First week of classes

Hello everyone... its been another speedy week of fun and excitement here in Port Elizabeth; more students continue to filter into Annie's Cove each day. Many of them are from Europe mainly Germany because their exams are finally coming to a close for this past semester.  A roommate has finally moved into the room next to mine; his name is Tomas from Germany.  He is another Business Admin. student like

 so many others studying abroad.  Its funny to tell people that my concentration of study is environmental sciences//protection.  Everyone thinks I am going to end up dealing with waste management.  Any how, my roommate Tomas was actually suppose to stay in another apartment accommodation but was able to talk our housing director, Marius, into allowing him to stay.  This past weekend Tomas joined another German on a trip west to a Township in which he plans to promote the company he has worked for: Bayern

(right to left: meredith, me, Kaylie, Mike, anonymous, Sara)

Munich.  Yes thats right, the world renowned football club from Munich, Germany.  He brought a bunch of jerseys with him to give away to kids in the community and I was able to snag one from him.  An 80 euro / $100 USD jersey !  I was very excited and basically wore the jersey all weekend.

Anways I have uploaded a few more pictures for you all to get an idea of what life is like here in PE/Annie's Cove.  Below is a photo of my room, plain I know but its home for thenext five months and I have gotten pretty used to it already.  Each room has a bed, a desk with shelves, and a table for possibly dinner or extending the desk if needed I am not completely sure what its for but its great for hanging your towel out to dry-- since all the walls are concrete they take a long time to heat up thus its usually alw

ays freezing inside my room so its hard to get my bath towel to dry thoroughly.  Any how this is the standard room set up and as for the kitchen we have a microwave, a toaster oven with hot plates on top for cooking --- its the hardest thing I have ever done and probably the only thing I hate about this place; its so damn hard to cook anything decent because temperature regulation on these things is close to nothing.  Any how t

he frigerator is nice and runs 20hrs out of the 24 in a single day.  

I am not quit sure why these photos are so small but I uploaded a few pictures of South Campus NMMU.  South campus is considered the main campus of the 6 that hold the name Nelson Mandela Metropolitan.  South Campus has the 19 story department building with several lecture halls surrounding it.  the Faculty of Art is the dominant prospectus of courses held on South Campus, with engineering held on North Campus, 2nd avenue mainly graduate students and Bird st. heading the Business faculty propectus.  The international office is located on South Campus and it is where I spend most my time in class and hanging out with friends/meeting new people. 

One of the first things we are told as international students here at NMMU is that because the campus is located on a nature reserve, we must realize that we'll come into contact with all sorts of wild life, even monkeys. 

Everywhere you go on campus you run into signs like this one indicating the fact that there are dangerous monkeys around that 

like to steal your lunch or even try to steal your backpack if you permit them. 

So far classes are going smoothly.  I have joined an afrikaans language course just for fun so I that I can pick up a few colloquial terms to try and gain some respect from the native south afrikans.  The other classes I am taking include an intro. course in South Afrikan history as well as a South Afrikan Literature course.  I am taking an music in society and history course that covers mainly classical genres most popular in europe between 1200-1900s, 

and also a course on th

e apartheid era here in South Afrika.  So far I have only gone to three of these courses because one has not yet begun and the other is held in the second half of the semester but as for the others they are quit interesting; the professors are all fun and welcoming of international students. I am one of the lucky few to not have classes on fridays so my weekends have been extended an extra day equating to more time for travel as wel as leisure.  This past friday I went to the beach with a few friends since the weather was quit nice and was able to get out and enjoy some of the waves on the beach.  The point at Summerstrand is probably the best place in PE for surfing because the wind blows off shore and its a right break.  I tried to show some of my friends from europe a few tricks in the water but without a wetsuit i was unable to last more than 15 minutes in the water.  So yes the water is quit cold but on sunny days when the wind is moderate, the water is absolutely amazing. In the afternoon I joined up with my friend Taffy from Zimbabwe who has asked myself and a few others to come out and play for his football team that plays for the school league.  We practiced for a while and got to meet some of the team members. They are all very nice and welcoming and freakin' good footballers.  I hurt my toe the previous week playing so I played pretty bad and was unable to make the game on sunday.  That night we all went out to our usual place at Brookes Pavilion to two places known as Toby Joe's and Tapas.  Nice places to

 hang out and get a cheap beer and dance but since the large majority of us international students have been frequenting these places, I feel they are getting quit old.  The music is always fun though; european nineties house music mixed with apple bottom jeans and a few other popular hip-hop songs.  For some reason they always like to throw in a classic rock song from random american artists.  Hey when your drinking and dancing its a lot of fun.  

The next day was a big event for some of us in Annie's.  There is a large group of Angolan students here at NMMU and they all stay in this large apartment complex called Omega Lodge just a block or so from Annie's.  I met these guys during orientation week on the first day.  I was actually extremely hung over possibly even still drunk from the night before and 

was evidently running extremely late according to european standards/american standards.  I was the last of our group to leave annie's and as I was walking/stumbling to campus I ran into a group of these guys who were speaking a language I had not heard yet while I have been here in SA.  Well I knew it wasn't spanish although it sounded like they were saying puto a lot, and  it seemed a bit like french but i wasn't entirely sure.  So i decided to ask the guys and I came to find that they were speaking Portuguese -- an amazing language I have to say.  The way they speak as well is entirely different from Brazilian Portuguese or

 classic Portuguese from Portugal.   Well at the time i thought it was quit amusing and cool so I continued to talk with the guys and got their names and numbers and was able to meet up with them throughout orientation week and play football with them and so on and so forth. So this weekend the group from Angola decided to host a braai at their accommodation.  Many of us from Annie's went over to their place which is really nice and big compared to Annie's. They had plenty of food and beverages and the night was a blast.  I heard music known as Cuduro which is Angolan hip hop/free style music that is very popular among the young people of angola.  It originated in the ghettos and soon become popular around the country after some struggle with the upper class.  I was a bit tired from the week before and decided to head back early, where as others ended up staying till almost dawn but it was the best time I have had here in South Afrika so far. On Sunday I attended the football match which our team, Southwest win the match-- the name Southwest was chosen because of the team's diversity among players oh and just to let all you footballers know, almost everyone here is an Arsenal fan.  I hope my toe will get better and hopefully find some used football cleats around somewhere so I can get out and play.  

Well thats basically were I leave off.  This week I plan to get all my courses settled out, find some cool hiking trails around the school, and journey throughout the city over the weekend.  Talk to ya'll soon. 

Cheers.