weekend updates

I've got several requests to update this thing...at first I thought I haven't really done anything too exciting recently, but I guess that's not entirely true. And I don't feel like studying, so here we go.

Last weekend, not the one that just happened but the weekend before, I went to an outdoor music festival called Raka. It was a trip organized through the international program, so there were probably about 50 or so foreign students who piled on a bus for three hours to go listen to South African music along a river. My mom's response was "oh good lord, you are turning into a hippie", I guess the 2 1/2 years at college in Vermont wasn't enough of a hint? Anyway, it was pretty cool, we were in what seemed to be a relatively remote location. The drive there was crazy, I wish I had my camera on me but it was in my backpack on the other bus at the time. We traveled three hours mostly on windy roads through mountains and it was like we were the only people for miles. Everyone tented along the river, but we weren't roughing it 100%--there were bathrooms and showers, and they still sold food and there was a bar. It was a nice atmosphere, and the music was pretty good. It wasn't African music like you're probably thinking, it was all in Afrikaans, basically acoustic rock to a little heavier rock, and there was one reggae type band called the Tidal Waves that was my favorite, so look them up. I didn't take any pictures because my camera was lost in our tent all weekend. Oops.

Classes have become more routine. My South African history professor is this crazy old guy who smokes like a chimney (halfway through the lecture we get a 10 minute "comfort break" aka cig break and he says he loves the conversations he has when he stands outside and chats with the other smokers in the class). He's a very interesting man with lots of knowledge and stories--the structure of the class is basically: if you want all the names and dates and dry history do the reading on your own, and at the lecture he just rambles on with his stories and social commentary. We watched Thirteen Days last week in my US Foreign Policy class, which is about the Cuban Missle Crisis. Kevin Costner plays JFK's special assistant to the president, and he and JFK and Bobby Kennedy all have overdone Boston accents in the movie and it made me smile. I have an exam and a paper due this week in the class, so I'm actually spending time in the library, which is something new up untill this point. The library here isn't open on Sundays which blows my mind. We loved Sunday library sessions at St. Mike's.

This past weekend we stuck around here. On Saturday we went shopping...nothing cool or unique, just a mall about 20 minutes from here. The few clothes I brought with me are starting to lose their form due to my constant state of sweatiness and the unforgiving washer and dryer in my building, plus I was getting sick of my same 6 shirts, so I wanted some new stuff. It's the first real shopping I've done, and it reinforced my realization that I will not be able to survive as a consumer when I get back home. The exchange rate is a little over R10=$1 right now. I bought a few shirts, the most expensive one was probably R150? So $15. The rest were under $10 I bet. On Sunday night we went out to dinner--we split an appetizer, I got a meal (brought home half of it) and a drink (sorry Dad, a girly drink) and it cost me $10 (including tip). I can get groceries to last me more than a week for about $25-$30. Roundtrip train ride to Cape Town is $3. So basically, when I get home I won't want to eat or drink anything that costs more than $5. I don't think that will end well for me. I saw this story on the NYT homepage today, about how Cape Town is awesome and not too expensive for Americans, aside from the flights. So come visit me!

We're going on an AIFS excursion to the Cederberg Mountains this coming weekend, I'm very excited for that. And I promise I'll take pictures.