In, Out, and Around: Jan 17th & 18th

Jan 17^th

Today we traveled to the District Six museum in downtown Cape Town, a testament to the forced removals that moved colored and black families out of the city and onto the Cape Flats, tearing down neighborhoods and tearing apart families. It was a stirring memorial. We then got lunch at a place called “Charlies”, which was very colorful and where Oprah apparently bought a cake once. Also, I had my first near-death experience attempting to cross the street downtown, shortly after which Vernon addressed the group and informed us that pedestrians do not have the right of way even when the walk sign is green, and must defer to turning traffic. In fact, a visibly pissed police wagon nearly took out the back third of our group as we dilatorily crossed an intersection.

Welcome to the Mother City: Jan 15th & 16th

Jan 15^th

Here’s our first official day in Cape Town. Much of it was spent exploring Rondebosch, the busy suburb nearby. This area essentially served as World 1-1 for us, an introductory zone where we could figure out how to navigate, use ATMs, and cross the street without being annihilated by traffic, which is a lot harder than you might imagine (they drive on the left side of the street here! FYI!).

United States to South Africa: Jan 13th & 14th

Hello all!

I’ve been in Cape Town for almost three weeks now and it’s high time I start to share some of my experiences. My posts thus far have been for the official UConn Cape Town blog- so they’ve been more formal, thought-out, etc. This post will be none of those things! So read on and check out the accompanying pictures!

Jan 13^th

My lovely mother drove me to JFK nice and early for my fifteen-hour flight to Johannesburg. I feel like I said goodbye twelve times and kept looking back over my shoulder as I entered the terminal. I realized I’ve never been this far away from home for this amount of time, ever, period. Even at UConn home is only 90 minutes away (via Ragnhild).