go big or go home

It's safe to say this weekend was the most epic weekend I've had to date. I think the fact that we were still pretty much surrounded by fire until today added to this. I know everyone at home would love some warm weather, but the past few days have been HOT. Too hot. A few days ago it was hot and windy, but not a nice cool breeze--really hot wind just blowing down your neck all day. Then the wind stopped, and things somehow got worse. I feel like I've just been breathing in ash and smoke since Wednesday. Friday and Saturday, I sweat more consistently than I think I ever have in my life. My eyelids were sweating. This was a new experience for me.

So anyway, while gallons of sweat were pouring out of my body, I had a pretty awesome weekend. Friday evening, a bunch of people from AIFS (my program) went out to dinner for a girl in our group's birthday. We ate outside at this nice Italian place in Stellenbosch and got some delicious pizza (although we may as well have been eating in the pizza oven for the amount I was sweating). Then we went to a Bob Marley tribute concert because it was his birthday as well. It was above a little pub/bar place and again, I sweat more than I thought was humanly possibe, but it was still really fun. Everyone was happy and dancing like hippies and there were some guys with the longest dreads I have ever seen.

Saturday I went SKYDIVING over Cape Town with my three flatmates and our two friends Jill and Tommy. It's something I've always wanted to do, so why not do it here? It was amazing and if I have any money left at the end of my trip I'm doing it again.

I don't think I ever was scared, but it really didn't hit me that I was actually going skydiving until they opened the plane door. I also was mistakenly under the impression that you jump out of the plane. You don't. You basically scooch your butt to the edge until you fall out of the plane. Freefalling was AMAZING and I wish it lasted longer, and then when my tandem guy pulled the chute and we floated along, it was so quiet. We got an incredible view of Cape Town and the coast and farmland outside the city. Micho had her camera attached to her wrist (she's gone before so knew how her arms would act...I definietly was too afraid to jump with my camera on me) and took a video while she jumped, so when she puts it on Facebook I'll steal it and post it on here so you can see what it was like.

Today, we had a group excursion to Cape Point and Boulders Beach. Cape Point is on the peninsula at the end of the Table Mountain chain. It has absolutley beautiful scenery (I'd say epic, going with the theme of the weekend), cliffs that drop off into crashing teal waves. We climbed around the nature reserve, which is inhabitated by baboons. I learned that I am actually terrified of baboons. We were told that if you didn't have food, they shouldn't heckle you too much. They did jump on two girls in our group who weren't doing anything to provoke them and tried to grab their bags/water bottles and hissed at them. Other than that they kept to themselves (although we were briefly charged at by a screaming baboon, but I think he was fighting with another one and it had less to do with us). Considering I've freaked out when I thought a squirrel was charging at me in the quad at St. Mike's, I almost peed my pants every time I walked by one.

Boulders Beach is famous for its penguins, and seeing those was pretty cool. We also got to swim, and even though the water temp. was equivalent to Maine beaches in June, I was so happy to get in. As someone in my group said, people pay money to swim with penguins at SeaWorld and we were doing it for free (well, kind of). It was really nice to get away from Stellenbosch for the weekend--I feel like everything has been this constant smokey haze and I've been sweating ash out my pores. So ankle-numbing swimming was very refreshing. And I tried Springbok for lunch because I was already doing crazy things this weekend--it's like a kind of antelope. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it.

While I had an amazing weekend here, I got a couple of pieces of really unexpected/sad news from home, and I feel bad that I am so far away. I feel pretty disconnected and a little guilty knowing that people important to me at home have had such a different past few days than I have. I haven't been gone too long yet, and I'm already reminded that (obviously) time hasn't stopped back at home, just because I'm not there.

Anyway, I'm going to attempt to upload the millions of pictures I took today. The link to my Snapfish album (for those of you without Facebook) is on the left side of this page, I think. I've started writing postcards, and most likely if you're reading this, I'm sending you one. Unless there are a bunch of randos reading my blog that I am unaware of.