This morning I woke up, and again took a freezing cold shower…but no worries, the guy came this afternoon to fix it for us (apparently we had to flip a switch to turn the hot water on, and no one informed us about that!). We all took a Kombi today for our Nursing orientation at NMMU. There were 22 of us squeezed in the Kombi! The people in there with us were laughing at all of us “international students” for taking pictures and laughing at each other. The driver told us that we were all beautiful American girls, but we all looked alike! I believe that the exact phrase that was used was “They beautiful, but they look alike!” He told Alex how did he get so lucky to have all of the girls with him, and his response was, “I’ve been trying to get rid of them!” So the driver said that he would take five of us, and he would yell to everyone on the street that he had a Kombi filled with American girls and he got to keep five! At school, we finally figured out our computer IDs and passwords, and I am so grateful that I brought my own laptop, because the computer lab was completely packed with people! We then had our orientation with the nursing director and other professors in the department. And all of us had lunch together before we caught the Kombis back home. When we got back this afternoon, Christy, Leslie, Ashley, Carrie, and I went down to the beach for the first time and we took pictures of PE and the ocean! The sand is so soft and fine, and the beach was so clean! I couldn’t believe how pretty it was, and we were the only ones leaving footprints on the sand! The water is such a beautiful blue, but it’s not like the beaches in Cancun, where the water starts a light blue and turns to cerulean the deeper you look out. Instead it is the deep blue as far as you can see with white rolling waves. I’m sitting out on our balcony as I write this in the sunshine (but it’s still chilly!) and I can feel the breeze from the water and a sailboat is out on the water framed between the palm trees. It’s a different view from up here, because you can see palm trees, and then trees next to them that resemble evergreens! And it’s only 4:00pm here and the moon is already coming out (although it is still sunny right now, the sun will set within the next hour and a half). It’s such a strange feeling because I know that I am in South Africa, and I have been talking about it since last Thanksgiving, but it still seems surreal that I am finally here! Sitting here it feels like I am just visiting some distant place and I’ll be home next week. I look up and just take it all in and I just keep telling myself, “You are in Africa! How amazing is that?!?” I just can’t wait until the weather gets a little warmer so we can go to the beach and trying surfing lessons and boogie boarding. And I can’t wait to see the dolphins! But September 1st marks the first day of spring down here, so the weather should be getting nicer very soon!Now it’s just a little downtime and then we all are meeting as a group to go over our syllabus and weekend trips for the semester. Then tonight we are going as a group to see Bourne Supremacy (Denise, our professor, has been asking us all day if we are going to go tonight, because she really wants to see it!). So we have to check on movie times and prices and that is the plan for our first weekend night in PE! Then tomorrow it is the city tour at noon! I’m hoping to get some pictures uploaded to the internet so you all can view them, so when I have that done, I will send a web address for you to view those!
Back again, for the update about tonight…we all met as a group and went through our travel plans for the semester with our weekend trips and our spring break (sounds funny to say for fall semester!) trip to Cape Town (which I am absolutely excited for)! After our meeting, Denise gathered a group of us to go see Bourne Ultimatum, so eight of us walked down to the Boardwalk (which reminded me of Seaport Village in San Diego, lots of great shopping places, with an indoor market, and tons of cute restaurants all situated around a water area). We ate at Dulce for supper and the eight of us went into the theater. It’s different buying movie tickets in PE, because when you do, you are assigned a seat, rather than choosing your own place to sit. The movie was so good, but I probably would have enjoyed it a little more if I had seen the first two, but now it makes me want to go and rent the other two movies, Kasy said that she’d do it with me because she hadn’t seen the others! It was strange sitting in the movie theater, because it felt just like at home, except that it was only R25 ($3.50) to see a late showing! It was great! It was a fun night, and I am excited to get back to the Boardwalk during the day to see the shops! I’m already starting to get ideas about what to bring back for people!
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