I realized that my blogs so far have all focused on big events, mainly trips. But what about Cape Town itself? What do I do on a typical day? Where do I live? What other cool things have I done that don’t merit a whole post? If you’ve been asking any of these questions, wonder no more.
I live in Rondebosch, a charming suburb of Cape Town where the University of Cape Town is located. Rondebosch has some great little restaurants: a pizzeria, a tapas bar with a nice balcony, a Nandos (the chicken–not fried chicken– restaurant that is the dominant chain in South Africa…well, other than KFC and McDonald’s), good vegetarian Indian place,….
Students in my program mostly live either in the university dorms or houses scattered around the area. I live in a house, and by that, I mean the best house. It is a beautiful duplex with eight students in each of the two connected houses. We each have single rooms, and all of the housemates are great. No drama or conflict or insane, annoying partyers. My good friends, who all live in other places, always meet up to hang out with me at my house. They even have a nickname for my place: heaven.
Okay, so that’s a check. Perfect living arrangements. What about classes? I’m enrolled in three classes: Conflict & World Politics, War and Society (a history course), and Intro to French. None of these are the original courses I signed up for– some were cancelled; others I decided weren’t really for me. These classes are (mostly) amazing.
My professor for Conflict, Annete Seegers, is a world-renowned international relations scholar who even participated in the drafting of the 1994 constitution. And when I say that, I mean that she wrote the portions concerning defense. She also happens to be persistently in a bad mood and mean as hell. But she clearly loves teaching– it’s like an image of herself she’s developed as the meanest professor ever, so she simply enjoys yelling at and making fun of students, Americans and South Africans alike. (Americans have a huge presence at the university. At least a third of the Conflict class and half of my history class are U.S. abroad students.) My friends and I compete amongst ourselves to do the best Seegers impersonation. I’m not the winner. Here are a few of our favorite quotes:
Every day at the beginning of class: “Okay, my little lemmings. Let’s begin.”
What we think was flirting with an American student: “Dream on babe.” (Picture a really deep voice uttering this in a German-mixed-with-British accent.
On a hot day, randomly in the middle of class: “I’m on fire!”
Whenever students walk in late or make her irritated (read: just being present in class): “Sweet mother of pearl!”
Completely inexplicable: “Horse cookies!”
Maybe these are a lot funnier in context, but you kind of get the point: we’re sort of obsessed with the entire backstory and character we’ve created over the weeks for this professor. So for teachers reading this: beware, students craft their own ideas of your personal history for their own amusement.
I also love my history course. My professor is retiring at the end of the semester, so he’s completely relaxed amount assignments and frequently lets us out of class early. He also happens to be one of the world experts on the Anglo-Boer war, about which I’m writing my first paper for the class. Actually, I should be writing that right now. Hmm…
My only complaint is that I have class so often. For three courses here, I’m in the classroom more than I am for five courses back home. This isn’t much of a problem except for French, in which many of the seven hours I spend in class per week are completely redundant. Also, the tutorials or discussion groups that I have for each class are not particularly engaging. In Conflict, we take turns making presentations, which always go over time and don’t allow for discussion. Also, students in my tutorials don’t engage with each other. For instance, instead of following one person’s argument with a rebuttal or something that builds off of it, people will simply switch the topics to whatever they want to talk about. It’s as if they just want to get a word in so that they meet the participation requirement. I understand that, but at Georgetown, we could never get away with it. I hate to say something negative like this, but my friends and I were so frustrated after a tutorial last week that we didn’t stop talking about it for hours.
But let me not spend too much time on school…because let’s be honest: my life here is not centered around schoolwork as it is back in the U.S. Why? I don’t believe that study abroad is primarily about classes; it’s about the cultural exchange that takes place outside of the classroom. And for this reason, my classes are all pass/fail. I’m not going to fail…so moving on.
What do I do around Cape Town? So much! The city at night is always amazing. Long Street is probably the central night-out location in the city center. It has some great restaurants and bars. My personal favorite is Cape-to-Cuba with delicious Cuban food and the best mojitos served on balcony with a great view for people watching. (There are a few too many Che emblems, but what can you do?) My friends and I also love this great club called The Waiting Room. It plays perfect music: a selection of jazz, R&B, and quality pop. Then, upstairs, there is a quiet deck on the roof with beautiful views of the city. We’ve also met some really interesting locals there, including a German guy who ardently defended George W., pollsters for the ANC, and a former government worker who is now an aspiring porn journalist (?). Long Street’s reputation is well deserved, and we go there at least once a week.
Me and Bryan Out On Long Street
Another great area is Napier Street, sort of the gay area of Cape Town, which is supposedly the gay capital of Africa. I guess that’s all relative. Our guidebook told us that one of Cape Town’s biggest events of the year was its gay pride parade. So, along with a ton of people from our program, we went out to find it a few weeks ago. It was, in actuality, a tiny parade for which the city didn’t even close the streets down. But it ended around Napier Street, where we discovered a couple of really classy clubs/bars. We go there every once and a while.
Recently, we’ve been trying especially to explore some of Cape Town’s beautiful suburbs.
One is Constantia, the country’s first wine-growing region which still has seven beautiful vineyards in operation. We had dinner two nights in a row out there– some of the best wine and food I’ve had on the entire trip! I guess now is a great to talk about the wine here. South African wine is sort of a hidden gem just now being discovered across the world. It’s been grown here for centuries, and the climate is perfect. But most of the world’s democracies (sadly excluding the United States until the 1980s) boycotted the country’s exports. Restaurants here serve only South African wine. I haven’t seen a single bottle of California or European vintageon a menu. Our favorite so far has been the Chenin Blanc, a great white. The Sauvingnon Blancs are also great. Chardonnay really isn’t a specialty of South Africa, so we don’t drink it as much as people do in the U.S. The most renowned wine region here is Stellenbosch, about 45 minutes from Cape Town. We’re planning a wine-tasting weekend sometime in April.
We were also able to discover the most amazing restaurant in Cape Town. Called the Food Barn, this place sits in a tiny hamlet literally on the top of a mountain outside in the city. The drive there was fun: through a forest and past Hout Bay, another beautiful beach (haha…there are just so many…yes, I’m trying to make you all jealous…). Then, we got lost driving up the dark mountain, so we called the restaurant, and the directions were literally: “Keep driving up the dark mountain road. You’ll feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere and lost. Keeping going. Then, turn left. We’re on a small road that looks deserted and unhabited.”
Of course, some nights, we don’t need to be trying out fancy restaurants or engaging in cultural exchange. It just happens that my best friends here are all, like me, major movie buffs. And by that, I mean we like to see every quality movie released. Theaters here play mainly American movies–actually, I’ve seen only one theater that’s played a South African movie. There’s a great theater at a shopping mall down the road from Rondebosch where we see the releases we missed in the U.S. American films come out a few months after they’re released in the states. Tonight, I’m finally going to see The Reader, which I’ve been trying to see since December. We’ve also gotten re-addicted to episodes of The West Wing. There’s a cool DVD rental place down the road that rents to students for 50 cents a movie. So on lazy nights, we pick up some food and gather round the laptop to relive the Barlet administration.
So far, we’ve made it to some of the city’s most famous sites. The museums are tough because they all close around 3 or 4, and we have class. With our program, we attended a concert at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. I included a picture of it here– the most beautiful gardens I’ve ever seen. The concert was pretty bad (but bad enough to have fun with it), but the real draw was the gardens. I’ll definitely be back there.
Last weekend, after five missed tries (cancelled boats or sold out of tickets), we finally made it to Robben Island. I’m sure this visit deserves more than a blurb amidst this garbled post, but for now, I’ll mention it and include pictures. It is probably Cape Town’s most well known site, as it includes the prison in which Nelson Mandela and many of the country’s leaders were held for years. The tour itself was a bit disappointing. They pack tourists onto buses and drive them around the island, which is unremarkable compared to the prison, what everyone comes to see. And then, you’re given only 45 minutes to tour the prison. It is special that former inmates lead the tours, but the groups are so large that it’s tough to hear much that is said. Still, just being there is the experience. Standing outside Nelson Mandela’s cell and seeing the place where he concealed the manuscript for Long Walk To Freedom, his memoirs, is surreal.
To the left: Robben Island Maximum Security Prison
Right: Nelson Mandela’s cell. He spent 18 years here.
My buddies getting off the Robben Island bus.
Well, if you’re still reading now, congratulations! You made it through a rambling, though necessary, post.
Next week, I have my first midterm, as well as my first paper due. But Friday, the “spring break” (not really spring here) begins. I’ll be taking a long journey from Lake Malawi to Maputo in Mozambique to Mauritius, a tropical island paradise far out in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar.
