The first assignments

So my vacation has ended. This week we got the first 5 page assignment that is due next week, the first small test and I have a presentation on Monday. I am also trying to figure out what to write my thesis on. There are still much time, but the sooner I know the better. Luckily I have an idea.

I have also realized that the Winter Olympics is a small thing in South Africa (SA). A few days ago I spent hours looking through the sport channels at a pub here, they had 8 sport channels, but non that sent the Olympics. It has influenced my mood lately, combined with the fact that the first days of the OL we did not do well. I assume that all knows that when I say we I mean Norway. Luckily I did better yesterday (sometimes when I talk about sport I can use I, that is because I wish it was me) and we got two gold and one silver :) Still I have problems accepting that there are no channels here that sends it and South Africans do not care about it at all. It is in times like this I comes clear to me where I am from.

If the olympic thing was not enough someone stole my bicycle, it took two weeks. That kind of pist me off as well. Luckily it was a cheap bicycle and I had locked it and I have the receipt, so I guess the insurance will cover it.

I try to write a little sooner next time and maybe more about something besides the olympics.

School starts

The last weeks has been hectic with preparations for school, get familiar with a new University and getting the house ready.
We have painted much in the house, or by we I meen a chap the landlady sends our. He works for around 15kr an hour and is happy with that!!! Makes you feel shit in the way that he is my age or a few years older, but what he has experienced and will experience in the future is not anything I am jealous of. Still, this is the hard reality of life and he do at least have a job, there are enough that does not even have that. Anyway, the house starts to look better and is definitively cleaner. We will have a house warming party on friday and by then I hope most things are done. Besides the painting we need to buy some more things for the kitchen and the garden needs a lot of work.
The last few years there has been students living in the house and the house and the garden showed clear signs of that. Even if there is a gardener and a cleaning lady, they do not do more then they must. So when the previous tenants have not cared about telling them to garden or clean, things got a little worse than it could have been. This is a little annoying, but on the other side we can now put our mark and decide more how we wants things.

When it comes to school the next 3 months will be intense. All plans or visions of travelling in long weekends are temporarilly postponed. This is also partly my fault since I have signed up for both spanish and french classes in the evenings and besides that I really want to workout since the possibilities for this here are so good.

When I get internet home I will write more often, but until that it will not be so often. Hopfully, it be during this or next week, any later and I will be a little pist. Internet here is also quite expensive. For private use there is nothing like unlimitied use, here you pay pr mb you use. And we will pay 500ram, ca 400kr for 5gigabyte. So downloading, streaming or video skyping is not something that will be used regularily. It almost give the feeling that they do not want to develop, since much of the infrastructure for better access to internet is there, it is just owned by one company that do not fancy sharing. That is at least what I waas told.

last night it rained for the first time, besides that the summer is getting warmer for each passing day :P

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 :)

More travelling

So after being a culture turist in Sucre some days I went to Potosi. Potosi is famous for the mountain Cerro Rico that was loaded with silver and around 8 million indians and afrikans died in that singel mountain. It is still mining there and its possible to have a guided tour. They give you a helmet and a pair of plastic bouts, then you go to the miners market and buy presents to the miners, which is alkohol (96%), tobaco, coca and dynamit!!! Inside the mine the working conditions are bether than before, but still I dont believe I ever been a more dangerous place. Crawling through small passes, looking over you there are some small planks keeping tons of rocks from falling down. climbing up or down on on wet slippery stones. On topp of that we was encourage to drink of the alkohol before entering. For safety we sacrificed to the mine God, which luckily worked well.

Then I went to the salt desert in Uyuni and the color laguns there. It was 3 days in a car with 5 more from france and our guide. It was really fun, we only communicated on spanish, which was perfect and we was a great group.

Today I signed up for climbing Huayna Potosi, a 6080 meter tall mountain. If everything goes as planned will I see the sunrise from there 13.00 norwegian time on sunday. I am extremely excited. Tomorrow I will go to some other mountains around 5000 meters to walk a little and to get a little accustumned for the altidute.

The nights since I started to travell been cold, expecially the last weeks, ca -10 each night and there is never hot water. I miss hot water and heating inside houses. Now that the wheater home is getting really warm and everything. I have less than 3 weeks left and I am enjoying each day. But I fear that Huayna Potosi will be my climacs and are not perfectly sure what to do next.