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

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!