Hey everyone!  Here's the post I wrote a few days ago but then couldn't put up.  

I'm having such an amazing time so far!  I just know that this semester is going to be awesome.  On the way here my program (AIFS) arranged a 3-day stopover in London, which was really sweet because I hadn't been there before.  Everything but the intense jetlag was a lot of fun... we saw all the major sights.  I really like everyone I've met on my program!  There's a group of us who have been hanging out a lot.  The flight from London to Cape Town wasn't too bad... the 11.5 hours went pretty quickly (especially with a sleeping pill helping me along).  Then we were finally HERE!  

Stellenbosch is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.  Not just the surrounding mountains and all the trees and everything... the weather is incredible.  Every day has been so sunny and warm (but not humid!) and there has been a nice breeze; it's definitely a nice change from VA weather.  I'm living in a flat with one other girl, and we each have our own room but share a bathroom and kitchen.  The flat was pretty dirty and full of spiders when we first got here... gross... but we've been doing our best to spruce it up.  Our residence area is mostly first years though.  No matter where they come from, it seems like everyone who lives around us loves techno.  And loves playing it on their kickass sound system that blares it out the windows at all hours of the day and night.  We've had a lot of orientation programs and international student get-togethers.  A lot of the international kids know each other now.  We even had a braai (aka bbq - they're really big here) and I ate meat!!  It was lamb... and it was delicious.  Made me kind of sick, but oh well.  I might eat it again on the Cederberg Mountain hiking trip we're going on... apparently we're having a really traditional braai.  

Though I'm really excited for this coming week (it's called "Jool" or "Rag" week, and basically is one big crazy party), I can't wait for classes to start.  My service-learning program sounds really awesome, and it still enables me to take the 2 sociology courses I need to take.  My schedule isn't confirmed till next week after our "first meetings;" I don't even know where my service-learning site is, which will determine which language I take.  I can take either Xhosa or Afrikaans... either one would be useful depending on my placement, but Xhosa is really hard - it's a click language!  I'm terrible at doing the clicks.  Since we have no real schedule for the week we're going to try to go to the beach or something.  Oh and we went to Cape Town on Saturday - it was really beautiful and fun.  I definitely want to go back, but I need to explore Stellenbosch more too!  There are so many restaurants here that I'm definitely not going to be able to try them all.  The African sun has been treating me well so far :)  I'm starting to get some color as well as some weird sunburns.  I'll upload pictures soon!!