first impressions

finally here! after almost 48 hours of traveling...the plane was delayed leaving atlanta cuz some idiot checked his bag in but didn't show up...so we sat on the runway for 1.5 hours, and then had to get his bag off, and then refuel since we wasted gas sitting there.

the stop in dakar was uneventful. they wouldn't even let us off the plane; the security guards just came through and checked everyone's passports and then off we were after a quick refueling.

when i arrived, i met up with 3 other program interns (2 guys and a girl)--bill, scott and sarah. we were taken to our apartment and met up with gabby, a south africa native (she's white) with that cool british accent :]

the first thing i noticed is that...70% of the people on the plane and in the airport were white. so i guess this isn't really "africa".

after a quick orientation, showering up and getting unpacked, meeting one of my roommates jeff, i re-met up with bill and scott and we hit the town to get some food.

cape town is a bigger city than pittsburgh. unfortunately, the weather was the exact same. cloudy, humid, moist and rainy.

we went to an irish pub, grabbed some dinner and had my first drink in africa which was...anticlimactically, draft guinness. but i love guinness so its all good. we bar-hopped a bit, met a few other interns--leo who was some kid from england, victor and katy. we ended up at a place called mama africa which had a really cool african band playing. if you didn't know, african music is very rhythm-oriented and they had all these cool drums and stuff.

right now outside my 11th story window, there is what appears to be...sounds of a cannon firing repeatedly. nonstop. sort of frightening, i don't know what's going on. i do know the president is addressing the nation or something, but i'm not sure if this has anything to do with it. annnnd now there's smoke everywhere.

i start work tomorrow at the university of stellenboch's tygerborg research clinic. excited and nervous yet again.

i had a little power fiasco this morning trying to figure out how to get the power running. they run on different frequencies and voltages here, so adaptor plugs and stuff was a hassle. i also do have my own cell phone here...but if you're going to call or text me, do it on my regular # anyway :]

OH! the toilet thing...it's not true. not from what i can tell anyway. water just kinda...crashes in randomly and just drains down straight. no swirls. god dammit all i wanted was a swirly toilet.

i'm going to come back to the states with a british accent, just you watch. huzzah!