The view from my bedroom window

Woke up this morning and saw this view out my front window. It is pretty neat.


To answer some questions...
Kailey, the best way to get me is email. I don't know how often I'll be on Facebook, but I keep my mail program open on my computer to get messages whenever I log into my internet. It is shaun.aukland@gmail.com

I was also asked to post my address. It is:
Shaun Aukland
73 Arnold Street
Observatory, Cape Town
7925 South Africa

I think the only way that I can get packages is if it is sent airmail. Whatever that means, maybe the post office will know more? I just know that a girl from last semester only received two of her three packages. I think Lyndsey might be making me a hemp necklace to send, which I am excited for.

I'm leaving now (7:15am Sun) to my orientation. We're going to tour the Cape, go to the beach, and see lots of stuff today. I hope I don't get burnt. I also need sunglasses.

Cape Town Begins! ... with jetlag.

Surprisingly, the layover and subsequent flight were not that bad. Long, but not bad at all. I write this at 7am on Saturday, from my new bedroom, following my first day in Obz!
The second flight was fine. More crowded, but fine. I watched Eagle Eye, which turned out to be terrible, as well as an episode of Taxi. The rest of the time was spent sleeping or reading, with an overnight emphasis on sleeping. For dinner I ate lasagna with salad, and for breakfast it was sausage, eggs, bacon, and yogurt. I arrived at 6am Cape Town time, and after going through some fast customs, walked out of the arrivals gate with luggage in hand. A crew from IAPO (International Academic Programmes Office) were waiting for us. The 15 or so arriving international students loaded into two Sprinter mini-buses and were off to our respective homes.

The drive into the city was about 20 minutes, and was really enjoyable. We took the highway, and I only struggled with the idea of driving on the other side of the road. The steering wheel is also on the other side of the car from the US, like in England. Not that I've not seen this before in movies, or was particularly surprised by it, but just had a 'woahhhhhh' moment' as I started to process exits, turns, one way streets, etc. Everyone has said that the drivers in Cape Town are notoriously bad, but I haven't really seen that yet. There was a wide variety of housing, the most of which stood out was the makeshift townships lined along the road.

Here are some photos from the travel, including a photo of the setup I described from my first flight.


Onto my home! I met my landlord when I arrived, she was waiting along with some other roommates that arrived the day before. I carefully read over some stuff, and signed my lease. I need to pay my deposit and rest of the rent sometime today, I think. Anyhow, the house is beautiful. Even more impressive than what I was expecting. It had a nice living room, sizable kitchen, and super cool backyard. As I mentioned before, we have a swimming pool. I haven't used it yet, but will soon.

My bedroom is pretty nice also. I have a full or queen size bed, desk, night stand with shelves, and armoire type thing. The armoire locks, so I can secure stuff (a number of friends asked if I'd be able to). It even uses an old style skeleton key, as do many of the doors and gates around the house and yard. Our yard is enclosed with a gate (including electronic buzzer like my apartment), and the backyard has a concrete wall with barbed wire. The whole place is wired with a security system, with motion sensors throughout the house, bedrooms, and yard. This made me feel a bit better when I arrived. Also... each of the 8 roommates has a small remote panic button. It looks like a car door remote, but with one red button. It triggers the alarm system remotely and calls for response from the security company. I'm not sure if this makes me feel better or worse. Better because we have it... worse because there may be a necessity? And most of you know that one of my greatest fears is calling 911 and not having them respond. Forget the fact that the emergency number here is 10111, or that I don't even have a phone yet, now I'll just worry about not having that remote or have it not work. I jest though, I'm not too concerned about it.

Arnold Street Photos:


I've got 7 roommates. Two are from UW-Madison, two are from University of Michigan, one from Vancouver, one from Germany, and one from the Netherlands. The place is great, though, and each of us have unique rooms. The two upstairs have lots of closet space and skylights. The two caveats so far are 1) electricity and 2) some bugs. We just had the lights trip the breaker a lot last night... like about 20 times. Maybe we need to learn something about how to do things better, but there wasn't much plugged in. And there were some bugs that we killed, they may or may not have been cockroaches in the kitchen.

After getting here and meeting though, a few of us went out to get some non-airplane food. Things are so cheap... we went to a sit down place, and I got a pasta meal for like $4.50 US. Then we went to a grocery store. I bought an adapter for my laptop first and foremost, then went onto less essential things like food and water. :-)

Got some juice, fruits, cereal, milk, butter, pasta, sauce, etc. No Hamburger or Tuna helper to my dismay. No corned beef hash. What am I going to do here? We headed back to our place, and the jet lag had caught up with me. I crashed and slept a few hours in my room. Internet is expensive, and limited. Each of us have logons that work independently on our wireless router through Skyrove Internet. You purchase credit that represents megabytes, I paid about $51 US for like 1.8 GB or so. LAME.

Later on in the night, we had our first welcome braai (bbq), with chicken and sausage on our grill in the backyard. Then headed off to the bars on Lower Main Road. We went to a pretty busy place with pool tables. The boys beat the girls in pool three times... ouch. We weren't that great though. Alcohol is cheap here, too. Most drinks, including beer, are about $1.50. It made for a fun night. Anyhow, we headed home at about 2am, in a group of course, and hit the hay. My first day in Obz was tiring, and I've still not really recovered from the jet lag.

Thanks for reading though, and for the comments on the last post!  I like hearing who is reading. It wouldn't let me respond with the internet being spotty yesterday.  Lastly... I haven't told my roommates about my Snuggie yet.  I'd like them to know me personally before I reveal that little gem.  lol.  They'll find my blog, though, and know all about it.

Final Preparations Lead to a Flight

Greetings!  I am writing this 35,000 feet above the state of Maine.  We're traveling at 645 mph, and the temperature outside is -61 degrees F.  We'll soon be on the Transatlantic part of this flight, and if you haven't guessed yet... I'm on my flight to London for my connection flight.  I'm on British Airways, and this is just so cozy.  When I got on the plane, my seat had a night blindfold waiting, a pair of socks, a mini-toothbrush with toothpaste, a super soft blanket, and a pair of headphones.  That's service!  I also just finished my meal, which was chicken and pasta, with a salad, a nice roll, and apple pie desert.  All of things were actually really good, rather than being cafeteria food or something.  I am pleased.

So while this flight is almost 8 hours long, and we're not even over the ocean yet... this isn't bad.  I got a seat with extra leg room, and it is only two people wide on the side.  To top it off, the seat next to me is empty, so I've got some room.  AND I'm watching Ghost on my personal retractable television.  I'd like to say that it is in dedication to Patrick Swayze, but it is honestly only for Whoopi Goldberg.  AND the cream of the crop here... I'm sitting in this airplane throne while wearing my Snuggie™.  More on that a bit later.

Anyhow, Whew!  The last four days have been, naturally, quite busy.  On Friday, I capped off my 80-hour pay period at work and turned in my keys.  On Sunday night, Matt and I went out for one last dinner at Sushi Muramoto in Madison.  We got sushi with our entrees (duck and steak).  Then went to the Sundance and saw Slumdog Millionaire, which was incredible by the way.

I certainly wasn't prepared to say goodbye to Matt the next morning, but how can you be?  We've talked about it for months, with no logical way of preparing for a goodbye.  There are just so many unanswered questions.  I then had my last lunch with my brothers Erik and Jacob in Madison, before meeting up with Lucy and Lyndsey.

I have no idea what I would do without Lyndsey, especially.  She has honestly helped me pack for every trip that I've been on since middle school.  I feel spoiled.  This time Lucy, Dan, and Lyndsey all deserve major props for helping me sort through my room and make decisions on what to bring.  We packed two suitcases (not full), my medium size luggage for carry on, and then I'm also using my laptop bag.

Yesterday (Tuesday), I spent my last day in Racine with Alex and Eric, and we went to shoot pool and had dinner at Alex's.  It was a great last night.

Now to get back to the big news:  Dan bought me a Snuggie™ for my flight!  Yes, of the As Seen On TV fame, I now own a Snuggie.  I mean, blankets are okay, but they can slip and slide.  And when you go to reach for something, your hands are trapped inside!  It even came with the book light.  :-)

Anyhow, my very last task before leaving was reducing the service on my iPhone so it can go into storage, and then scanning everything in my wallet so I'd have record of it if it gets stolen or lost.  I was feeling a bit better after getting that all done.  With that, I loaded everything into the car and headed for Chicago with my Mom, Eric, and Amanda.  I had Wendy's as my last American meal... how charming.

Either way, this is only the beginning of my flights to Cape Town.  I'll have a four hour layover in London, then a 12 hour flight to Cape Town.  Let's hope I can find another Whoopi Goldberg movie.  And that the flight attendants have wonderful British accents.

Preparing

Four Days Until Departure!

So, I suppose I should start this off. For those of you that don't know by now, I've decided to keep this blog in an effort to stay in touch with friends and family while I'm abroad in Cape Town, and also have a way to relay my experiences in a more dedicated spot. I'll be there until late June, so I'd really like to stay connected to people.
Of all the things that I've been thinking about in preparing for Cape Town, one of the only things that I'm in the dark about is the internet. So, while I know that I'll be able to update this blog, I'll probably be limited in my ability to video chat, Skype, and probably Facebook too. My limit at the University of Cape Town is something like 200mb per month, and in my house I'll be paying by the MB I think. Ouch.
Anyhow, I've haven't been able to update everyone on what I do know, so here's what I've got:

• I'll be living in a neighborhood called Observatory, or affectionately known as Obz in Cape Town. My house has 7 other international students, and the landlord is a scuba instructor. So, he put an in-ground pool in the backyard for instructing and certifying people. So I'm all about that right now. There is also a barbecue, and I'm on the first floor.

• I had my travel clinic with UHS about a week and a half ago. Mostly she just listed off the many ways in which I can expect to die, including (but not limited to) Hepatitis, Polio, TB, Tetanus, car wrecks, extreme traveler's diarrhea, etc... I ended up getting 6 shots, some malaria medicine (the kind that thankfully doesn't lead to night terrors or suicidal ideation), and like 6 super tablets for traveler's diarrhea "episodes."
• I'll be finishing my African Studies Certificate that began here at UW. I'll also be doing some work on my Communication Arts major. More importantly though, I plan on only taking like 12 credits so I can enjoy more than school.
• I'll be living close to the night life. Good for fun, maybe bad for crime or general debauchery. At Kate Lev's instruction I will be eating at the restaurant "Fork".

Other than that, I'm trying to stay level headed as I get everything in order to depart. I've had a bit more time than other people leaving, but worked 80 hours in the last two weeks to wrap things up. Over the next few days I plan on doing lots of laundry, cleaning my apartment, spending time with Matt, and going back to Racine before flying out of Chicago.

One thing is for absolute sure though, I'm so excited. And I hate moving my things, so I just want to get this next part over with. :-)