The Past Two Weeks...

I really need to start getting on top of these blog posts. It seems like everytime I want to write the internet isn't working and suddenly I'm two weeks behind.

As usual, I've been really busy here! Classes have started to actually require work and I had to write my fist paper at UCT. The past two weeks have been amazingly fun and exciting.

So here is what has been going on...

Valentines Day was spent at a concert at the beautiful Kirstenbosch Gardens. I didn't realize the "holiday" would be celebrated here and was surprised at how lovey everyone at the concert was. We de-romanticized it by bringing lots of wine, cheese and fruit and singing loudly in our American accents. Kirstenbosch is a pretty big garden with lots of gorgeous flowers and landscaping. The stage is set up with huge mountains in the back and combined with the sunset, makes for a pretty beautiful (and romantic) evening.

Picnicing at Kirstenbosch Gardens

Later in the week we went into Cape Town to see the "Infecting the City" art show. Different exhibitions of modern art were spread throughout the city and you had to follow a little map to get to each one. My favorite was the Wishing Wall where people in South Africa would come and write their "wishes" on a piece of paper and tape it up on to a wall in the middle of the city. There were easily thousands of wishes on the wall and people of all ages/races were writing on it. The wishes ranged from materialistic, to sad, to hopeful, to romantic. My favorite wish was "I wish communication could always be this simple". My second favorite exhibition was a mural that was made on the floor of a local church. The mural was made completely out of sand collected from sites in South Africa where human rights violations have occurred. I didn't get to see the finished piece but what I did see looked amazing.

The Wishing Wall

After "Infecting the City" we spent the day at a rugby match between the Cape Town Stormers and an Australian Team. Cape Town won by a huge amount and we had front row seats. Later, my entire house drove up to the top of Signal Hill to watch the sunset and have a pot luck. The food all turned out really good but the wind on top of the hill was so strong that the food was flying everywhere. The sunset was beautiful even though there were some clouds in the way. It was still great to watch a sunset from the top of a mountain for the first time.

My whole house at Signal Hill

Last weekend we spent Saturday at a wine festival in Stellenbosch. Although I consider myself more of a beer drinker, it was fun to try all different kinds of wines and hear about how they are made etc. The best part of the festival though was getting to stomp grapes with my feet!

Stomping grapes in Stellenbosch

What was probably the best part of the past few weeks was hiking up Lion's Head last Sunday night. Lion's head is a huge mountain that basically looks like Pride Rock from the Lion King. Each month when there is a full moon a bunch of people hike up the mountain at night for what was literally the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. The hike itself wasn't too bad. It took us about an hour and a half to get up and I was proud that I had my first true rock climbing experience. When we got to the top there were about 40 other people already sitting and eating. When you looked to one side, you saw the sun setting over the ocean. If you looked to the other side you would see the full moon rising over the city. Words or pictures do not do justice to how incredible this view was. It's definitely something I plan on doing again next month and something I'll remember forever. The hike down was really scary at first. Like I said, this was actual rock climbing on the side of a huge mountain. Doing this in the pitch black at 10 PM was pretty frightening but we all made it down!

Starting the hike!

Full moon rising over the city

In between all of these adventures has been normal school work and volunteering. I plan on dedicating a post to volunteering and what an amazing experience its been thus far. More pictures will be on facebook soon!