The day we got locked in parliament

Saturday night we went to a movie ! We saw Role Models, it was hilarious. The movies come out here about a month or two after they do in the states.

Sunday I woke up to little kids screaming military chants in the streets. They were practicing marching, it reminded me of ROTC. We then went to the beach with our neighbors, they are from Germany and doing an internship through “HOMESICK”. The beach had a lot more people compared to during the week. Evan, my roommate, went surfing and he attempted to teach me, but it was so busy I was afraid I was going to either get destroyed or accidently destroy someone else. In the evening we had another braai, but at our back house where the 5 girls live. We invited all our neighbors. The boys from Cape Town and Germany had never heard of Beer Pong, Flip Cup, or Quarters, so we taught them! Haha Anna brought Red Solo Cups and Pong Balls with her from the states, because last time she was here she found out the hard way, they don’t have them here.

Monday we woke up and went to Green Market Square downtown to do some SHOPPING! J I didn’t really buy the touristy crafts, aka tiki men, wooden masks, etc. I needed to get an idea of what kinds of things there were before I actually did my shopping for everyone else….but we went to Long Street for lunch, and we spent 2 hours at lunch because they went so slow. We went to a vegetarian restaurant where I had French toast with fried bananas, it was an interesting combination. While we were eating outside a man on the street was selling flowers and came up to us, he thought we were from Brazil, and a group of guys behind us bought us all a dozen roses. J Then we hit up a ton of boutiques where I bought a dress for my BIRTHDAY! J Anna has decided that I’m not allowed to plan the evening so everyone’s planning something for me… We are also planning a Valentine’s Day party for Saturday. It’s more or less like a pre-party to going out…but we are decorating and playing cheesy games like spin the bottle and in the beginning of the party every guy draws a random girls name and that’s their “date” for the evening, so the dates hands’ will be tied together… ha not my idea at all. We ended up hanging out with our local neighbors where we went to a bar and then a club in Claremont. It was fun, they played such random “american” music that EVERYONE knew and sung along to.

Tuesday I was on campus for HOURS signing up for clubs and societies. I ended up signing up for the Underwater club where I am going to finish my Scuba Diving certs. the club seems so interesting they do dives about once a weekend and they have their own club house on campus. I also signed up for SHAWCO, Step my interview is for Wednesday. I really hope I get into that program. I also signed up for the gym. The International office pays for us to enroll in 3 clubs/societies while we attend UCT classes, so all of the programs were “free” ha. Anna and I then went grocery shopping and ran errands for the remainder of the day. While I was waiting outside of a store I watched an older man digging through the trash for food, when I started walking home I noticed the same man in the corner of a street eating what he had pulled out of the trash. It was really sad. We also aren’t allowed to put our trash out until about 10 minutes before the garbage truck comes because people sift through your trash finding food and stuff to take with them. Later that night we went to Catu, which is an Irish Pub, in the evening to sing Karaoke and get free t-shirts..

Wednesday I had my interview with SHAWCO, I think it went really well and she basically told me I had gotten into the Step program, which is where I would be going to Kaylesha (a township) and tutoring younger children in Math, English, or Life Skills. I then had to change my schedule so that I am no longer taking Politics and am taking another history class- Southern Africa to 1900. It’s a 2000 level course so it’s going to kick my butt, considering I am taking basically 3 other history classes. Oh well. I then attempted to go to the gym but I didn’t bring a towel so I wasn’t admitted. Again, oh well. Haha. We went to Parliament for Kevin’s class and it was so interesting we had a private meeting with the Deputy Chief Whip of the ANC and then 2 other very high up parliamentarians who Kevin knows, since he worked with Mandela. Anyway it was really cool because they spoke with us off the record completely so they actually gave us their opinions, rather than what the ANC (African National Congress) believes. We ended up getting locked in parliament because we were there so late and by late I mean 5:30 ha. We ended up setting off every alarm in the place. On the way back we got stuck in serious traffic…..the Mini-buses were rioting because apparently there are Minibus wars between routes where they literally get pissed at each other and starting shooting at one another, another reason why I will never ride a minibus lol.

Until next time~