IT'S TIME FOR AFRICA!!!! Cape Town 2012: DAY TWENTY THREE:

Today wasn't as exciting as most days, but it was just as interesting! Instead of having normal class in the morning, we went on a field trip. Like seriously, I felt like I was in the fifth grade again, traveling with my class to historic places, just so excited to be out of the classroom. We went to the V&A waterfront to the point of embarkation for Robben Island. This is the exact place that thousands of criminal and political prisoners began their journey to the jail located on the island. We literally got to walk in their footsteps. It was really cool to be part of such history. This embarkation site is now a museum, where we could learn about the history of the prison itself and some of the people that would this place on any given day. Robben Island was original designated a place of banishment for those infected with leprosy. During apartheid it was transformed into prison, mainly for political figures or those who spoke out against apartheid... for those who don't know this was the prison that Nelson Mandela was incarcerated in. After we left this museum, we took a ferry to Robben Island to take a tour of the actual prison. This place is HUGE!!! There is are three different prisons: maximum security for political prisoners, reduced security for criminal prisoners (yea i know it seems a little backwards), and the isolation prison. One of the cool things about Robben Island now is that the tour guides and shop owners and the majority of other people involved with the prison were all either previous inmates or wardens, now working together. It is amazing how far they have come considering the prison only closed about ten years ago! Our tour guide told us that he was arrested and indicted, after being tortured for information, for treason and sabotage for fighting the injustice created by the apartheid. One of the things that surprised me the most was the inequalities in the prison itself. There were both black and white wardens, but only the white ones were allowed to carry weapons. In addition, there was also a drastic difference in the treatment of the black and colored prisoners. Colored people got long pants, blacks had shorts. Colored prisoners received more food and blankets than black prisoners. The list goes on and on. In one of the sections of the maximum security prison, all of the jail cells have stories on the walls written by previous inmates describing an aspect of their experience on Robben Island that stuck with them. A lot of the stories were about the white wardens realizing for the first time, through all the brainwashing of their elders, that blacks and colored people were people too and deserved to be treated in such a way. We got to go inside Nelson Mandela's cell and talk to his personal warden, who evidently was one of the good ones. He and Mandela became friends and he now travels with Mandela to conferences and even attends his birthday celebrations! Unreal! On the ferry ride back from the prison we saw penguins and.... wait for it... a WHALE!!!! This ferry ride back was beautiful!! I have never seen water that flat. It was so calm it seemed as though you could just walk on it. Once we got back to the waterfront, a bunch of us went to this restaurant right on the harbor that had half off the whole menu...including cocktails haha. Had my first Mojito. For some reason all I could think about the whole time was mom on my senior cruise hahaha. We stayed at the waterfront for a while shopping around the markets and such and ended up getting dessert in this little cafe. We finally got back to the hotel after such a long day and some how I was roped into going out! So it was off to the hotel bar! We went to this one bar but left after literally five minutes because Ish said it was too sketch, so we went to Dubliners. This was my first time there, but a lot of other people had gone before. I loved it!! It was much calmer than Tiger Tiger. There was a live band and just a really cool atmosphere. We may or may not have turned the live band into karaoke by buying the singer shots to bribe him haha. Sweet Home Alabama was a must!! We don't have class until 10:30 tomorrow, so needless to say, it was a late night!!!