1.24.09 5:30 pm

I am officially in South Africa, and I must say it is rather surreal. I don’t think it’s actually hit me yet. Nonetheless it’s awesome. The land is very green, it is rather hot, and pretty humid as well, but again, it’s awesome!
We headed out of L.A. on Wednesday night, took a red-eye to New York where we had an 11 hour layover. I had never been to New York and was fortunate enough to get to tour the freezing cold city for several hours. When that wrapped up we headed back to JFK for our 18-hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. Knowing you’re going to be on a plane for 18 hours is rather daunting, but it really wasn’t that bad. Several hours of broken sleep and some reading and we were here.
We arrived in South Africa at about 5:00 pm, headed to our hotel, got some instructions on things, and grabbed a bite to eat at a restaurant next store. I experienced my first naïve tourist moment here when I ordered smoked salmon, unlike everyone else who got burgers, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the salmon was in fact smoked but that was it…it was completely raw. I ate it anyway, and did acquire some food from others. Oh, the other thing, the food here is suuuper cheap which is awesome! A burger and fries is about 4 dollars, and that’s at a restaurant, not McDonalds. Anyway, we headed back to the hotel to sleep for the nights.
Today we headed on an excursion to two locations, Soweto and Pretoria. Soweto is mostly famous for it’s riots in 1967 that were in one way or another the beginning to the end of apartheid. It was also at one time the home to Nelson Mandela. Our learning outside the classroom is pretty sweet. I feel like this is what we’re missing in American schooling – field trips! In Soweto we also visited what is called an Informal Settlement which is a development of shacks. The one we were at was home to 15-20 thousand people. It was crazy seeing such poverty, playing with the children, and also taking in the sense of community. I loved it. From Soweto we headed to Pretoria, one of South Africa’s 3 capitals. There’s more to Pretoria, but it’s pretty boring.
That’s about it for day one. We’re gonna eat sometime tonight but we got the rest of the day off. Tomorrow we take our final plane ride to Pietermaritzburg – my home for the next 2 months, and chances are I’ll be there by the time I actually get to post this because of the absence of internet. See ya!