This morning we were up and ready to catch a van to NMMU at 9:40…40 minutes later, the van showed up. We learned first hand what “South African Time” means. The man I was sitting next to on the plane warned me about it and told me to be prepared to be late or expect people to be late for meetings, rides, and at restaurants! We finally were on our way, and we had a driver named Darren who worked for the University who was such a crazy guy! He was telling us about his car with big subs and speakers, and that you can’t enter from the back door, because they are broken! We arrived at NMMU and were greeted with muffins and juice as we watched a movie about the University, then we were given a tour of campus, which is so pretty because it is on a nature preserve! The campus is in the shape of a box, and over 27,000 students attend between the four campuses! We were given welcome bags with tourist information, and a t-shirt that said “Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University International” so now it’s official, I am an international student (Gen, if you are reading this, I too am an IS…I immediately thought of you when I finally realized this!) We got our books, and found out where our classes were. After the tour, we went to have lunch, and I tried a sandwich called a tram. It was one of the best sandwiches I have ever had! But I tried the ketchup, and it definitely was not Heintz! It’s actually a sweeter taste and almost tastes like there is cinnamon in it, Kasy and I decided that we were going to buy ketchup and carry it in our purses! After the tour of campus, we all had our first ride on the Kombis (taxies) which are basically large vans with only 10 seats, but they squeeze 20 people into them! I was sitting next to Kasy and ended up having the man next to me half sitting on me to make room for more people! Then three people were squeezed into the front, and whenever someone gets out, or we drove by people on the street, the driver honks his horn and a guy stands on the inside part of the door and whips it open and closed! It was an interesting experience! After our day at school, we all crammed into Brenna, Kasy, Leslie, Christy, and Laura’s room to think of questions for Loaded Questions and we all were sitting in there laughing and thinking of funny questions! Later on, we went to get more groceries and do a little more shopping for things for the flat. For dinner a bunch of us ordered pizza and we learned the perk of African time…free pizza! We finally got our pizza delivered 2 hours later! We decided that pizza (especially if it is free) is going to be a regular meal for us! The rest of the night was spent laughing at each other and just really getting to know everyone better, although we have all had classes together from our first day freshmen year, the juicy stories started coming out! It’s been fun with the group so far! Can’t wait until we start going out and seeing the city and country!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Tour of School
This morning we were up and ready to catch a van to NMMU at 9:40…40 minutes later, the van showed up. We learned first hand what “South African Time” means. The man I was sitting next to on the plane warned me about it and told me to be prepared to be late or expect people to be late for meetings, rides, and at restaurants! We finally were on our way, and we had a driver named Darren who worked for the University who was such a crazy guy! He was telling us about his car with big subs and speakers, and that you can’t enter from the back door, because they are broken! We arrived at NMMU and were greeted with muffins and juice as we watched a movie about the University, then we were given a tour of campus, which is so pretty because it is on a nature preserve! The campus is in the shape of a box, and over 27,000 students attend between the four campuses! We were given welcome bags with tourist information, and a t-shirt that said “Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University International” so now it’s official, I am an international student (Gen, if you are reading this, I too am an IS…I immediately thought of you when I finally realized this!) We got our books, and found out where our classes were. After the tour, we went to have lunch, and I tried a sandwich called a tram. It was one of the best sandwiches I have ever had! But I tried the ketchup, and it definitely was not Heintz! It’s actually a sweeter taste and almost tastes like there is cinnamon in it, Kasy and I decided that we were going to buy ketchup and carry it in our purses! After the tour of campus, we all had our first ride on the Kombis (taxies) which are basically large vans with only 10 seats, but they squeeze 20 people into them! I was sitting next to Kasy and ended up having the man next to me half sitting on me to make room for more people! Then three people were squeezed into the front, and whenever someone gets out, or we drove by people on the street, the driver honks his horn and a guy stands on the inside part of the door and whips it open and closed! It was an interesting experience! After our day at school, we all crammed into Brenna, Kasy, Leslie, Christy, and Laura’s room to think of questions for Loaded Questions and we all were sitting in there laughing and thinking of funny questions! Later on, we went to get more groceries and do a little more shopping for things for the flat. For dinner a bunch of us ordered pizza and we learned the perk of African time…free pizza! We finally got our pizza delivered 2 hours later! We decided that pizza (especially if it is free) is going to be a regular meal for us! The rest of the night was spent laughing at each other and just really getting to know everyone better, although we have all had classes together from our first day freshmen year, the juicy stories started coming out! It’s been fun with the group so far! Can’t wait until we start going out and seeing the city and country!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment