it's getting serious now, less than two weeks left til i'm home. back to faucets where hot and cold come out of the same one, back to the non-metric system, back to fahrenheit, back to summer, back to things being open on sundays, back to safe neighborhoods, back to nice pets, back to gyms, back to skim milk. so exciting! the thing is, i really like it here, but once you decide you miss something, you start to notice all the inconveniences and miss things even more. homesickness takes over and you start to sound like a whiny brat. oh well. so this week i took a few tests, turned in my last paper, finished all my classes. when i wasn't studying i just hanging out, enjoying the occasional sunny days. when we get sun we all rejoice, then the rain comes back. one thing that's terrible is laundry. Since none of us have dryers and we dry our clothes on the line, we can never do laundry cuz it's always raining. our clothes are starting to smell funky. and all my socks are gray. i might leave some stuff here, it's all been destroyed. on wednesday i was going to go out to kareoke on long street cuz i knew a lot of people would be going, but i fell asleep at 9:30. impressive. didn't sleep well either. then thursday night we went out to seafood (the ocean basket) for a friend's birthday and then went out on long street. i heard i fell asleep in not one, but two bars. once again, impressive. needless to say, i didn't stay out late.

on friday after getting out of bed for good around two i went next door to hang out with the girls. we all decided to go out to the movies for a nice relaxing evening. so we went to the mall, hit up the food court for dinner and then saw Shopgirl starring steve martin and claire danes. apparently this movie did terribly in the u.s. but we LOVED it. it was so funny and really well acted and written (except for the cheesiest voiceovers known to man). it was great. then saturday the weather was icky so we decided to make cookies. we had to buy chocolate bars and then i smashed them into chunks with a jar of peanut butter. it sort of worked. also the oven is really crappy so all the cookies were burnt. i made one on a frying pan - it was delicious but it looked sick. Then we watched Hotel Rwanda. Such a good movie. After that we went out for an all you can eat sushi/japanese food buffet at this nice restaurant called, what else, Sushi Zone. After that we went out to a pool bar in the area, but didn't have much fun. A lot of obnoxious balding men were fighting over the opportunity to challenge us. then when we started beating them they complained that we weren't being nice. Then when we were minding our own business at a balcony table this man from the next table goes "why are there so many americans in cape town?" and lindsey, being the confrontational girl that she is, goes "what?" and the man said "is it some sort of conspiracy? were all you guys sent from washington?" and we were just like "umm, yeah we're all here spying on you." and we relocated in the bar for about 10 minutes before leaving and going home. the night was a bust. it sucks when people can be so obnoxious as to ruin your night.

today we decided to head into town and be tourists. We went to the castle of good hope. which is neither a castle nor on the cape of good hope. it's a fort in the middle of downtown. it wasn't that exciting. after walking around the exhibits (which were all an anthropological mess) and making fun of the cannons and a silly interactive model train we left. There was nothing else open in downtown on sundays. we tried to go into the library/ court house and thought it was open cuz a door was open. as we tried to go in this random security guard came up behind us and goes "it's closed." and we were like "umm, but the door's open?" apparently the door was just open for kicks. so we came back to mowbray.

this week, since we have no school, we'll probably try to do a few more touristy things. my finals are on the 2, 6, and 7th. after that, it's home free.

hello. things have been crazy around here lately. i've been so busy with school and then as soon as school lets up i have social commitments. it's fun. plus since i only have a couple weeks left there is so much that i haven't done that i'm trying to fit in.

last wednesday was the 17th of may, a wonderful holiday, and i couldn't celebrate because i had to study for a test, which sucks. and then thursday i just hung out with a couple neighbor girls. we had our last regular dance class. our teacher keeps telling us how we had no rhythm when we got here and how we're so much better now. now we can actually move our butts. whenever he wants us to put effort into something he says "don't window-shop it!" so funny.

friday was a big day. after spending the morning in bed, the girls from next door came over and we went to mexican for happy hour and a late lunch (happy hour starts at noon every day, outrageous). after that we went home, got all dressed up and went to the ciee final dinner. they took us to La Med for drinks. La Med is a beachfront cocktail hotspot. It was weird though because the 90 of us dominated the place, but there were still a few random people there. but it was a nice place. After that they took us to Africa Cafe. There we were served a 16 course buffet of african food from around the continent. it was delicious and really fun. They tell you where every dish is from and the waitresses all have their face painted. they came in and sang for us also. After that everyone went out on their different ways. Molly, Katie and I went out to a different place from most people. we went to obz, the local bar neighborhood. most places had a cover and since we just wanted to hang out and not spend much money we wandered into a bar called "the one ring." it's a lord of the rings themed bar (there's actually another one down the street called Gandolf's). That night the UCT science society was hosting an end of semester party and the bouncer begged us to come in. everything inside was carved out of wood and there was a map of middle earth on the ceiling with mordor right above the bar. Plus, because of the science club everyone was wearing lab coats decorated in that puffy fabric paint. it was so ridiculous. so we sat down and hung out for a little while, not really talking to anyone and then went home pretty early.

Saturday my house and our two neighbor houses hosted a huge house party. all semester the different american houses have hosted parties and we hadn't had one yet, so we decided to all do it together and make it really good. We got a huge sound system, made playlists, had people on door duty and took donations for the orphanage that i volunteer at. We had a lot of people there that we didn't know, a lot of non-americans. There was an entire rugby team, and apparently a local celebrity - a member of the Springboks, the national rugby team. everyone was dancing and having a good time, and nothing too crazy happened which was good. Sunday us Bollihope kids woke up late and headed to a restaurant called "greek," where they serve greek food. we sat there for a couple hours, went back and cleaned up and then a few hours later a few of us tried to go out for sushi, but nothing was open because it was late on sunday so we drove around the city looking for a restaurant. Finally we found a french restuarant downtown, ate, and then went home to bed.

today i turned in my last paper of the semester. and soon i'm off to my friend kelly's house so we can prepare for our xhosa oral final tomorrow morning. it should be good considering i still can't properly pronounce the name of the language. thursday is the last day of classes and then my first final is on the 6th. i come home the 10th.

so i just got back from one of the craziest weekends of my life. On tuesday i found out that a test i was supposed to have on thursday got postponed so i decided to go to namibia with my roommate and neighbors. sidenote: also on tuesday i found out that the essay i posted for you guys earlier in the semester was published in the first issue of a travel magazine at GW. ok, so i had the evening to research and write a 5 page paper and go to dance class. i finished by midnight (go me!) and then we left at 6:30 am for namibia. For those of you who haven't looked a map of southern africa recently (or read a tabloid), namibia is a mostly empty country just north of south africa on the western side. There are hardly any cities and towns and hardly any people either. A large part of it is desert. Brad and Angelina are currently there promoting the country and waiting to have their baby. on the trip was me, lindsey and adee all from GW, katie from fordham and laura my roommate from gtown. so we had a nice girly road trip through the desert in our nissan almera, nicknamed the "blueberry tartlet."

DISCLAIMER: the namibian people are exceptionally friendly and we were treated very well. one of the following stories may seem shocking and scary, but mostly it was a crazy thing that we now have as a wonderful travel story. People were so nice in fact that everytime you drove by someone (not often) they would wave excitedly at you! so please, do not be a afraid for me. do not think that i am crazier than anyone you have ever met. this is normal behavior. road trips are supposed to be wild. the end.

We started off the trip listening to all our cd's (most of which were severely scratched) and eating an absurd amount of chips balanced out with apples. Every time we saw a petrol station we bought gas and coke light. even though we were camping and roughing it, coke light cannot be drank warm, so we bought cold ones whenever possible. One great thing about the trip was that the namibian dollar is 1:1 with the south african rand so the money is interchangable. as soon as we got into namibia we were on the open road. people drive 180 kilometers/hour on open stretches. that's about 110 mph. yikes. so we drove on wednesday for 15 hours until we reached Windhoek, the capital. Everything has german names in Namibia because it was the last african country to gain independence, from germany in 1989. their first president is still in office. all the streets are named after him. Sam Njoma Strasse in every town. On the way to Windhoek we only passed about 3 towns, strategically placed so that you are forced to buy petrol in every one. In Botswana we were constantly passing little villages but there is nothing in namibia. So eventually we got to windhoek and camped at this hostel in the middle of the city. We made some pasta (probably our best dinner of the whole trip) and then played some cards before going to bed. We also made sure to have a Windhoek lager while in Windhoek. it's actually not very good.

On thursday we woke up and had a complimentary breakfast of thin pancakes covered in sugar. Then we went to the Namibia Craft Center to look at all the beautiful handmade crafts that weren't part of the giant African craft market. however we couldn't afford any of them. So we explored the city a little until we found crafts on the street so we could bargain. I kinda love bargaining. I always pick the nicest ladies to buy from. Some people will really harass and never give you a good deal, but if you buy more than one thing from one person that's when you get the best deals. So i got a few presents there. There were some beautifully carved mancala boards, but they were expensive! so i got a wooden hippo instead. you know, it's my mascot. After that we got back on the road and made some pb & j in the car on our way to Swakopmund, home of the dune adventure sports. In Swakopmund we chose to stay at a campground that was recommended to us by our friends who visited namibia during easter break. It was right on the beach and next to a bar - perfect! however there was only one other guest staying there, which was a little sketchy but we thought, what the heck. so we set up our tent and went to the beach for sundowners. After hanging out and taking phenomenal pictures of the sun setting over the water and the desert we walked back to our campsite to make some tuna surprise (adee's secret recipe of pasta, tuna, cheese and peas). Well we couldn't get our fire started so steven, the campground manager came over to help us. Since it was nice of him to help us out we gave him some brandy and let him eat dinner with us. After hanging out and eating dinner, where we learned interesting things (such as steven sold his cornea in the black market) we went to the bar next door because at midnight it was going to be lindsey's 21st. and here begins the craziest 15 hours of my life...

at the bar these crazy boers decided to start insulting us and the united states and telling us that we should have died in 9/11. They were being violent, swearing at us and being absurdly inappropriate. Well, we didn't take it lightly. needless to say a full-on barfight nearly broke out but he was a beefy guy and we were all girls and no one really wants to get in a barfight. Those kids got kicked out and then we were told it was last call, although it wasn't that late. Steven had started to get kinda strange and was mooching drinks off us and being generally strange. so after leaving to bar to blow off steam by screaming at the ocean in a very garden state-esque manner we went back to our campsite to surprise lindsey with a cake. Well we didn't want steven to hang out with us anymore. but he refused to leave. he started to get increasingly creepy. we had to put the cake under the car and then convince him that we were going to sleep in order to get him to leave. well he wasn't taking it that easy. We were actually in the tent laying down pretending to snore and finally he left. However, 5 minutes later he came back with his ledger and slammed it against the tent. he had said when we arrived that only one of us needed to sign the book and then we would all pay in the morning. So he started screaming that we needed to pay. We couldn't reason with him because he actually was going insane so we went to the tent of the only other person in the campground. Well Daniel, a Zimbabwean with one eye emerged, and it turns out that he is friends with the owner of the campground. Turns out Steven has only been working there two weeks. lovely. So Daniel takes a couple of us to a phone and offers to use his minutes to call the owner, but he's out of minutes and the phones are all broken. We go back to the campsite where a couple of us are still attempting to argue with steven, even though he has quit speaking english and will only use Afrikaans. well the bartender and bar security came over and were also trying to help us, to no avail. So lindsey and katie took the car, with the bartender, to the namibian police station to use a phone and call the owner. The police wouldn't let them use the phone. While they were gone we decided that even if they did find the owner and Steven got in trouble it wouldn't be smart for us to stay at the campground. We started unpacking the tent. Steven tried to steal our tent poles, laura fought back for them, but he did steal my box of wine. not cool. So as soon as Lindsey and Katie get back from the police having made no progress we packed the car and tried to leave, refusing to pay since we were being harassed and not allowed to sleep. on our way out the Namibian police show up. We were trying to reason with the constable, but he was insanely listening to Steven. Finally we wrote down our phone number and peeled out. We then had to find a place to stay. The hostel was too expensive and it was gross, one hotel wouldn't give us a room because it was 2 am and laura had no shoes on, and finally we found the Swakopmund Hotel/Casino. So nice, 4 star resort. Eisenhausen, the guy who checked us in, let all 5 of us stay in one room for the single price, which we put on laura's credit card. We then crashed in the room and all our adrenaline and wine caught up with us and we decided to go skinny dipping in the fountain at 3 am. After that we ate cake and passed out. in the morning we woke up and Eisenhausen had left laura an urgent message saying he wanted to be very good friends with her (creepy). we went to our complimentary breakfast, which was an all you can eat feast featuring custom omelettes, salmon, oysters, pastries, fruit and we asked for mimosas for lindsey's birthday. It was amazing. and such a contrast from our previous night. Then we found out that breakfast was only complimentary for 2 of us. oh well, it was worth it. finally our terror was over. At checkout the bitchy lady at reception was trying to charge us a crazy rate so they had to get eisenhausen on the phone and then the manager came out to

after breakfast laura, lindsey and katie went 4 x 4ing on the dunes and adee and I decided to just walk through the dunes for free and then come back and lounge by the pool. i mean, i wanted to take advantage of the 4 star hotel since we would be camping the rest of the nights. After that relaxing time we got back in our car. We stopped at a gas station, got some pies (mmm) and coke light. The gas station attendents are always so excited when you pull into the station and they were so nice. They told us that brad and angelina were headed into Windhoek that day and that we'd just missed them. oh well. i think they were just as excited to see us as they were about brad and angelina. So we drove for about a half hour and then the paved road stopped. We had heard bad things about namibian roads, how they weren't paved, how peoples cars would die and they'd be stuck on the side of the road and get attacked by lions. so once the pavement stopped we realized we were in for a treat. Well this was possibly the most beautiful drive of my entire life. We were driving through rolling desert hills on a gravel road at sunset and it was so stunning. not a single picture could do it justice. it was also a full moon. unbelievable. well we also saw some game. we saw kudu, wild ostrich, jackals, HUGE bugs that looked like black stones in the road and were actually insects. also once it got dark i'm pretty sure i saw lions, but they could have been bushes. So eventually we got to Sesriem, a tiny gated in campsite that pretends it's a town and we encountered our third one-eyed man. and this one had cornrows. The cornea black market is really big in namibia and zimbabwe apparently. well once we got into sesriem we set up our tent, ate tuna sandwiches and promptly passed out around 10.

that was good though since we had to wake up at 4:30 to go watch the sunrise on dune 45. We drove down a road (semi-paved!) for 30 minutes until we got to dune 45. a large, yet climbable dune in a mossy valley that runs through mountains made of sand. it's wild. We climbed it, but it was so difficult and we were sweating so bad by the time we made it up the first part that we decided that was good enough and we didn't need to go all the way. the crazy germans climbing with us went all the way. we lived vicariously through them. the sunrise was unbelievable. on one side the full moon was setting and on the other side the sun was rising and was creating pink rays over the valley. The colors on the red sand of the dunes were so incredible. We took about a gazillion pictures (to be posted tomorrow at some time so look out for that) and then climbed back down. Then we stopped back in sesriem to eat breakfast. well we didn't have a clean pot, or forks or any silverware for that matter, or any way to heat anything up. so i ate the most disgusting sandwich of my life. bad dry bread with warm cheese, tuna and cold baked beans. katie was using pringles as a spoon to scoop out baked beans. i could not believe us. then we got back on the road to go fish river canyon, the 2nd biggest canyon in africa. Also, the road was paved for a decent part of the day, yay! although at one point we were going 100 mph and a bird hit our windshield. it's skull cracked and there was brain matter on our window. yikes. We got to the "town" of Ai-Ais (campground and flats, restaurant, convenience shop) and decided that instead of trying to formulate a meal we would go to the restaurant. all the food was pretty sick, but we got champagne and tried to avoid the awkward stares of the giant tour group of elderly adventurers. then after dinner we hung out in our tent to celebrate our last night and then we went out in search of the "hot springs" that we had heard about inside Ai-Ais. We found a little tiny pool and the water was basically boiling, so we kept walking around in the dark and eventually we found this huge, hot pool. Since it was dark and no one was around we decided to skinny dip again, because well, why not. it was so nice and warm and really relaxing. After that we went back to our tent and slept amazingly well.

In the morning we woke up and tried to heat up bean cans on the communal stove. it didn't work well and was really nasty. Then we showered and got everything all packed for our last day. We then went for a "hike" in the canyon for about 20 minutes total. Then we drove about an hour to the fish river canyon lookout. Apparently there are a lot of really great, difficult hikes around the canyon, but we could only handle 20 minutes. The lookout was incredible, even though in this season the river is barely more than a trickle. From there we began our long drive back. We nearly ran out of gas before reaching the border which was kinda scary but luckily we made it. We had our last lunch of tuna on disgusting bread with chips on top of it. i don't wanna see tuna or baked beans for awhile. Then we crossed the border and drove home. We saw some scary car accidents on the way home, way worse than anything we saw in namibia. At one point we saw a really bad accident, then a couple kilometers later we saw that the ambulance carrying passengers from the first accident had crashed. it was really sad. well eventually we made it home at around 11:30. Now today i had a test at 11 am, and two article summaries and a lab due. I had been reading articles in the car for most of the trip. I wrote one summary last night, one this morning, made it to all my classes, printed the summaries on campus and still did pretty well on the test! go me!

all in all the trip to namibia was phenomenal and we did it for pretty cheap too! this week promises to be a good one, i'm really winding down on my classes and there are some exciting things planned. we're mostly just trying to cram everything in before we leave. which is for me in 3.5 weeks. yikes.

today we went to high tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel. This is the fanciest and oldest hotel in cape town and apparently their high tea is one of the best in the world. They've been serving high tea there since the late 1890's. well it was awesome.

we took a minibus downtown, walked through the company gardens to the Mount Nelson. On our walk all the minibus drivers were yelling at us, asking where we going as if they were gonna change their route to take us where we wanted to go, even though they had other passengers. It's a novelty to see a group of 7 white girls all dressed walking around downtown so everyone stares and yells. it was such a nice fall day too, so the walk was great. We got to the hotel and got to sit outside. Tea lasted for 3 hours and i drank about 5 or 6 cups. Also there was an unlimited buffet. We ate delicious vegetable quiche (way too much), meat pies, carrot cake (although it tasted like mince samosas to me, which is not ok), pecan pie, tarts, gooseberries with whipped cream, fruit salad, berry cake, eclairs, finger sandwiches (smoked salmon, cucumber, egg, pastrami). it was amazing. Everyone there treated us like we were insanely wealthy and it was weird.

It was nice to live in the lap of luxury for an afternoon but having seen the rest of cape town i couldn't imagine staying in the mount nelson. that hotel is like it's own victorian village. people who stay there don't walk around - the cab. They don't see the real city. They probably only interact with black africans when they are being served. it's a stark difference to the way we normally live. but it was definately fun and worth it.

i saw a praying mantis on my gate the other day. it was scary until i realized that i am not in fact it's mate, and therefore it would not eat me.

rent is a wonderful movie, which i already knew but i have rewatched it and loved it again.

i'm going through books too fast and they are too expensive here.

i want to go out to breakfast when i get home. and have some freakin breakfast potatoes!

the weather is cold, everyone wears ugg boots here - i thought that by being in africa i would escape that trend

my friends have a television in their house (with comfy couches!). i watched the first season of family matters for an hour at 2:30 in the morning. erkel hadn't even perfected his erkel voice yet.

the uct bookstore never carries any uct clothing. sometimes they have sweatshirts and then they sell out in 5 minutes. if they are so popular i don't understand why the bookstore doesn't just always keep them around? they'd make more money...

our neighbors have an avocado tree. i might go steal some.

happy may day! this is the conclusion of a very long weekend. There was also no school thursday - as it was freedom day - so many students decided to leave for a nice long trip. i was too poor for that so i stayed here. last week was busy with paper writing, as this week will also be. i've been trying to spend more time hanging out with people i know who aren't in my program and introducing them to my "ciee" friends. last week i went out to dinner and then to a bar with my friend ed. at the bar i got harassed by the bouncer for not having my id, because i've never been carded once in this country considering the drinking age is 18. he asked me my birthday twice and then finally asked me my star sign. after i passed all those rigorous tests he let me in. anyways that was a chill night. i met a girl in the bathroom who goes to occidental and is on the SIT program here so she knows a bunch of my high school friends. very weird. then thursday instead of having a winter beach day i stayed in to work on a paper. Friday i lounged by my pool and then had a crazy fun night. I went out to mexican with a few friends and then we met up with a bunch of my other friends and neighbors at this crazy rugby bar called Springbok's. Every friday is R50 for all you can drink. I knew a ton of people there and we had a great time dancing and hanging out. Yesterday we tried to go to high tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel (the fanciest hotel in cape town). and after getting dressed up and getting ourselves down there they were all booked up. so we made reservations for next week and i'll tell you about high tea in the next post. then we walked down long street trying to find a restaurant that was open but NOTHING is open on sundays in the early afternoon. it was eerily quiet. we managed to hail a cab and get outta there to fat cactus, so i had mexican food again. But it was fun. Then i went to the local sports bar down the street for happy hour. This bar, Champs, is so low-key. It's the type of place you go when you're bored and just wanna hang out with a beer and not get bothered by strangers. But since today was a holiday champs was packed last night. and these strange men had bought an entire case of beer and wanted us to help them drink it. They were dancing (no one dances at champs) and one of them could not pronounce any of our names. he spent 5 minutes trying to get "garrett" and she spelled it for him, and wrote it down and he still couldn't figure it out. it was kind of ridiculous. anyways, we hung out with them for a little while and then just went home and hung out for the rest of the night. i know it may sound like i spent the whole weekend out in bars, but i didn't. it's just that otherwise it was a pretty mellow weekend with a lot of people away and everyone trying to work on papers. coming up this week i have a couple papers to write, a few plans made with friends, and what not.

i'll be home in 6 weeks!