Some hiking and Picture of the Area

This picture show how the valleys around Stellenbosch are. Fairly steep mountains surrounded with wine farms. To bicycle or drive around is amazing. You will pass several mountain passes, small towns and a lot of farms. On the way you can stop by one of the wine farms and taste some of what they offer, while eating lunch.
Me on top of Simonsberg mountain. I am pointing down at Stellenbosch. Above my head is Table Mountain and Cape Town. Whereas Cape Point is in the top left corner.
Pointing at Cape Town, Table Mountain and Lions Head. The plains between Stellenbosch and Cape Town are called the Cape flats. Huge part of these plains are now Townships, always expanding. These Townships are the home to about 2millions.
The sunset from Stellenbosch Mountain. You see Cape Town and Table Mountain to the left and the sun sets almost on top of Robben Island.
Here you get a feeling of how big the Townships are. The lights at the bottom are Stellenbosch.

Hey again

It has been almost a month since last time I wrote and I felt it was about time with an update again.

Firstly the autumn has arrived and the winter is approaching :( It is still warm during the day, but in the evenings and night I always use a sweater now. The sweet and easy summer time has passed for now! I must say it feels strange, mentally it should be spring and when I talk to people I usually say that the summer is coming, it does not feel right with winter now. Nonetheless, there is nothing I can do about it. At the same time I really like to wear a sweater and a hat sometimes. It is annoying with to much heat too long. I also asked my mother to send me some wool socks. There are no heating in the house and the floor gets cold, so I am excited about getting them.

I has finally got a chess friend here :) I and a Swedish student has bought a chess board and plays at cafe's, pubs or at school. It is brilliant. The only weird thing is that we attract the strangest people when we are playing. But besides that, its perfect.

I am also working with two associations now. The first is ANSA and the other is SPOSSA. The second is a political science association that we are starting at the university. It is good experience for the later life and I think I need to get some more things on my CV.

This also makes life a little more hectic. There is always more than enough to do and I am getting a little bit stressed about school. We have 1 presentation, 1 small paper and 2 big essays for the next three weeks. However, when this semester is over the World Cup begins and better motivation than that is hard to find.

Hope you are all doing well

JJ

Some pictures

Hey,
I have not taken many pictures so far, but after the first 2 months there has been some pictures after all.
The first is from the top of Table Mountain, with the city center of Cape Town beneath me. Table Mountain is 1088 meters above sea level. You can also see Green Point with the World Cup stadium down by the sea. The small island that is outside is the famous Robben Island.


The second foto is from Stellenbosch mountain looking out on Stellenbosch. As you can see the town is quite small. You can see some of the farmland around the town, which mostly are winefarms. My part of the University is in the center of the city. I live to the left, around 20min walk from the University.


The is a picture of the garden to my house :) It is really quiet and I often have the feeling I am far away from South Africa or that I am not in a city when I am there. Eating breakfast outside, watching the birds, to sit there reading or having a braii is just great. Being a student is not always as hard as it can be!


This is from the Cederberg national park. It is around 3 hours north of Stellenbosch. It is a dry mountain area almost untouched by humans. Not strange since it is not much water there so farming is limited. However, there are some farms there as well, but they have a decent distance to their neighbors. We stayed at a camping place next to the small river/stream that went through this valley. The picture is from some cracks almost on the top of one of the surrounding mountains.


Around 20min walk from our camping spot the river ended in this small and deep (kulp?). We could jump from around 10m and there where a lot of fish there. There where also herds of baboons that lived in the area and you can see them on this picture. I was lying and reading on the other side when some of them suddenly screamed. Then I saw them all around me. I was there with only one other guy and we just sat there quiet for the next 10 min watching them climb, play, eat until they eventually had passed us.
In this area there where also a lot of snakes, I just saw one, because they luckily leave when someone approaches. At the evening there was the most amazing view of the stars, I cannot remember seeing them saw clearly before and I really wanted to take my sleeping bag and sleep outside. If you sleep quiet there is a possibility that a snake comes to your bag for a small nap. It is not necessarily dangerous, only if you move. If you lie completely still until it leaves by itself it is cool. I decided to wait until another time to do it, when there are more people who can join me, then there will be more noise and the possibility becomes smaller.
It was a really nice trip and I am so looking forward to getting to travel a little around, although I know it is still long until.

Wednesday and Thursday

Wednesday's are a day where I should read and work on assignements. My only class is french and that is in the evening. As always, my plan is to get up early and go to the gym, since I have more time I usually sleep until 8 or 9, but not always. Before my french class I try to read or work on essay's or assignements. There is still not to much to do, just increasing rapidly so I have not always done as much as I have to in the future on wednesdays. There is also the opportunity of lying down in the garden and read or just flote around in the pool. After french class in the evening I often gone to the Brazen Head to watch football. But yesterday I awent to an outdoor concert instead with local rock and reggea music. It was really nice, but also partly in Africaans, which I do not understand. The locals really liked that so I imagines they are a kind of Postgirobygget in Africaans, good when you get the lyrics.

Today I have class in International Relations Theory. I really like the lecturer and the class. It is in the morning, at 10, so I seldom really do much before. This is in one way the beggining of the weekend, since there are no more classes. Or, we have a obligatory Friday seminar, that some say are not obligatory. It is different guest lecturers who come and talk about whatever is their field. Anyway, thursday is in one way the start of the weekend, on paper at least. The rest of the day is some reading, the gym or something else. I actually have social chess with the chess society in the evening, but that is just for fun. In the evening we often go to a Libanese restaurang that have a live band playing outside each Thursday. That is always nice, all the restaurangs in the streets are full and people are standing around and you ahve a beer or a glass of wine.

Normal days!

I have been planing to write several times but each time I start I feel there is nothing to write about. Then, a few nights ago I was thinking maybe I should write what a normal week has become here in Stellenbosch.

Monday:
My goal each Monday is to be at the gym or swimming pool by 7, exercise, go home and eat a breakfast with eggs and beans. However, it is not always I manage that, but it is my vision. We have a class in Southern African Political Economy at 2, so when I get to start the day early I have some hours to read before class. Our teacher in this class is not my favorite. She gives us old articles, is unstructured, no red thread and seems almost uninterested in being a lecturer. After class I have 1,5 hours until french where I usually eat something, have a coffee and think on something else. In french class am I usually rather tired and not the most interactive student. That beside, my french is improving. It is still on a to basic level for communicating, but I understand much more and recognize more when I am reading. Hopefully in a months time I be ready for speaking a little. I also meets a friend sometimes that helps me. She is usually talking in french, asking me questions and I have to try to answer. I also meet some french people now that I hope to meet more often later. After my french class I usually go home or I meet someone out or I go back to the library to read.

Tuesday:
My vision is once again to go to the gym or pool, whichever I did not go to on Monday. My class starts again at 2 and I like to read before class. The lecturer today is on the contrary a very good. Her class, Research Methodology, is normally not the most interesting, but she makes it easier and very relevant for the master thesis. I have 3 hours from the end of this class until my Spanish class and I usually use those in the library. Spanish classes are more informal. We are 4 or 5 and everything goes in Spanish. We get some short stories and poems to read some days before and in class we talk about those stories. In weeks there are champions league I watch football in the evening, if not I just go home after class.

I write about the next days in a few days. I got tickets to two of the World Cup games of a friend in class. So I will see Portugal - North Korea and Italy - Paraguay here in Cape Town. That made my day when I found out, and the next day as well. So now I can just relax and focus on school.

Last Friday I went on my first wine tour. It was with an international student organization and we visited 4 farms and tasted 20 different wines. I like it, but I have a lot to learn. I do know how to distinguish between red and white, but more than that is not for me.
Got to go to class

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