Love from South Africa

7/4
Happy 4th of July!
After breakfast today we piled into the vans and went on a pennisula tour of the western cape. Today was the prettiest day of all. We really go to see some amazing scenary. It is so beautiful here, it is hard to believe a place like this really exists. I have never seen anything like it.
First stop was signal hill, which is right text to table mountain, over looking all of Cape Town. I had seen pictures over looking the city from this spot and now I got to see it in person, it was just incredible. I got some awesome pictures of the town, including the stadium, and the ocean.
We go to stop at a little market area for some more bargaining and shopping. I got the most amazing giraffe (of course) statue for less than 20 U.S. dollars, it would have probably been around 60 if I bought it back at home.
Lunch was at a place called Fish on the Rocks (I think) in Hout Bay. I ordered snoek (pronounced snook) and chips. It was a very boney fish but I really enjoyed it.
Next was Boulders Beach. Here it where we saw the penguins and Leonardo Dicaprio. It was funny actually on the way there.. there was a "baboon alert." There were baboons on the side of the road and there were gaurds protecting them from the people and other cars. It was kind of funny!
After the penguins and Leo, it was off to Hoek Bay to play in the ocean. This was the first time I had ever seen the Indian Ocean, let alone play in it. I found a couple shells and hopefully can bring them back without breaking them. We got some ice cream while we were there, just a simple soft serve vanilla chocolate twist, but it still tasted different, good, but different.

7/5
For breakfast today we had porriage, I actually liked it!
Today was our actual first day of class at UCT. Its funny because we are only taking four classes and are getting masters credit for it. Its actually pretty awesome. At UCT we did our presentations that we had made before we left. Dr. Soudien was our guest lecturer of the day, so after presentations and lunch he gave us a presentation about young people and education in South Africa. We were all pretty exhausted and it was hard to pay attention but I enjoyed learning about South Africa and its past and present.

7/6
Today was an amazing and emotional day.
First of all I finally got to move into Deo Gratia.
At UCT we met with Jonathan Jansen, he wrote a book we were required to read called Knowledge in the Blood and he is a big name when it comes to big changes regarding race and education in this country. Actually, we were told recently that people want him to become president. He was one of the most inspiring men I had ever met. I learned a lot from him and his experiences. He forced us to question our beliefs and put us in difficult situations with hard questions to answer.
He signed our books and took individual pictures with all of us. His lecture was one of the best I had ever sat through.
After lunch we met with a group that works to support teaching in regards to teaching about apartheid. It is very hard for teachers to teach about it, even though it had been 16 years since apartheid ended, because there is still so much racism everywhere, including the school system.
Once our lectures were over, we had dinner at the church again. Then some people went to a bar to watch the soccer game then a bunch of us went home. We just relaxed, had some drinks, and played games. It was nice to have a relaxing night!