First Impressions of Cape Town and Orientation

The flight to Cape Town was really long, but I had two seats to myself so that was really nice. Flying over Cape Town was really cool because we got to see some really awesome views. I arrived in Cape Town at 10:30am and was greeted by the RA’s in my study abroad program, which is called CIEE. At that point I was still wearing sweatpants and my Patagonia and I was overheating because it is so hot here. We waited for other kids to come in then about 40 of us took a bus to the dorms at University of Cape Town (UCT) where we would be staying for orientation. The drive to UCT was interesting because in the beginning we passed a lot of townships, which are pretty much the same as slums. Then after driving a little further things gradually turned nicer until it looked very modernized. When we drove past downtown Cape Town it looked very much like an American city. Then we arrived at UCT where we checked in and put our luggage in dorm rooms. The RA’s then told us that we would be going on a very easy hike at Table Mountain, which they said would take maybe 45 minutes. This was a lie. The hike took about an hour and a half and it was intense because of the pretty steep and constant incline. It was definitely a bonding experience for many of the students as we all struggled with the jet lag and hot sun. However, the view from the top was well worth all of the sweat and sunburn. Then instead of walking back down, the RA’s bought us tickets to take the cable cars down the mountain. The cable cars were cool as they gave us a different view of the surroundings. Overall, the hike was really rewarding and fun even though it was difficult.

Since then orientation has been fun but very tiring. We have to get up at 7am for breakfast every morning – ugh! We have also been going out quite a bit, and things here seem to be very cheap. For example, at this bar we go to called cybar beers are 12 rand which is less than 2 dollars. Tomorrow we move out of the dorms and into our houses. My house is actually three small houses that holds 28 students and 2 RA’s. They must be pretty nice because we all have our own rooms! Our houses have security guards outside of them every night from 6pm-6am. Also, we just found out that we have people coming to clean our houses Monday through Friday. We are pretty spoiled because they are cleaning everything except our own rooms – so they do our dishes for us! Crazy. 

Last night we went to dinner at a really cool place called Moyo near Stellenbosch. The restaurant was under a massive tent. The dinner was buffet style and it had so many different options. I ate springbok and antelope – yum! Then we went to downtown Cape Town after dinner and partied on Long Street. It was very fun!