36 hours spent by myself...

...and I had to find my own entertainment

I had just completed my first international flight alone and was exhausted. At 6:17 am EST I entered the Heathrow airport. All I was looking for was a place to literally pass out for my entire 10 hour layover. For the first time in hours, I was too tired to think about how nervous I was. I literally did not know what to expect when I arrived.

I found a less crowded section of seats and noticed that 2 rows were pushed together, calling my name. As I sat down and put my feet up, two little Indian women stood in front of my, grunting. I assumed they wanted to pass by me, so I put my feet on the floor. How wrong I was.

The women sat on either side of me. Of all the seats in the entire section, they decided to make a Jewish-white-girl sandwich of me. I began to panic. I couldn't get up, because that would be rude. But how could I stay there? While working through my ethical dilemma, 2 more little Indians approached, sitting across from the other two. That's right. We were like the Indian version of the spice girls, all huddled together. And all they did was glare at me. I thought I was being Punk'd at this point. So, I made some obscene gesture with my watch and muttered to myself about missing my flight (which was 9.5 hours away mind you). I walked as fast as I could to another section, where I took about 7 naps and 10 trips to the bathroom. and 24 hours later I was here!

Greeted by Our program director, Alan Jensen, I was introduced to 6 girls who had come in around the same time as me and we piled in a van, enroute to our respective houses/flats. The drive there was amazing. I then realized how beautiful this city was. Table Mountain and a clear blue sky provided the perfect backdrop to a colorful city. I was dropped of at Rosebridge, a complex in Rondebosch, which is a suburban section of the city, about a 10 minute walk from the university. I wasn't greeted by anybody! My roommates that had already arrived and had left for a walk. So, I peeled of my clothes that I had been wearing for 2 days (gross) and started to unpack.

My room is like a giant white prison cell. It is huge, with 4 white walls, one of which is made of closets and a huge vanity. There is a big giant window looking out to the street that has major metal poles over it....curtains are a must. I heard voices and realized they were coming from my roommates! They seem really great. In my apartment there is me (obviously), another girl and a boy. We each have our own room and we share a kitchen and bathroom.....which has a tub but but no shower so that should be interesting. There are another 2 girls and a boy living right above us and our balconies connect which is nice because you have to be really intense about locking doors here. Maybe I'll finally learn....

After catching up with my new roomies for a couple of minutes, we were whisked away for a tour of the UCT campus. There, we met up with the rest of the program. There are 45 of us and everyone seems really fun. The campus itself is perfect. All of the buildings are covered in ivy and the backdrop of Table Mountain makes it by far the prettiest school I've ever seen. From UCT, we all piled in a bus and took a drive along Cape Bay....we saw the world cup stadium and some of the most impressive houses and condiminiums.....The mountains were on one side and the beautiful houses overlooking the 3rd best beach in the world (!!!!) were on the other....we stopped at the end of the beach to dip our feet in the water and have an early dinner of fish and chips.

The bus ride home was silent...all of us were dead asleep rightfully so! Although not the most exciting first night, I feel so happy and fortunate to be in such a beautiful place with what seems to be a great group of people!