Hello Hello! I just wanted to let eveyone know that there will not be any new posts until April 14th. We leave on Monday for Spring Break! There will be lots to tell after that!

Left: the pytthon we watched eat a mouse

Below: dancers from the Russian Ballet ( I forgot to mention I went ot that on Saturday night)

Left: The plane we took a ride in to skydive!

Below: Brooke and I getting suited up for skydiving!

Left: The Temple of Understanding where we also saw the Authentic Indian dancers perform

The Authentic Indian Dancers

Hello from DURBAN!!!!!!
We just arrived home on Monday, after a wonderful birthday weekend and fantastic trip… minus a few things but that’s for later.
Thursday March 5th
On Thursday we arrived in Durban around 3:00 in the afternoon. From here we went directly to our backpacker, Surf N’ Dreams, which over the course of five days there was actually a nightmare! I will get to that soon. Anyways, after getting situated and unpacked we went to the Temple of Understanding, which was a place of worship for followers of the Hindu religion. We were given a private tour, and learned interesting tidbits about their ceremony rituals and facts about their religion and culture. We were then given a very special treat of having live Indian dancers perform for us at a restaurant called “Taste of India” where we sampled many different types of Indian food. I would definitely attend an Indian performance again, but will NEVER eat their food again. Yikes.
Friday March 6th BIRTHDAY DAY!!!
Let’s just start out by saying that I had a fantastic 21st birthday!!! At 6 am in the morning I went out to sea with 12 other members from my group to shadow a boat crew checking for sharks that were caught in the nets which protect the beaches from their attacks. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see one, and a few people were pretty sea sick, but it was still a fun experience. After that we joined our group again around nine and went to tour the city of Durban. One of the places we went was the Islam Mosque, which is the largest one in the Southern Hemisphere. Learning about their culture was fascinating to me, especially since our guide had been a Catholic priest but had converted to Islam. I thought that was very interesting. We then went through the markets of downtown Durban where I saw many people selling fresh fruit and veggies as well as numerous spices; one being a love potion haha. After the tour we had some free time to kill so my roommate Shannon and I went shopping and I bought my birthday suit for the evening, a charcoal satin dress. After a few hours of that, we decided to head back to the backpacker and get ready for the very eventful evening about to arrive! For my birthday diner all of the members from my group went to a Jazz concert where there was live music and of course beverages  To say the least, my roommates, friends and myself had a wonderful night at the Jazz concert and a few bars after that!
Saturday March 7th
Today since I had already made it to 21, and would love to stay this age for an eternity, I tempted fate when I dove out of a plane in Durban and succeeded my first official tandem-skydive!!! This was originally planned for my birthday but fell through due to weather and other things. Of the 9 of us that went skydiving I was the very FIRST ONE to jump out of the plane! This experience I don’t think will be given justice on paper but I will try. Think of the most thrilling, adrenaline pumping activity you have ever done…..… it’s nothing like that! It is 100,000 X to the moon and back better and something that I think everyone should do in their lifetime! NO JOKE! If I could afford it as a hobby I‘m pretty sure I would skydive everyday for the rest of my life, (until the parachute failed to open anyway) no I’m kidding 
I don’t even think I can tell you what I did for the rest of the day, because my body was in recovery mode from the adrenaline.
I can tell you this though… bad news. On Sunday morning I woke up to my roommates telling me that the boys (5 of the 10) were robbed in their sleep Saturday night. (This was the whole nightmare part of the backpacker, along with Cruella Devil who owned the place). Of the ten boys sleeping in the room, 5 of them were robbed of all their cash, a camera and a phone. The cash amounted to near $1000 US since they had all gone to the ATM’s to get money to pay people for skydiving. The owners of the backpacker took zero responsibility for the incident and actually tried to blame the boys for getting robbed at their accommodations! Absolutely nuts! The reason the boys were robbed and none of the girls were is because we slept in the house which was locked and the boys slept in the guest house which did have a lock on it but they never received a key for it, so it was open. Thank goodness no one was hurt.

On to the better part of this, (if there is one). On Sunday evening, as a group of Bennies and Johnnies, the 25 of us who were unaffected by the tragic evening put together an auction to try and make up the money for the boys. To do this each person on the trip picked one thing they would do ex: cook, buy drinks, surprise boxes etc. We ended up raising over $100 dollars for each of them! As for my personal contribution to this whole thing…. I chose to auction off someone being able to dress me up in any way they desired for class on the following Tuesday, needless to say it’s not the following Tuesday yet, but I will definitely let you guys know how embarrassing it is after it happens! A lapse of judgment when I let the boys actually win that one…….

That’s all for now, love you!

Knysna and Plattenberg Bay

Hey guys!
This weekend was my second weekend to travel and 5 members of my group decided that we were going to go to Knysna and Plattenberg bay which are stops about 3 hours away on the garden route along the coast! Initially when we went there we were planning on doing a night hike and staying in a hut "as authentic as you can get down here" however, when we got to Knysna we realized that the hike would take two days, and we didn't have that kind of time with everything else we wanted to do. Instead we decided to book a hostel to sleep in for the evening, and paid 150 rand to go on a cruise around a gorgeous lagoon in Knysna. It was a little cold when the sun went down but the sights were beautiful. AFterwards we decided to go to a famous oyster tavern and have dinner. I tried an oyster but that is definately not something I will eat again! Then the next morning we made our way to Plattenberg Bay, and on our way stopped in a place called Harkerville and did a 9 km hike ( around 6 miles). That was really nice to get some exercise in! After that we decided to grab some lunch and head to Monkeyland. I was not to excited about this at first ( I thoguht it would be like a zoo) but when we get there, there were monkeys everywhere jsut walking around all around you. Luckily they didn't try to steal my purse or anything becasue they are known to do that! We finally got home aroound 8 on friday night, which was jsut in time to get enough sleep for our early scuba diving excursion in the morning!

Saturday

I finished my scuba diving training sessions and now am certified to dive up to 18m!! woohoo! Lucky for me, on our first dive we saw a ragged tooth shark!!! It was about 6 feet long and very fat! I can't believe I was actuaaly 10 feet from a shark without a cage! So cool! After that our scuba diving instructor took us out for a few drinks to celebrate!

Sunday was very uneventful since I have two papers due this week. But I will have lots to blog about after this upcoming weekend when we go to Durban!!!


Miss and love you all!

Weekend of Feb 21st.

This weekend I went on my first two dives for my scuba certification! It was pretty awesome, and ofcourse I saw lots of fish, but I am looking forward to our next two open water dives even more! The whole claustrophobic thing doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would, but I did have one freak out when I was out in the ocean. We had to do this skill where if your goggles fill with water you have to blow through your nose and the air will push the water out, but I completely forget how I should do it, and went right up to the surface. oh well though, that's what the practice is for and now I feel much more comfortable with all of my skills that I will need for diving. We also have to take a test either tonight or later this week and then we will be finishing our last two dives this coming saturday! I think a few of us are going to plan an open water shark dive as well! This weekend our group also had our own first braai ( a BBQ) where a guy in our group ( boris) cooked an amazing dinner for us! I think our group is pretty into the bonding activites still, which is nice.

Jill Stry: No there is no pinching when I meet new people, but I think I will have to bring that one in as an american tradition after having some G-rum :)

Judi: Don't forget to tell joey all of the new words, I'll post them again: I did forget a few though.

Robot: stoplight
Swimming costume: swimsuit
Combi: taxi
Braai: BBQ
also everybody "fetches" everything down here. If you were going to get something you say i'm going to fetch my phone, or whatever it is.

Also every guy down here is called bro, when being refered to by anopther guy.

And last but not least, if you really want to do something you say "I'm keen to .... do whatever it is. haha

cheers everyone, which is also the common farewell down here!

love you all!

Feb 14th. Jeffery’s Bay
Today I went surfing in Jeffery’s Bay which is about 45 minutes East of PE. It is the second best place in the world to go surfing!! And as much as I would like to say I was surfing in Jeffery’s bay well let’s just say I was attempting…. I got up about two times but not for very long. The weather wasn’t so great either; it was raining and very windy! Did I mention how windy it is down here? It’s worse than Chicago, THE WINDY CITY! I kid you not. We decided to end our day a little early and planned a group dinner to a place called Waldskippers, which had sand on the floor and a bonfire in the middle, very authentic. I chose to have oxtail for dinner; yes it is the actually tail of the ox. It was prepared in a stew and chopped up into pieces and put on rice. It was delicious and a very tender piece of meat. We also had chicken and fish pate which is the liver of each (they were separated). Fortunately, or should I say unfortunately I did not know what it was at the time and it tasted all right, but as soon as I found out I couldn’t even look at it. Ha!!
Feb 15th Addo and Scotia Game Parks
Hey there! I just got back from the Addo Elephant Park and the Scotia game reserve! I have never seen so many wild animals in my life! At the Addo elephant Park, we were lucky enough to see 2 elephants while we were there. One was about 10 meters from the bus! We also were able to see a few warthogs, Kudu and water buffalo as well (The water buffalo and elephant are two of the big five animals here is South Africa, so that was pretty awesome). Afterwards we went on a 4 hour Safari in jeeps in the Scotia game reserve. The animals in the park are wild, however it is called a reserve because the land is protected. It was raining all day, but that didn’t stop many of the animals from wandering around. We saw a huge male lion (big 5) only 30 meters from our jeep and we also saw impala and springbok (types of antelope), zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, rhinos ( part of the big 5 as well), hippos, crocodiles and one of the coolest things for me was seeing all of the carcasses from previous lion kills! After the safari we were served a meal of Kudu which is one of the largest types of deer (close in size to an elk) which was very tasty! We then left and arrived home around 10pm, where I fell asleep right away after all of the action from the day!
Feb 16th.
Today was my first day of Volunteering. I was paired with a little two year old girl named Esti. If there is anything that I have learned from this trip it is that the stereotype of a child with AIDS is completely false. These children are just like any other child who Is unaffected. They are playful, healthy, funny, and do all of the things any other child would do. I feel very guilty for having this previous assumption, but am very happy that I was wrong. The children at the haven are so wonderful and I can’t wait for the rest of the semester with them. On the other hand, I am still getting over my fear of contracting Aids, but in reality it is much harder for that to happen than you think.
Hope all is well back home! I’ll keep you updated after my next excursion this coming week to a few caves!!

Wednesday Feb 11th
Yesterday was my first day of Senior Seminar. After three hours of listening to my professor speak about the apartheid movement I found the class to be very interesting and am both excited and nervous for the semester. Before class everyone went to the beach, and when I came back I had a few war wounds on my knees from attempting to skim board. Skim boarding is like surfing but you do it in very shallow water and it only lasts for about 10 seconds. My first two attempts may have been beginners’ luck, but my second two I failed miserably at. It was very fun though, and don’t think I won’t be back out there trying again! Then later that night a group of us decided to go to Leonardo’s (an amazing pizza restaurant) which was a great outing to get to know a few more people on the trip a little bit better!


5:30pm on Wed.
Today at school I went to talk to the soccer coach about playing this semester for the NMMU ladies team. Unfortunately their season does not start playing games until the end of April and the games are only played on the weekends. This was enough to deter me from the idea, and is kind of disappointing as well since I was looking forward to meeting a bunch of new people. Today at school I had my first encounter with a cockroach as well as monkeys! The cockroach was disgusting and luckily it was only on the street instead of in my bed or on my face which has happened to a few people here already…..yuck! The monkeys on the other hand were quite rowdy and they were attempting to steal people’s food near the cafeteria area at school. There is literally a sign on campus that says BEWARE OF MONKEYS. Yes, wild monkey were on campus!! There is a picture on facebook of one of them, but they were in the trees by the time I got a picture. Tonight is a little less exciting, but still fun, we have a welcoming dinner at the church across the street, so a warm dinner will be very good!
9:30pm on Wed.
So we just had our dinner and got back to our room to find the mother of all cockroaches in our bathroom! It was disgusting and I was the one who had to get rid of it, do not worry it was all documented on a camcorder so hopefully you can see it sometime…. Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!!
Night!! love you all!

Sunday Feb. 8th
Today was the first day that the market was set up for shopping along the beach. It is quite different than what I expected. I thought there would be all types of food to buy, but instead the locals here sell wood carvings, stone carvings, beaded artwork, paintings, and misc. items that range from jewelery to nailpolish or even cell phone chargers. I bought a beautiful painting there of two africans who were playing the drums for only $5! After shopping the market my roomates and I finished up alittle homework until we went to a soccer game at 3:30 pm. It was fun to see however, the team was not so good. Later that evening a few of us decided to play a few games of cribbage and then called it a night, seeing that we had to get up early for volunteering the next morning. All around a pretty relaxing day.

Monday Feb. 9th
Today is my first day of school and so far it was been alittle hectic! The taxi drivers decided to go on strike this morning so our transportation to Pendla school ( where we volunteer) never came. The taxis' were also our means of transportation to get to school so that was a alittle crazy as well! My first class today is African Jazz which goes from 2:45-5:45. I'm very excited for this class seeing that the topic will be about the culture here in South Africa and we get to go on many field trips as well! Emily, Shannon and I also contacted the soccer coach and will be meeting with him to find out more about the soccer team. Their season begins in March, so hopefully I will get to kick a ball around on grass by then!

Love you all! Hope all is well back home!

Friday Feb. 6th
Today we had our orientation for the Aids Haven. The head matron, Aggie, was very enthusiastic about us being there and it made me really excited to work with all of the children, but we don’t start volunteering until next Monday. We also went to a Cricket match and met up with some other international students from Annie’s cove. The Cricket game lasted about three hours and after learning all of the rules to the game it went by a little faster, especially the last 30 minutes when the crowd was going nuts cheering for the Port Elizabeth Warriors. The game was to see who went to the playoffs so it was a pretty big game to get to see!
Saturday Feb. 7th
Today was a pretty lazy day, my roommates and I went to the beach for a few hours, but it was too windy to stay long. After that we decided a little homework needed to be done and tried to read a few Chapters of Long walk to freedom by Nelson Mandela. In the evening we got a group of people together and decided that we were going to Leonardo’s in the boardwalk for dinner. It was an excellent pizza place. Later in the evening we decided to go to Annie’s cove again to hang out with our new international friends!!

Hey guys! So far I have been here for 4 days now and I am already experiencing many new things, including Ostrich for dinner last night which if you ask me tastes just like BBQ ribs, mmm mmm . Today we went on a tour around Port Elizabeth and were exposed to all the different aspects that the city has to offer. The first place we stopped was the "Port" of Port Elizabeth and learned about all the imports and exports of South Africa and how they effect the economy. We also went to the Red Location Museum which is a museum that has many displays of the anti-Aparteid movement as well as displays of many people who were active in the anti-apartied movement. From there to our next destination we went through the slum areas, (which included a million people)in which chilrden/adults and animals were living in homes made from scraps of metal/wood and plastic. It was very sad to see and definately made me feel grateful for all the things I am blessed with in my life. After that, we went to the Donkin which is a pyramid that is a memorial for Elizabeth Donkin which is how the city recieved its name. Around 3:30 when the educational part of the day had ended, about 16 of us went down to the beach to play alittle pick-up game of beach soccer! It was so much fun to kick around a ball again. Hope all is well at home.

Alison