Day 36
The only thing exciting that happened today was that 7 girls and I finished a 14 inch ice cream cake all to ourselves. We are fat and felt so disgusting after, but it was so worth it.
Day 37
Well right now it is 12:55pm and we were supposed to dock in South Africa at 8am, but we have been circling for the past 5 hours because the winds are too bad for us to dock. This day all started last night when we hit really rough seas. I felt so sick, so I took some Nyquil and planned on passing out. This didn’t go as planned. I took my Nyquil at 10:30 and 1:30 rolls around and I am still awake from the rocking and creaking of my room. I finally fall asleep and wake up this morning to get the girls for breakfast, we get up there, and we had just missed it. They closed at 8 and we got up there at 8:02. And now we have just been going in circles for the past 5 hours waiting for the wind to die down. I have something planned to do at 3, we were going to take a tour of Robben Island, but I don’t think I am going to be able to do it because they don’t have an expected time for us to dock, and we still have to wait for immigration to come onto the ship so that we can get our passports stamped. South Africa looks amazing so I hope we can get off soon!
Day 38
Last night before we went to bed we were told that we were going to dock during the middle of the night, around 3am. And when we woke up in the morning we would be cleared to get off the ship. I woke up this morning and guess what… we were still doing circles!! The seas were so bad, worse than the day before. Around 930 they made an announcement that the pilots were making their way to our ship to direct us into port and we would be there in an hour and a half, I don’t think anyone on the ship could’ve been happier. Ashley, Steph, and I went to the 7th deck to watch us pull in, it was beautiful. The area in which we had to dock was so tight and small, now I understand as to why we had to wait until the seas calmed down. After we docked it only took about an hour for immigration to come on and we even had to do a face to face with them in order to get our passport. I began the day with walking around with the girls. We went to Quay Four, a restaurant on the port for some lunch and drinks. After lunched we walked around for a bit, some of the girls left to go on a hike, Ashley, Amy and I went to the aquarium. It was on the smaller side of the aquariums, but it was nice and it took us about an hour to walk through. After the aquarium we did some more walking around and venturing into shops, then headed back to the ship for some dinner. Tonight everyone was going to ‘Long Street’ a well known street in Cape Town to go out. We decided to join in. It wasn’t what everyone raves it to be. A few of us went to a restaurant that had a bar upstairs and sat outside for a drink then met up with others. We ended up heading back to the port to sit outside and hang out because we weren’t too interested in Long Street. Tonight in Cape Town U2 was playing at the stadium, there were over 70,000 people. This turnout was bigger than the world cup when it was in South Africa. We didn’t get to go to the concert because we didn’t get tickets in time, but we still had a fun night.
Day 39
Today was a VERY long day. I went on a wine tour from 9am-630pm. There was so much to see and do, it was an amazing time. There were 7 of us on the tour, which was the perfect number. We started the day with meeting our tour guide, Carmen, outside of the ship. Our first stop was signal hill; all we did there was take a few pictures of the amazing scenery. From there we went to our first winery on the trip, it was called Cape point vineyard. There we got to try 4 different wines and compared them. At this place I was a fan of the white wine over the red. After the winery we were all so hungry so we asked Carmen to bring us somewhere to get some food, she took us to Cape point, we just had some sandwiches, nothing special. The best part was when the bird took Ashley’s sandwich out of her hand, haha. After lunch we took a 10 minute walk up the mountain to see the lighthouse that was at the top. Cape point is the furthest tip of South Africa on the peninsula. That was pretty awesome that we were at that point. Next we drove to Cape of Good Hope, which is the most south- western point of the African continent. There we just took some pictures, we didn’t stay very long. Our last scenic stop before the last winery was at boulders beach. At the beach we saw African penguins they were so cute, but after 10 minutes they got boring. And at this point we had been on our tour for 7 hours and we were so tired and just wanted to get to our last vineyard. The vineyard was called Steenberg Winery. It was so nice, and was different from the first vineyard. The first vineyard was more oriented and we were the only ones there and the second vineyard was very busy and more relaxed, we just sat on some couches and drank our wine. On the way back to port Carmen took us the scenic way; we got to drive past Camps Bay, through Simontown and all around the coast. She was so awesome. We ended the night going to a sushi restaurant, it was so good to eat sushi, first time I have had it since I left home.
Day 40
Today was the best day of my life! I went skydiving!!! I told myself that the one thing I wanted to do on this trip was to go skydiving, and that goal is officially completed! It was the best experience of my life. Ashley, Steph, and I went to ‘Mugg & Beans’ a coffee shop for some coffee before meeting up with our driver. When we met up with our driver we had to wait a few minutes for 3 more people to join us. When they came, we were headed 45 minutes away from Cape Town to skydive. I wasn’t really nervous in the car, it was so strange because I didn’t feel like I was going skydiving. When we got there is when it hit me. We had to fill out a form, pretty much signing our life away, and then we got paired up with a worker who was going to be jumping with us. We got strapped in and off to the plane we went. Our plane went up 9000 ft. Ashley jumped first, then steph, and I was last. It all happened so quickly. We had to wrap our legs under the plane, so you were pretty much hanging out of the plane and the only thing holding onto you was the guy that was attached to you, and then all of a sudden we were gone. We got to free fall for 35 seconds, I think I was in shock because it is hard to remember, I had so much adrenaline. After the 35 seconds the parachute went up. I got to control the parachute and my guy took me around in circles, which made me sick. From our fall I got to see Table Mountain, Robben Island, and the whole area of Cape Town. It was so worth it. At the end I bought the video of me from the moment I strapped on my harness until the moment I took it off, it’s a great video. I still can’t believe I jumped out of a plane, I always told myself that I wanted to do it but I didn’t think that I actually would. The experience is indescribable! And I suggest that everyone should go skydiving at least once in their life. Tonight Ashley, Lindsay, Steph and I went to Camps bay and watched the sun set. After that we walked around Camps bay, but it was too expensive for us and was very fine dining, we were just looking for appetizers and drinks so we went back to the port and went to Quay 4 and split some appetizers and some drinks then went back to the ship to call it a night.
Day 41
Today consisted of shopping shopping shopping! I got a lot of good gifts for people and spent a lot of money. If I wasn’t spending it on gifts I was spending it on food. The food is so much better here than on the ship. We went shopping at the port; we went into a few stores and then went into the mall. There were a lot of American stores, but all of the expensive ones. I didn’t buy much in the mall, but there was a grocery store! I stacked up on snacks to last me the rest of the trip. I had a service visit planned for today. We were going to an orphanage and then we were biking to a township, which is mostly an underclass community. Most of the homes are made of medal and more along the lines of shacks. When we first got there we went to the Baphumelele orphanage. There were hundreds of kids here. There was a spot there, I can’t remember what it was called, maybe hole in the wall, its where parents can drop off their children when they want to get rid of them, then ring a bell, and the workers at the orphanage will come get the child. It was very disturbing, but then I guess it was uplifting to see that there is a place where they will be taken care of instead of being abandoned. When we got there a lot of them were in nap time, so when we walked into the preschool all of the children were on the floor for nap time. This was a sad site to see all the children lying on the floor, there were 3 rooms full of them. We didn’t get to stay at the orphanage very long because we had a lot to do and we were already running behind. Before we left though, the children sang and danced for us. We then split into two groups and half of us went on a bike ride and the other half played soccer. I was in the half that went on the bike ride first. We went through the townships, it took us a while because some people have obviously never biked before in their life and then we made our way to the soccer fields. After 35 minutes of biking we switched groups. Soccer was so fun! Even though I have played from the age of 8 until 18 I haven’t touched a ball since high school, so that was fun to play again, and also playing with the children. I scored a goal to tie it up and by the end Alicia scored the winning goal, Alicia and I were the only Semester at Sea people to make a goal, it was quite an accomplishment since the children are so good at soccer! After soccer it was time to go back to the port. It was sad to see them leave especially because we made friends with two of the young girls. It was so interesting to see the different ends of the spectrum in South Africa, where we are staying is very touristy and high class and wealthy people and the townships were underclass people, it was weird to think that there were poor people around because we didn’t get to see too much of it while in Cape Town, which is totally different from what we are used to seeing in the other countries.
Day 42
Cape town, South Africa is amazing and I definitely want to come back here sometime in my life. No port that we have been to so far has been anything like this. I will never forget these days here. No words or pictures can prove this to you unless you were here.
