attack!
Nice Cheetah...
Giraffes at Kragga Kamma
Zeebra at Kragga Kamma
Cheetah attack! Nice Cheetah...Giraffes at Kragga Kamma
Zeebra at Kragga Kamma
Busy, busy, busy!
So its been a while so lets see if we can catch up on the last few weeks!
School has been going good but was a little hectic the last two weeks. Ive had two tests and a big paper due. I passed my Afrikaans test just fine and it was really easy. My marketing test went really well also and I passed it with a 70% which is actually pretty good apparently cause alot of people in the class failed it. I had a test in my Tourism Destination class as well and I think it went okay...and I had a paper due in that class on ecotourism and sustainable development and it went good I hope. The way they do papers here is kindof strange. I had to have a table of contents and rather than make the paper nice and flowy, I had to seperate it into 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 2.1, and so on and it was just really REALLY weird to write like that. Now I have a good two week stretch of nothing being due besides a paper on April 1st which ought to be really fun because I think I have to go to a car rental agency here and interview a worker there on some stuff.
Me and Matt have been hanging out alot with Renae from St. Ben's in MN. Shes a cool girl and shes the only person from St. Bens/St. John's here that I actually can stand so far. Shes not snooty or any think like all the others I've met and shes pretty much a permanant fixture in our flat now...she even has a bunch of stuff in our fridge! She's also reignited me and matt's love for that maverick Sarah Palin haha.
This past weeknd Matt, Abby, Khrystyna, Bitsy, and I rented a BMW (and it was actually an automatic! they only drive stupid maunals here) and we had a lovely long weekend since monday was a holiday. We drove out to Grahamstown on saturday, which is like an hour or so inland from P.E. It's a cute little city with alot of steepled churches in a valley and the views from above the city were really beautiful. The funnest part of that whole day was just being able to drive again for the first time in two months, and it actually wasnt that hard to drive on the other side of the road and car! On sunday we went out to Sardinia Bay which is the gorgous beach surrounded by sand dunes just west of P.E., and then we headed over to Jeffreys Bay again to go horseback riding---that didn't go quite as well. My horse was a mean little thing that would NOT stop running even when I pulled back on the thinggys and yelled whoa and stop. Long story short my feet fell out of the sterrups on the beach and I got kicked off the horse and left completely behind by my horse and the guides and was forced to walk an hour down this empty beach, over rolling sand dunes, and through the woods back to the horse place. My body HURTS. I think I might just have to go back and kill that stupid animal. Needless to say I needed a drink after that ordeal so I went out to Oyster Catcher that night with the gang till 3AM! Monday we went out to Kragga Kamma Animal Reserve where we saw Sprinkbok, Zeebras, Giraffes, and I got to pet a Cheetah! It was soooooo amazing seeing all those animals out in the wild and being just a cars length away from them. We still have the car until tonight so we all are driving to school which is much better than walking 20+ minutes each way!
Our Cape Town trip is coming up in two weeks and I cant wait! Renae, Matt, and I are flying with a discount airline from P.E. to there on the 4th and coming back the 8th, AND we booked ourselves a room at the Holiday Inn Express City Center and we're just steps from all the museums and waterfront! We're hopefully going to Table Mountain and Cape Point to see penguins and then we'll pry go to the water front and the shops and maybe just walk about the city. I think i'm down to around 80 days left here and I cant belive it. Its just flying by so quick. Its gonna be so tough to leave because Annie's Cove and P.E. just seem so much like home to me now, especially now that i've got so many friends here and we're all going to split up.
Not a ton else big has happened here. Just been going about the day to day regular life---classes, movie nights on wednesdays, going out on the weekend, and thats about it! I think we're going Bungee jumping in a few weeks when Natalie's boyfriend comes to visit from England. We're going off the Bloukrans Bridge ---the highest commercial bungee in the world! Its totally safe though do dont worry people! And cheap too for what you get! I'll get a dvd of the entire jump that I can show you all when I get home. When I watched some other peoples dvds it just gave me such an adrenaline rush and I decided I had to do it, because when else in my life will I have this oppertunity!? Its going to be such a blast! Well off to drive some more people to school so till then! Cheers!
School has been going good but was a little hectic the last two weeks. Ive had two tests and a big paper due. I passed my Afrikaans test just fine and it was really easy. My marketing test went really well also and I passed it with a 70% which is actually pretty good apparently cause alot of people in the class failed it. I had a test in my Tourism Destination class as well and I think it went okay...and I had a paper due in that class on ecotourism and sustainable development and it went good I hope. The way they do papers here is kindof strange. I had to have a table of contents and rather than make the paper nice and flowy, I had to seperate it into 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 2.1, and so on and it was just really REALLY weird to write like that. Now I have a good two week stretch of nothing being due besides a paper on April 1st which ought to be really fun because I think I have to go to a car rental agency here and interview a worker there on some stuff.
Me and Matt have been hanging out alot with Renae from St. Ben's in MN. Shes a cool girl and shes the only person from St. Bens/St. John's here that I actually can stand so far. Shes not snooty or any think like all the others I've met and shes pretty much a permanant fixture in our flat now...she even has a bunch of stuff in our fridge! She's also reignited me and matt's love for that maverick Sarah Palin haha.
This past weeknd Matt, Abby, Khrystyna, Bitsy, and I rented a BMW (and it was actually an automatic! they only drive stupid maunals here) and we had a lovely long weekend since monday was a holiday. We drove out to Grahamstown on saturday, which is like an hour or so inland from P.E. It's a cute little city with alot of steepled churches in a valley and the views from above the city were really beautiful. The funnest part of that whole day was just being able to drive again for the first time in two months, and it actually wasnt that hard to drive on the other side of the road and car! On sunday we went out to Sardinia Bay which is the gorgous beach surrounded by sand dunes just west of P.E., and then we headed over to Jeffreys Bay again to go horseback riding---that didn't go quite as well. My horse was a mean little thing that would NOT stop running even when I pulled back on the thinggys and yelled whoa and stop. Long story short my feet fell out of the sterrups on the beach and I got kicked off the horse and left completely behind by my horse and the guides and was forced to walk an hour down this empty beach, over rolling sand dunes, and through the woods back to the horse place. My body HURTS. I think I might just have to go back and kill that stupid animal. Needless to say I needed a drink after that ordeal so I went out to Oyster Catcher that night with the gang till 3AM! Monday we went out to Kragga Kamma Animal Reserve where we saw Sprinkbok, Zeebras, Giraffes, and I got to pet a Cheetah! It was soooooo amazing seeing all those animals out in the wild and being just a cars length away from them. We still have the car until tonight so we all are driving to school which is much better than walking 20+ minutes each way!
Our Cape Town trip is coming up in two weeks and I cant wait! Renae, Matt, and I are flying with a discount airline from P.E. to there on the 4th and coming back the 8th, AND we booked ourselves a room at the Holiday Inn Express City Center and we're just steps from all the museums and waterfront! We're hopefully going to Table Mountain and Cape Point to see penguins and then we'll pry go to the water front and the shops and maybe just walk about the city. I think i'm down to around 80 days left here and I cant belive it. Its just flying by so quick. Its gonna be so tough to leave because Annie's Cove and P.E. just seem so much like home to me now, especially now that i've got so many friends here and we're all going to split up.
Not a ton else big has happened here. Just been going about the day to day regular life---classes, movie nights on wednesdays, going out on the weekend, and thats about it! I think we're going Bungee jumping in a few weeks when Natalie's boyfriend comes to visit from England. We're going off the Bloukrans Bridge ---the highest commercial bungee in the world! Its totally safe though do dont worry people! And cheap too for what you get! I'll get a dvd of the entire jump that I can show you all when I get home. When I watched some other peoples dvds it just gave me such an adrenaline rush and I decided I had to do it, because when else in my life will I have this oppertunity!? Its going to be such a blast! Well off to drive some more people to school so till then! Cheers!
Monday, March 1, 2010
Feelin more and more at home every day...
Cool looking spot at the water front in P.E.
Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium--Just opened for the World Cup in June
Abner's Bday dinner
Rugby game at the P.E. Stadium
Group Picture! Me, Renae, Matt, Natalie (Brit as we call her-she's from England), and Jenny
Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium--Just opened for the World Cup in June
Abner's Bday dinner
Rugby game at the P.E. Stadium
Group Picture! Me, Renae, Matt, Natalie (Brit as we call her-she's from England), and Jenny
Its been a while since i've written so lets see what we can catch up on...
We haven't been doing a whole lot in the past week or so. Just hanging out together pretty much. The other day we went to the big market that they have every first and last sunday of the month and I got some awesome stuff. I got 5 paintings (they're suuuuper cool on canvas and all freyed on the edges and sold directly from the artists) for only about R250 which is like $35, and then I got some cool beaded key chains and a beaded giraffe, some cool carved wooden thinggys, and some delicious ice cream to end off the day :)) We were supposed to go to Addo Elephant Park last weekend but the African lazyness has fully set in and all we did was talk about it rather than ACTUALLY plan the trip. Yhea...
Next weekend we're thinking about doing something really really REALLY crazy and fun, but I'm going to keep it a secret because its one of those things that you just have to tell people you did when you get home so they're even more surprised and excited! Don't worry though parents...its safe and okay!
Still working on the tan big time. The farmers tan is damn near impossible to get rid of here when you're walking thirty minutes every day to campus and then the same distance to the grocery store, internet cafe, etc. Mind you that walking speeds here are slow...and when I say slow I mean SLOW. Comparing my walking speed here to my walking speed at work or the mall at home, its like i'm doing a jog in the latter. But when I go the mall here I still get stared at like i'm crazy for how fast i'm walking. Its going to be tough getting back into the American speed of things when its time to go home in June, especially at work. I'm thinking its going to be quite the reverse culture shock going on when the time comes.
I'm also slowly beginning to pick up on South African phrases and words here. Mainly i'm beginning to say "eh" like five hundred times a day (they say it here more than the Canadians believe it or not), and occasionally I catch myself saying "cheers" for goodbye when I'm around South African people. I'm definately hoping to have a little S.A. twang in my voice when I get back to the states because i'm guessing it will translate into bigger tips at work. Everyone loves a good accent!
This next coming week we've got another shipment of St. Cloud State student teachers and professors coming over to see what its all about here, including my german teacher from school so it will be a nice little dose of home to see her and Shahzad (the head of this trip who came here with us in the beginning). Classes are still going ok. Its really hard getting used to this whole hard core studying and reading thing with no homework to help grades go up. I've got and Afrikaans test monday, a marketing test tuesday, a case study, paper, and test the following monday, and then hopefully i'll be home free for a bit. We're also still planning on hitting up Cape Town come Easter break and hopefully we'll be flying there though. Prices are a bit costy but I know if we drive over (8 to 9 hour drive) i'll go crazy spending money on the garden route. The one plus side to driving though would be seeing a South African winery beacuse their wine here is pretty bomb.
One other thing we've done is that we went to the first rugby game in the new Port Elizabeth World Cup stadium! It was versus Eastern Province Rugby and Argentina and it was pretty intense. Rugby is probably one of the few sports I can watch live and get into cuz its so brutal. It totally makes American Football players look like a bunch of pansys with all their pads and helmuts and stuff. The new stadium is soooooo cool too. The architecture is just really smooth and flowy and beers there are only like $2! A STADIUM BEER. Of course it wasn't very good beer, but watver. Well not much else going on to talk about so till next time eh? Cheers!
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