sarmon
SA Joined: June 6th 2007
Logged in: November 7th 2008
Logged in: November 7th 2008
Travel Blog Posts
Hey Guys So nobody is more sad to report this than I am. Travelblog.org, the website that hosted my blog, underwent a massive server failure, and lost all the blog entries that anybody has recorded for essentially the last three months. That is basically my entire blog. It still has some of the pictures, and thank god, all my pictures are on my computer. I also probably have some of my blog entries saved on my computer, and when I get back home, I will be able to check on that, but for right now, I am not using my own computer. Right now there isnt very much that I can do about it, and I am really sorry about it. As a result, I am not entirely sure I will keep documenting the next few ... read more
Skydiving in Israel
Today, I joined my Uncle Robert in the ranks of "participating in extreme sports that may or may not send my mother to an early grave." I went skydiving. And...I LOVED it. Now, I have to start this out by saying that skydiving has never really been on my list of "101 things to do before I die." My general theory has always been "Why would I ever voluntarily jump out of a perfectly good airplane?" It seemed to be tempting fate...laughing in the face of whatever physics god keeps planes in the air, with me safely in them. However, when the opportunity presented itself...well, I have never been one to say no to an extreme sport (except bungee jumping. I put my foot down on that one). My father's friend from 1st grade, and ... read more
RECOVERED
Yesterday, my class took a field trip to Goodwood Prison, a "Centre of Excellence" in the Correctional System here. Goodwood is what would be classified a medium-security prison in the States, and in my Criminal Justice class, we've been reading all about how poor the conditions are in prison in S.A., so I was certainly expecting rats, wire-framed cots, and general dreadfulness. I was certainly surprised by what I saw. First of all, the prisoners here are kept in dormitories. When I saw Starke, the maximum security prison in Florida, they were all in their own cells, let out only one hour per day. Of course that will be different in a medium-security prison, but the prisoners at Goodwood were quite free to roam around in the yard (which had a card table, garden, and ... read more
In all my travels (because they’ve been so vast), I’ve found that one of the best ways to get your finger on the pulse of the indigenous culture is to really experience the food of the place. And often, the snack foods really clue you in to what people like wherever you are. First and foremost, I find it really important to mention that South Africans have a scary obsession with meat. All kinds of it, and in variant forms. Potato chips here come in flavors like smoked lamb, beef curry, and boerwors (a traditional South African sausage). I don’t think I’ve ever really experienced a meat flavored potato chip before, and I, one of the most carnivorous people you will meat (ha ha, get it? Meat? I’m so punny), am actually not a huge fan ... read more
RECOVERED
Day 2, Nicole and I decided we were going to do a self-drive through the park while half the group went on their morning guided drive. We went and parked the car in line at 5am, bribed the gate guard to watch our car, then ran back to have breakfast and get our stuff together for the day. We were the second car through the gate when it opened at 6am, and third in line to pay. Britt, another girl in our group, caught up with us at the gate, and by then the line was about 100 people long. Again, we exerted the power of bribery on the gate attendant to secure Britt’s entrance into the park without standing in line. It’s amazing how much the term “money talks” really applies in this country. ... read more
RECOVERED
Well, I returned from my weekend on safari with all limbs intact, and no lion bite-sized chunks taken out of me. It was really an amazing weekend, and I’m not sure that I can describe it all, but we’ll see how far I get. This is a story of the wilderness, of driving on the left-hand side of the road, and of the sunset drive from hell. There were twelve of us UF students that decided to go on the safari. We arrived in Joburg on Thursday afternoon, and split up into our respective cars. I was in a car with my friends Nicole, Josh and Katie (who is also my roommate), and we were pretty lucky since I remembered to bring my FM Transmitter for my Ipod. So we had some rockin tunes. It was ... read more
RECOVERED
On Monday, after our Constitutional Law exam, Maura, Yasmin, Eric, Katie and I decided to go to Kirstenbosch Gardens, one of the largest botanical gardens in the world. It was a beautiful day outside, so I’m really glad we decided to spend it outdoors. I think the best part of the whole afternoon was when I successfully argued to get us the student discount for admission. They said we needed to have student IDs from a South African school, but all we had was our UF IDs. Soooo I used my fantastic lawyer skills, demonstrated our participation in the Cape Town program with the aid of evidentiary items like our course syllabi, and generally badgered the poor man asking to speak to his supervisor until we were given the discount. I considered it a great ... read more
Today, Maura, Nicole, Josh and I decided to go on a sight-seeing tour at the Castle of Good Hope, which is the oldest building in Cape Town. Sadly, it does not look much like Cinderella's Castle, or any castle that you would think of when you hear the word "castle", but instead looks much more like the pentagon built in the 1700s. It's a fort, and it's a pretty cool fort at that! Unfortunately we got there after the last guided tour, so we had to guide ourselves. I think that it would probably have been better if we had a guide, because there were a lot of confusing passageways and exhibits that weren't exactly well-maintained, so we really just mainly entertained ourselves. We climbed up the oldest bastion, and snuck into the bell tower ... read more
RECOVERED
Bright and early this morning (at 5:30 am, to be precise), the group got together to take the buses to Gansbaai to go shark diving. So exciting! The trip down was about a two hour bus ride, during which I attempted to sleep, but Courtney and Kenny entertained us all with mask shenanigans and early 90s sing alongs. Our trusty boat was known as the Barracuda, and after waiting around for a while, we finally launched. The water was kind of choppy, with 6-8 foot swells, and the boat ride out to “shark alley” was pretty fun (if not wet). I managed to get into the first group to go in to the shark cage. After donning a wetsuit (which was fun to get in, let me tell you), I hopped in the cage with ... read more
RECOVERED
Yesterday was without a doubt one of the most memorable days I have had in Cape Town thus far, and probably will ever have in my life. I wanted to come home in the afternoon and write about it immediately, but decided to hold off until I could get the pictures from one of my friends who brought their camera with them. So, all the wonderful photography you see here is courtesy of Britt, who graciously said that I could use them with my blog. Our day was spent volunteering at a children’s group home in the Kyaletshia Township on the outskirts of Cape Town. Kyaletshia is a settlement that was created in the late 1950s and early 1960s by the Group Areas Act, which relocated all the black people from the area into the ... read more
