Sawubona!

Sawubona!! (Hello!! or literally, I see you!)

Well, here I am! Today is the first day that I have been able to obtain wifi on campus, which makes communicating a whole lot easier. Now, I can access Skype (Hopefully), Facebook, my blog and other internet functions. The university blocks certain programs during the day, but the texting app I have makes it easy to text when I have internet connection. Whenever I am without wifi, I have received an international phone from my study abroad program. It is a simple, dinosaur-aged phone that can text and make calls domestically and, for a steep price, internationally. I have to keep uploading it with Rand, but it’s a good emergency way to contact people and won’t attract the wrong person’s attention. We were told to avoid texting and walking at the same time off of campus with our phones because Iphones are very popular to be stolen and then resold.

My apologies in advance, for this blog post may be a little lengthier than I wish it to be; however, it covers many days of continuous novelties. So, please bear with me.

The flight and transitions to here went fairly smoothly. From O’Hare, I took about an 8 hour flight to London. On that flight I talked with my “seat mate” who happened to be a professional opera singer, to my left, across the aisle was a friendly girl my age from Denmark and to the front of me was a man who used to live in Cape Town; this company lead to a very nice flight with very interesting conversation.

In London, I had a 10 hour layover from when I landed to when I departed. With Scott’s help, I planned to take a cab to Windsor Castle. When I went to call for a cab, it ended up being much more than I anticipated and more than the Windsor website predicted; however, it ended up being worth the extra cost. My cab driver gave me a tour of the city before he dropped me off so I would not get lost walking around. He let me off at a restaurant that he was familiar with, Browns, and we arranged to have him pick me up with enough time to get me to my gate. Windsor Castle was beautiful and worth the audio tour.

 After spending about 2 hours in the castle, I was able to walk around the town of Windsor. There, I ate at Browns (venison and coleslaw with a chocolate chili sauce) and walked along the Thames while eating some ice cream.

I stopped in a Cornish pasty shop to call my cab and there a nice worker gave me a chicken and mushroom pasty for the plane.

My flight from London to Johannesburg was my longest yet best flight (roughly 10 ½ hours). My dad and I picked out a perfect seat for me: aisle and in the middle of the plane where there is extra foot room because they have the flight attendant divider there. I had better seat mates than my friend Jackie did though. While I sat next to a French couple and a man from Cape Town, Jackie sat with a mother and a sick baby who kept getting handed off to her. Jackie’s lap was also used occasionally as a changing table.

Landing in Johannesburg went smoothly and so did the transition from the international terminal to the domestic terminal. The flight from Joburg to Durban was maybe one hour or a little less. On that flight I met two women from Durban and the younger one wrote me a list of activities to do both in Durban and Pietermaritzburg (where my university is located). Both gave very helpful advice that I have heard before (don’t travel alone, pay attention to your surroundings, etc.), but advice from a true South African who obviously knows their country is easier to receive.  Exiting the airport, we were greeted by two women, one from Durban and one from my study abroad program. We then rode 45 minutes to our campus. There, we met Thula, our Interstudy Advisor who will be on site to help us. I believe he will also be my adviser when I move to Durban my second semester.

To put it plainly, the university campus is beautiful. I am very fortunate to be living here. The weather is about 70-75 degrees here in the winter (I still have not gotten the hang of Celsius) and the everyday flora and fauna is very pretty. The campus is much larger than Saint Mary’s, so that is going to take some getting used to. The nights get pretty cold, colder than you would think Africa could get, but it turns to the perfect temperature during the day. It’s hard to think that in a few short months we will barely be able to stand the heat.

(The Old Main Building on Campus)

The first few days here we (the other Interstudy students and I) went through a leisurely orientation put together by Inter Study. We discussed house rules, getting around safely, crime awareness, HIV/AIDS Awareness and Prevention, toured two local malls, campus tours, insurance, transport, and then an official school orientation. We also spent a lot of time talking about South African boys.

Tomorrow I officially start classes. I will be taking Ethics, Anthropology, French, and a South African History course and I’m really looking forward to meeting new people.

So far, everyone I have met has been so nice and enthusiastic to talk with us. We have already met so many nice locals.

 If anyone has any questions at all about South African culture or my experience here so far or anything I may have skipped, I would be more than happy to answer them in my next post.

So for now,

(As many here say) Cheers!