After class today, we had the most inspirational speaker, Kevin Chaplin. Kevin is the head of the Amy Biehl Foundation. This foundation helps raise money and awareness in support of universal unity, despite race, religion, etc. This foundation began after the murder of Jennifer Biehl, which is a story of extreme forgiveness. After class we were surprised with a last minute field trip... we were all going to hike Table Mountain Today! And, I am not going to lie, I felt so accomplished today!!! We hiked Table Mountain... one of the seven natural wonders of the world... which was no easy task. Im not sure if your aware how difficult this was for a couch potato like me haha. It was legitimately a three hour hike up a straight incline. AND, there wasn't even a nicely made path for us to trek up. It was like three hours of the worst stair-master you can imagine, over a disarray of rocks and boulders. I was clearly way out of my league, but it was totally worth it when I reached the top! The view was unbelievable. The pictures I took... while they were numerous... just could not show the immense beauty of Cape Town from the top of the mountain. It was unreal. We got there right as the sun was setting, and it could not have been more beautiful. Just the feeling that I had actually made it to the top alone was enough to wow me. After we finished taking pictures and absorbing the enormity of we had we all had just accomplished we took the cable cart down the mountain. We made it down the mountain in about three minutes, quite nice compared to the three hours we put into the hike up! But honestly, the cable car kinda freaked me out! It went straight down the incline and was rather jerky. It was quite the experience. Once we were finally back on solid ground, I went to this Thai restaurant that was soooo good!! Note... the fried rice in Africa comes with just normal steamed rice mixed with egg; you have to ask for soy sauce and such. I also learned how to say some words in Afrikans (I'll probably spell them wring but here we go...). "Moja" means "I'm cool" kinda like when someone asks you how you are and you say I'm fine. And "Baiye Dankie" means "thank you very much." If you just wanted to say "thank you" then you would use "dankie." After dinner we once again raided the hotel bar, where I learned some of the basics for the rugby game I am going to on Saturday. A touchdown is called a try and is worth five points while a field goal is called a conversion and is worth two. And the players wear really really short shorts and high knee socks. I got the chance to talk to some native South Africans who informed that i look 16...thanks?? Marlee will like that one considering everyone thinks I'm older than her haha. Alright well off to bed now; today was very active and I'm sure my legs will be jello tomorrow! And just to make everyone jealous....as i go to sleep i can hear the waves roar onto the shore of the lagoon :)
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