The remaining week or so in Cape Town included miscellaneous adventures, including visiting a Muslim shrine, visiting Muizenburg (a small surf town that was deserted when we visited due to poor weather), another "final" dinner (most of our group left on the 9th), standing outside of Cape Town Stadium and listening to the Justin Bieber concert (my friend Jessica's idea!), and even more hanging out and relaxing.
The last two days in Cape Town were probably my favorite. On the 9th, Luke, Jessica, and I (the three of us remaining) went to a couple markets to finish up our souvenir shopping. We then spent the rest of the day at the waterfront, getting dinner and seeing "Iron Man 3", which we really enjoyed!
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| On a sunset sailboat cruise in Table Bay |
On Friday, May 10th, we spent a good chunk of the day at Camps Bay, an internationally-recognized beach on the side of Table Mountain (a little ways out of the city). The weather was perfect and could not have been any better! That evening Jess and I went on a sunset sailboat cruise, which was so beautiful! Definitely the perfect ending to our stay in Cape Town. That night we had our last "final dinner" at a restaurant called Mama Africa; to be honest, I think the name explains it all! Think African music, African decorations, and delicious, quality African food. Overall... great experience.
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| Camps Bay, with Lion's Head in the background |
Jessica flew home on Saturday and that's when Luke and I caught a taxi and a train to Fish Hoek, our former home when the program was still going on. My former home stay family picked us up from the train station and we stayed with them for our last two days in South Africa. As it was for our home stays during the program, we watched TV, visited other home stay families, and played soccer with my family's 11-year-old son, Xavier. It was a nice, relaxing ending to an incredible four months spent in South Africa.
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| Four boarding passes = lots of flying! |
We flew out of Cape Town on Monday, May 13th, getting home about 24 hours later (according to the clock; we gained nine hours coming back). I totaled 33 hours of travel and 25 hours of flying; I was so over flying by the time I got home! Coming home was great though as I had family and friends awaiting my arrival at the airport. That night we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant, which was just what I'd been craving all semester! Mexican food is non-existent in Africa and was dearly missed by myself and everyone else on my team.
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| Mmmm... Mexican food |
Being home has been great so far; in fact, it's been a lot better than I expected. I expected it to be pretty rough as we'd had a reorientation the last day of the program and several emails from the study abroad office, all telling us of the hardships we may go through once we got home. Since being home I've been hanging out, spending a lot of time with friends and family--just what I've needed and missed so much!
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| My and my friend's families |
There's much more to the experience and the things we went through, but for that, I'm afraid we'll have to talk in person. Hopefully these updates have been thorough enough, giving you a good glimpse of South Africa! Ideally, it's given you the desire to go and visit South Africa, or even Africa itself!--a continent rich in culture, languages, people, and much, much more! I know I will take my experiences with me for the rest of my life and I can only hope that others will experience the same!
Thanks again for your prayers and support--it's you that have made this experience possible!
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