Day Eighteen

Friday, January 20th. Today after class, we went to the market. We had a competition, Erin and myself against James and Mike to see who could get the coolest item for R20. Here is James holding our African fertility doll (we didn't know it was that) in their slingshot.

Like Chinatown, the market sellers expect people to haggle with them on the prices of their items. That slingshot started at R120 and our African fertility doll started at R140. So go us! (: 

Day Seventeen

Tonight I went to a South African session! It was interesting, though I completely forgot to take pictures. It was on the porch of a pretty nice restaurant and everyone in the session was self-taught. Apparently there are no teachers, no Comhaltas branches, no organization with regards to competitions or anything. They just like to sit and play and have fun, and that's cool too! They didn't know what Comhaltas or the Fleadh were but I suppose they wouldn't really know, would they?Thursday, January 19th. Today after class we went to 'Danger Beach,' on the train. The waves were too strong for my liking so I didn't go in but I have pictures of the beach and the train as promised a while back!:

Everyone hangs out of the doors, off the back of the train and in between cars. There are signs that say not to do it but like with many other things here, that is not enforced. I know I have previously explained the train situation... It is ridiculous, no room and people just push all the time to get on or off, they push hard enough to make you stumble. Oh well! It's definitely an experience.

It's interesting with the amount of Irish people in Cape Town that they don't have these kinds of things available to them. But maybe that can change!
Anyway, after the session and dinner were over we went back to Jo'Burg and stayed out with some of the other girls.

Day Sixteen

Wednesday, January 18th. I'm so late on keeping up with this blog! I want to bang out the rest of these entries so I can get back to doing them at a daily rate. Today was a relaxed day but tonight was girl's night! It wasn't originally intended for it to be girl's night, but it just turned out that all of the boys were sick and didn't want to come. Well, Moshe was at long street already with Racheli so it was girl's night plus Moshe. I feel bad calling it that when a guy was actually there :p
First we went to Pickwick's, a recommended place, for dinner and did some karaoke, and then we went to a bar/club place called Jo'Burg, short for Johannesburg which is a major South African city and actually what all South African people call Johannesburg, and that was a lot of fun. I don't usually dance in public but when I drink enough beer I do...
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from today but I think someone else does, so when I find them I will post them (:

Day Fifteen

Tuesday, January 17th. Today we went to class and then I spent the entire afternoon doing readings and writing responses for class. However! At 7 a bus came to pick us up and bring us to Arlene, our tour guide's house. She held a braai for us, which is a traditional South African barbeque. It was really nice of her!! All of us and all of the NYU students studying at UCT at the moment were all there, we had all kinds of interesting food and we brought out own wine and we were just sitting around socializing, it was a lot of fun. We were having really interesting conversations with the NYU graduate students, amongst ourselves and even with the professor who teaches the other Queens College class.
I only have two pictures:

James and Erin

Racheli and James 

Nyambura, Professor James Tourgaw, Talisa, Stephanie, Batya and Nathalie 

This is what a braai is:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braai
I guess we'll all be able to see wikipedia shortly, lol. 
Anyway, that's all that happened today, so goodnight! 

Day Fourteen

Monday, January 16th. Today we went out again in search of baboons and found a whole troop that survive on humans feeding them from their cars on the side of a road. Many people get out of their cars to take pictures of the cute babies and don't realize that baboons know how to open car doors of many different varieties, they even tried to get onto our bus. Also, if you come out of your car with a bag on you the baboon may actually take it from you and search the contents for food. In this case, we have been told that the best plan of action is to simply let the baboon have the bag. I have some close up pictures:

 Baboon trying to get into our bus

 Baboon waiting for the doors of our bus to open so he could get on it

 A collared baboon. The collars are used for GPS to track them once they have committed a "crime"

 James and a baboon!

 Erin and a baboon!

 We were waiting for these baboons to raid the cars and the people around us but it never happened :p

At nighttime we went to the waterfront! We ate at a fantastic restaurant and went on the ferris wheel down there, here are some pictures:

Day Thirteen

Sunday, January 15th. SAFARI DAY!!!! We went to the Aquila game reserve about two hours from Cape Town on a safari! It was AMAZING!!! I have a whole bunch of pictures and I will add some videos of the animals as well.

Our safari guide! 

 Hippo!

 Zebras!

 Rhinos!

 Antelope!

 Ostriches

 Baby rhino!

 Springboks, the national animal of South Africa

 Elephants, who ended up play fighting and coming very close to the jeep

Amr, James, Mike and Moshe 

 The girls (Nathalie, Raquel, Erin, myself, Racheli, Marzela and Batya) drinking wine!

 Poacher Amr

Rhinos covered in mud to cool down. It was really hot outside!! 

 Wildebeests all the way up on the hill

 This is when they fought over the donkey carcass, I will soon post a video of that.

 Sitting on top of the carcass so the other female couldn't get it from them.

 Giraffes

 Pumba!! Where's Timon?

 Crocodile

 The safari ranger actually went inside the enclosure with them and took pictures with all of our cameras. He hand reared them when they were cubs, he even pet one and made us all jealous!

The ostrich farm closed out our trip! It was an amazing day!