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.
