Table Mountain!!!

1/29/11 4:22 PM

            I CLIMBED TABLE MOUNTAIN THIS MORNING. For all you who received my support letter before I left, you know that I was excited. It’s a beautiful mountain, and draws a lot of tourists to Cape Town. It was so surreal to actually be climbing it. It was one of the many excursions that had just been talk for so long, but had become reality. It still hits me at random times that I’m in South Africa. I guess I just forget sometimes (I know, it’s silly), so outings like this one reminds me of where I am and how blessed I am to have this opportunity.  But anyways, it was awesome. It took a little over 4 hours, with lots of breaks. It was basically all rocks, kinda like walking up rock stairs for 4 hours. There wasn’t much downhill, either. There were several times where I thought “I will NEVER do this again.” And in all honesty, I probably won’t. It’s something that I am proud of myself for doing, and to be able to say that I climbed Table Mountain is pretty sweet, but I don’t want to do it again. It was HARD. And now I’m TIRED. I enjoy hiking, but 4 hours nearly all uphill was a bit much… but I’ve climbed it!!!!

            To back up and fill you all in on the week’s happenings, I’ll begin with last weekend. Krystle (my roommate) and I had our first outing without a South African. This may sound funny, but it was very exciting. One of the hardest things we’ve faced since being here is a loss of independence. No longer can we just get in the car and drive where we want, when we want. And even if we could do that, we don’t know the area well enough to get many places. But one place we have discovered is a mall right near our school. So Saturday we spent the afternoon going into nearly every store in the mall. It was awesome. Then we got some dinner and joined up with our host mom and brother Josh to go to a Moi Thai (spelling?) promotional even thing. Lavona (host mom) knew the guy that owned the gym and so we went to support him. But she had gotten a little confused on the logistics of the event, so we ended up leaving early. But then Krystle and I joined up with a host sister of a couple of the other American girls and went to birthday party for one of her church friends. We met some pretty cool people, and we’re planning on trying out their church soon. Sunday we went to church with our host family. We’re a little unsure if we like the church much, so we’re going to do some exploring of other churches in the coming weeks.

            Monday through Wednesday we were at orientation camp with the new students at Cornerstone. It was at a campsite called Rocklands, and it was pretty awesome. To be honest, both Krystle and I were pretty unexcited about the camp, because neither of us have ever been big camp fans. But because it ended up not being packed full of get-to-know-you-games and forced introductions, it was pretty good. We met some cool future classmates and had some pretty insightful info sessions. My favorite was with a guest speaker who wrote the book Unlearning. His name was Sean…Tucker I think. I’m excited to get a hold of his book. He really spoke to my heart and helped me realize how much I need to take time to think, or ruminate, on experiences in life. So often I just go through the motions (even since being here) and not really allowing myself to fully engage and think about what I’ve seen and heard. He used the analogy of a goat. A goat takes a bite of grass, chews on it for a very long, swallows it, and then throws it up later to chew on it more. I know, this is gross. But if you think about it, it’s a really good analogy. So I walked out with a new insight that I think will really help me grow. Wednesday was Lelia, one of “us”, birthday, so we had a surprise bday party for her at her house.

            Thursday and Friday were just spent doing some more orientation stuff and working on a research paper. Friday night Krystle and I got dressed up just for kicks and giggles and went to this cool restaurant called Primi Piati (do we have these in the states?). We had a delicious pizza and good conversation.

            Tonight we have another braai…we have so many of these things. They’re fun though, and tonight’s is with fellow Cornerstone students, so it should be fun.

            We’ve tried several times to get to a beach; locals can’t believe we haven’t made it there yet. It’s just that the times that we actually have time to relax, we want to do nothing. If you haven’t noticed, our schedule has been pretty jam packed. Breaks are good. We might make it out tomorrow though (if we get our papers done). It’s been super perfect beach weather the last couple days.

            Classes start Monday. I’m excited to start to have a routine and maybe some time to breathe. We’ll be done by 12:30 most days, so then we can choose what we want to do with the rest of our day. I can’t believe we’ve already been here for nearly a month. Time flies by so fast!

            I so appreciate ya’lls support. This last week I was able to e-mail some family and friends, and I really realized how much love and support I have from you all. Thank you!!!!