I'm sorry to everyone for neglecting my blog! You can guess a man was involved - I started dating and suddenly was too busy to keep up with this... I'll try not to let that happen again :) I have so much to tell everyone about! Silly me for dating while in South Africa anyway - I should have been working in my spare time!!
So I left off with the day I went wine tasting. The next day; Tuesday the 21st of August I didn't do much of anything except prepare for Wednesday. On Wednesday I gave 2 seminars; one to the numeracy center and one to the physics department. The morning one was very casual and nice, the afternoon one in the department was well-attended and seemed to go well. People spoke well of it, at least. I felt like I had to fight for acceptance with some people in the department, and the seminar helped with that. I was rather exhausted by the end of Wednesday.
Thursday I don't recall doing much of note except going for lunch at the nice restaurant at the Rhodes Memorial with said person I dated. I wanted to walk up there again but it was raining so we ended up driving. It was a nice little hike up there; about 15 minutes up a steep hill - I did it a few more times before the end of my trip.
Friday I took the afternoon off and went to Robben Island - the location of the famous political prison. I went with the same guy which I thought would be really interesting because he grew up in Cape Town in an affluent white (British) family and was fairly sheltered from Apartheid until he reached high school age. All during my trip it was interesting to hear the stories from everyone about how things were when they were young and how different their childhoods were depending on their race, religion, and social status.Unfortunately Robben Island was a disappointment for both of us. I would not recommend it for tourists. The trip and museum is poorly run, and the tour was dumbed-down to the point of being ridiculous. At one point our tour guide said something about how they wanted to show a full picture of life on the Island and show every one's points of view fairly because the Island is now dedicated to unity; but the white guards wouldn't contribute their point of view "if they even have one." And after 15 minutes of asking everyone on our bus about their country of origin (where are you from, what time is it there, how are you enjoying your trip...) the tour guide took one sentence to thank all of our countries for helping to end Apartheid then asked for tips. I don't even feel like I learned anything, which is a real shame. Things were not explained - they would say "this was done just for the press" but not say how conditions were when press weren't visiting, or what was being hidden from the press.
My favorite part about Robben Island was that I saw wild bunnies and penguins in the same place - and the penguins were not hanging out with the bunnies, because the bunnies were busy making baby bunnies and the penguins seemed disturbed... It was pretty funny. I never thought I'd see penguins crossing a road to get away from happy bunnies! I was rather engrossed in watching this, but not too engrossed as I was still able to overhear someone from Michigan stating the time in their home was 12 hours behind Cape Town... um, people?? you were off by 5! American tourists get such a bad rap - sometimes well deserved...
The ferry ride to and from the island was also quite fun; the waves were huge! At one point I bounced right out of my seat. The view of Cape Town and Table Mountain from the ferry was amazing - you can easily see where it gets its name from these pics. I can't believe I hiked all the way up that in less than 2 hours...
