First few days...

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Saturday, May 31, 2008, 3:20 PM

I woke up this morning and didn’t really want to get up. It was a bit chilly (“absolutely freezing” in the words of South Africans, but really 64ºF haha) and I was enjoying the most magnificent view of Table Mountain from the comfort of my bed. But eventually I did, and made it to the shower, which was good and bad: Good, in that I had an even more spectacular view of the mountain through the shower and bathroom window, Bad, in that the drain didn’t like water. Put that on the repair list. Please.

I had my first meeting with one of the Connect-123 internship directors in the Mugged Café downstairs (which has free wireless…thus I will be drinking a good number of coffees and café specialties in the next two months to stay in touch with all of you. I also just bought some “prepaid” internet (who would have known?!) that I can access in my apartment, but “free” is much more appealing☺). I learned a few things, such as where to buy groceries, exchange money, locate ATMs, etc, so I headed up the street to the shopping centre soon thereafter with one of the interns I met (Will, a just recently graduated grad student from Brandeis) to get some necessities. After trying to exchange money (the American Express closed early since it was a Saturday), I purchased some of the Barnard family-famous Weet-A-Bix cereal, milk, yogurt, toilet paper (which I needed desperately, having arrived at 8:30 the first night to find that no, the apartments did not supply paper goods, and consequentially had to go knock on another intern’s door to “borrow” some of his… haha, so it goes)

I had called my Aunt Phoebe earlier that morning, and she and my cousins Cat (Catherine) and Julia came to pick me up at quarter to 5 on Saturday. SO AMAZING to see them for the first time in, what, almost 15 years?! We hopped in the car (rather I tried to get into the car from the wrong side, then realized the driver sat on the left, not the passenger…as Cat laughed ☺) and went for a drive around the peninsula to see all the breathtaking views of Table Mountain on one side of the road and the ocean on the other. We stopped to eat dinner at a nice little restaurant, and it’s amazing how many things Cat and I have in common…like our love of hiking, cheese and tomato sandwiches, haha. We came back over the -----Drive (spectacular, even in the dark), and I am now in their beautiful little house for the first time, lying in bed after having called home (!), met their three dogs, talked to the girls (Uncle Rob is on a trip until tomorrow), and fallen in love with South Africa.

And I just realized the first thing I forgot: a bathing suit. Looks like Anne will be back at the mall soon.

Random Fact of the Day: We should be lucky. When I asked my aunt how the gas (or petrol, as they call it here) prices were, she said “Cheap!” But cheap by their standards, not compared to ours. Even with our inflated prices, our gas is a bargain compared to petrol here. And yet their public transportation system is not a strongpoint… “We’re working on it, she said.” ☺

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Comments

[anonymous]

Lesson #1: Weet-a-bix is great with a little molassses! Lesson #2: Always carry toilet paper in unknown countries. Even Spain doesn't have toilet paper in most public restrooms :-)