Creating a daily life

I have been almost a week in Stellenbosch.
Life is getting more organized as I have moved to my house, registered at school, bought a bicycle and it feels more like home for each day that passes.

I will share a house with 4 other students. 1 german, dutch, swedish and norwegian, where 4 of us are in the same program and one is at another master program. The house is very nice with a great garden and braii (grill) area and a small pool. There is a gardener coming every 2 week to maintain it!!! We also have a cleaning lady once a week and our land lady sends us some chaps if we are to move anything, paint or whatever practical task that needs doing. It is such are strange feeling.
The house is located 20min walking from the University inside a housecomplex, which is very safe.

I am really enjoying my bicycle, traffic here is a lot safer than I anticipated so bicycling around is amazing. Yesterday we bicycled to the beach, around 20km, and it was perfect. There are great opportunities for exercising here. There are path for running just outside the city center, bicycling and the University has a fitness center, huge swimminpool, spinning, yoga, everything. I am so excited about starting exercising again.
Sport is also big here. There are lots of people bicycling, running, playing cricket and so on. When I am walking around the University almost everyone, boys and girls looks perfect, fit, slim and tan. There is a huge pressure on your apperance. On top of that almost everyone are white. When you are walking around the Uni or the city it is like walking in Europe, it is clean and there are few black people. It important to note that it is also maybe the whitest city in Africa. At the same time there are coloured and black people working everywhere and they live in townships outside the city center. The segregation is still so dominating, at least in this part of the country.

First impression of Stellenbosch

Yesterday I arrived in Stellenbosch. It is the second oldest settlement in South Africa and has a lot of old houses. The city is still fairly little so the old houses has not been replaced by new ones. This gives a fantastic atmosphere and a feeling of going back in time. Students are dominating, around 20 000 - 30 000 and in such a small city they make their mark. There are many green areas and there are mountains all around the city. Most of the farms around are wine farms dating centuries back.
This evening I will go to my house and I cannot wait getting my own room. Before that I will walk a little around the city, look for a bicycle and later meet people from class I will guess. It is also strange having a group of people I knew before I arrived. So far it feels more like a reunion than anything else.

My first days in Cape Town

I arrived safely in Cape Town, flight on time, with my luggage, sun was shining and all just good.
The first day I just walked around, with the feeling that even if I had physically landed, mentally I was still somewhere far north. I have been thinking about being there, but even now, 4 days later I hardly realize it.
The second day we went to a farm for some winetasting and I meet some friends of a classmate that lived here before. This was a little outside the city, actually very close to Stellenbosch and the nature was beautiful. It looks perfect for hiking in the mountains or bicycling on the roads.
Then we went to the beach, another friend brought us in his car so once again I got to just be in the car, looking out at everything that passed. The city center to Cape Town is really nice in all ways, but just 10min by car outside you drive by some bad neighbourhoods, just small shacks and limited opportunities. However, when we got to the beach it was amazing, so warm, I look like a pig now, my whole body burning last night. Since it was Sunday the beach was packed with people and the water was warm. Still no one went on deep water, the fear of sharks clearly hinder that, but enjoying the sun and a book, later the shadow and a book is just as good.

Today I went to the Table Mountain. The Table Mountains surrounds the city canter of Cape Town and is around 1080m tall. Which is very dominant. I used 1 hour and 40 minutes to run / walk up in the sun. When you got up it was an amazing view if the bay and the city. I walked around there, ate a little and just enjoyed it for a few hours before I walked another path down. When I was back at the hostel, 6 hours later I was exhausted from the sun and the activity.
Tomorrow we will go to anothere beach where there are penguins. The are jackass pengiuns outside of Cape Town, somethings that I find very fascinating.

I have the impresion of endless opportunities here and I am getting excited about settling in a new house and start my real life. My exams went better than I had hoped for so my motivation are stronger than ever.

This was very unorganized, but I had to much to write at the same time.

On my way to South Africa

It is about 6 months since I came home from Bolivia. When I left for Bolivia I did not know what I wanted to do after, one of my hopes for Bolivia was to find that out. It is impossible to say I know for certain what I want, but Bolivia made me more sure at least. That ended in me beginning a master program this autumn in International Studies. The first semester was in Oslo and then my 3 last semesters will be in Stellenbosch in South Africa.

This is also the reason for me starting on this blog once more. Last time I used it partly as a diary and partly to tell people home what I was doing.

I am now sitting at the Istanbul Airport, killing a few hours and contemplating what more to write. Beside the coffee that is so sweet it can hardly be classified as coffee at all.

This is also a new situation since I am planning on staying abroad for 18months. Before I been home after 4 or 5 months. I have been trying not to think about that until I get there, but now there are several ambiguous feeling are slowly arriving.

This is a good start on my blog activity and next time I am writing will be enjoying sun :)