The Adventure Begins

So I’ve arrived in Cape Town. The city if beautiful, I can see the mountains from my house/from everywhere else I go and I can’t get over it! Aside from rain when I got here, the weather is AMAZING. I started my time here off by taking a dip in our pool after I unpacked, followed by a nap in the grass to help nurture my jet lag. The 14 flight wasn’t too bad either. Can’t really tell you what I did; I watched a 2.5 hr long movie, read the entire Hunger Game book, and didn’t sleep more than two or three hours, but the flight didn’t feel awful. I’ll be able to start updating this soon, but here is my schedule for the next two weeks of “orientation:

• Sunday (1/15): A tour around the peninsula, which apparently is great. A stop at Hout Bay, which apparently is also beautiful, and visiting/SWIMMING with a real life penguin colony at Boulders Beach. 
• Monday: Logistical stuff in the morning, visiting Signal Hill which overlooks the city in the afternoon. Eating dinner at "Swingers Jazz Restaurant" I've been told the word swinger is used differently in this country ... :)
• Tuesday: Touring a District Six Museum. 
• Thursday: Visiting Robben Island, where Nelson Mandella was held during his imprisonment. If you don't know much about Mandella you should look him up and learn about him, he's a remarkable man both for this country and the world. 
• Friday: Touring townships. If you don't know, townships are towns made up of shacks. They were the first thing I saw coming out of the airport. It is crazy and utterly heartbreaking. How can you let so many people live in such destitution, right under your nose, right next door to you? I feel like it is a crime against humanity. One thing I'm hoping to do is befriend people who live in them though, to get the real experience, to see how they live, to see what life is like. My dream would be to be able to spend a night or two in one. 
• Saturday: Wine vineyard tours. Not currently a wine fan, but I'm hoping to change that. Apparently the wine here is amazing. 
• Sunday (1/22): We're going to a Baptist church service, which is apparently really really moving. People from the townships give the equivalence of pennies during the offering but do it with such pride. I'll probably cry. 
• Tuesday and Wednesday: Visiting all the internship sites. I'll finally get to learn more about what I'm doing!
• Thursday: "Classes" start. The trip is more focused on the experience and the internships. What we get out of the experience by doing is more important than anything we can learn in a classroom. 
• Friday: A free day. The talk is we're going to climb Table Mountain. My first of many times. I want to get comfortable with the trails. There is Table Mountain, Devil's Peak, Lion's Head, and I'm sure a bunch of other smaller ones. Eventually I'd like to do it by myself, I think some alone time while living with so many people will be really good for me. 
• Saturday: Anther free day. Plan is to hit the beach, possibly get that surfing on!
• Sunday (1/29): A Braii, which is their version of a BBQ. 
• Monday: Internships start!

That's all for now. Like I said, more to come soon!