Hi everyone!
Two weeks ago I had my autumn break for school, so this post is all about what I did on my break and what I've done since then! The reason why it's not my spring break, is because I am in my southern hemisphere and therefore the seasons are opposite. I feel a bit bad saying that this is my "break", because I have felt like I am in a dream basically the entire time I've been here.
While on my break, I decided to do a lot of things I haven't had the chance to do yet here in Cape Town. However, my friends were feeling even more adventurous and went all around Africa. The other people in my program went to places like Egypt, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Mozambique. They got to ride animals: elephants, ostriches, and camels; see two wonders of the world: Victoria Falls and the Pyramids, and many other amazing things.
My break was pretty amazing too though, so below is all about my last two weeks in Cape Town. Enjoy!
Two weeks ago I had my autumn break for school, so this post is all about what I did on my break and what I've done since then! The reason why it's not my spring break, is because I am in my southern hemisphere and therefore the seasons are opposite. I feel a bit bad saying that this is my "break", because I have felt like I am in a dream basically the entire time I've been here.
While on my break, I decided to do a lot of things I haven't had the chance to do yet here in Cape Town. However, my friends were feeling even more adventurous and went all around Africa. The other people in my program went to places like Egypt, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Mozambique. They got to ride animals: elephants, ostriches, and camels; see two wonders of the world: Victoria Falls and the Pyramids, and many other amazing things.
My break was pretty amazing too though, so below is all about my last two weeks in Cape Town. Enjoy!
Two OCeans Aquarium
For my first day of break, I went to the Two Oceans Aquarium at Waterfront with my friend Aaron. I was curious to see how this aquarium compared to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, which I only live 15 minutes from at school. I had some pretty high expectations for it, and to my surprise, it was actually quite amazing! Although they don't have dolphin shows or octopuses, they do have things that make it just as good as the National Aquarium. For example, instead of the penguins being behind a glass wall, they roam pretty freely behind only a railing. They get so close, that you can almost reach out and touch them. They also had a time where you could watch one of the trainers feed the penguins as she gave you information about each and every one of them.
climbing Lions head
Although I did this after my break, I thought one of the coolest things I've done recently is climb Lion's Head mountain (that is not the mountain you see in the picture above. The picture above is table mountain taken from Lion's Head). It took us 2.5 hours to get up, which is so much better than the 6 hours it took me to get up Table Mountain when I was stranded. I went with my roommate Brenna and my friend Sydney and it was incredible. We were above the clouds, literally!
Biking at sea point
This past Sunday, I went bike riding on the sea point promenade. Even though bike riding is something I can do at home, it is probably one of my favorite things I've done in Cape Town so far. We rented bikes for 50 rand (not even 5 US dollars) and got to bike around for an hour and a half past a lighthouses and around several little parks. I even got to pass the stadium where they had the FIFA world cup in 2010. Afterwords, some of my friends went swimming in a pool that was right off of the ocean. Brenna, Sydney, Will, and I just got some food and went home where we watched the sunset from our roof.
Waterfront
One night we went to waterfront to go to little market they had there and to shop around. At the market they sold zebra, crocodile, springbok, etc. It was WILD. I had the best samosas there along with a huge tube of beer (don't worry I shared the beer).
Bo-kaap
One of the days we had off, Odan and I went to Bo-kaap, a neighborhood full of extremely colorful houses. There was not a whole lot to do there though, so we just went around and had a little photoshoot and went to a cute little Italian restaurant for lunch.
Boulder's beach- Penguin beach
My friend Odan and I met some amazing South African friends here: Luke and Ross. So amazing, that they drove us all the way past Simon's town to take us to see the penguins at boulders beach. I LOVE PENGUINS. I could have watched them all day. I think it's so cool that there are african penguins here, because normally you think of penguins as only being in Antartica. We got to see them hang around the beach and swim in the ocean.
Simon's town
After we saw the march of the penguins (joking), we went to the best restaurant ever. It was right on the water, as you can see in the picture above. I had fried calamari, fried hake and French fries, so basically my entire plate might as well of been fried. It was so delicious! We then went to a cute little ice cream shop where I got mint chocolate chip ice cream.. my favorite!
Truth cafe
On the day after we went to see the penguins, My friend Odan and I went to Truth Cafe. They had some of the best coffee I've ever tasted and really good food (in fact I got an entire pizza to myself.. whoops).It was honestly just a place full of hipsters.. even my beer was called "Tears of a hipster". They had live music and a little market upstairs where you could buy clothes.
Thank you for reading about my break in South Africa! Please let me know if there is anything you'd like to hear about in particular and feel free to email me at anytime! :)