Friday night a bunch of my friends and I went to a pizza party thrown by some of the international students from Italy. They made so much pizza, delicious pizza!!!


With full tummys we went to Long Street (the main strip in Cape Town) and the streets were closed down for a street party. There were so many people! There were bands playing all over and videos being played on the sides of the buildings. All of the bars were open and people were dancing in the streets. What a night!

Saturday I just worked on my report for zoology, and I must say I did a fine job getting it finished well before the due date. It is on population density estimation...not too exciting.


Saturday night we went to my friend Jamie's house for a get together, met some really great people. I am having a great time getting to know everyone. We met a bunch of rugby players, now it will make watching the games a bit more interesting. (Rugby is a crazy sport)

I am looking into the grad school here. UCT actually has a great ecology program. Who knows what the application process is like though, things aren't very organized around here.

Spring break starts Friday, I will be off for 10 days!! We are planning on going camping for the first couple of days, and then we are going to go into town to see the district six museum and have high tea. Then hopefully abseiling off of Table Mountain. My zoology course is having a field camp at a reserve called Langebaan the last five days of break, so I will be spending my Easter in the bush. I probably wont find any Easter eggs, but maybe a few ostrich eggs!

It is a beautiful day today! The sky is blue and there isn't a cloud in sight. Hopefully I will be able to get to the beach!

I had another meeting with the "Cultural Wine Society" on Friday. We got to try some of the Cape Whites. We scored each wine and discussed the different smells and tastes we picked up in the wine. Needless to say we scored the wine higher and higher as the night went on. But, in all seriousness there are some very fine wines in this area. I will try to bring some home to share... any specially requests?? (keep in mind I am a starving college student)

It is official, I am a diver! I had my last two dives required for certification this weekend and now I can go whenever I want.












Our last dives were off a boat in Houte Bay, what an amazing day! The water was freezing but the excitement of being underwater alleviated the pain a bit. I can't wait to get back in the water! We will be doing the shark dive later in my stay as the best time for it is in June sometime.









Our dive masters had a party to commemorate our passing into the world of divers, complete with lots of food and drink. They ensured all of our thirsts were quenched and then some. They are a pretty great bunch of people.

 

For those of you that are unsure, it is late summer-early fall here. Yes I know I am being spoiled. No winter for a year!!! The weather is beautiful...perfect for my labs, which are usually outside.


Today we are going to check out the zebras that graze along the side of our school and talk about the effects the grazing has on the land.  Some of the big problems that we have been talking about include the water crisis and sustainable development.


We have been talking about the importance of sustaining not only the immediate environment but also the world as a whole. We discussed the problem of justice vs. conservation. If you are arguing that all people should be allowed equal opportunity to the benefits of development, you must also argue against the conservation of animals and land etc. If you argue for conservation of land you must also then argue against the development of under developed countries. There needs to be a happy medium.






We went bowling with our rent-a-friends. Nothing like bowling to get a bunch of Americans excited.


On Friday I had my first meeting with the wine society. It was really nice. We met at Jammie plaza for sun-downers and were taught a few things about the wine. I enjoyed three different wines and bread as the sun dropped behind Table Mountain and the lights of the city began to glow. This Friday I we will be introduced to the Cape whites. They are also offering a week-long course that I am seriously considering. I am beginning to feel rather cultured.

I had my first open water dive on Sunday... I absolutely loved it! I saw so much wildlife I could not get enough. My dive master saw me having a staring contest with a fish and decided I needed to be taken to a sunken barge where copious amounts of fish like to hang out. It was unbelievable. I got to see tons of fish, a box jelly, a nudibranch, and two octopi. I have a whole new world of animals to explore. Diving is unbelievable, it really is like flying. The feeling of being so weightless is like nothing I have ever felt. It is one thing to swim around while holding your breath, but to be free to be under for such an extended amount of time is fantastic. It was great to do somersaults and swim upside down while everyone else was doing their tests, though I felt like a bit of a clown.

 

Ok that's it for now. Take care and enjoy some decent Mexican food for me... I have been having some serious cravings.

Cheers, Sara

This afternoon we went up to Rhodes Memorial after stocking up on all of our favorite foods from the local market. We sat on the hill and shared wine, stories and lots of food.

Well, this was an experience. We went up to the track field to watch sevens. In true new kid form I had no idea what to expect.


As it turns out, South Africans are a touch crazy. Sevens is when mobs of people dress in the most crazy outfits they can conjure up, or not dress at all. They go to the track field and they run seven laps. But there is a catch. With each lap they run, they must down a can of beer. The first complete team to cross the finish line wins bragging rights. Crazy buggers.