Day Three

Hello again!! Durban has been absolutely incredible. The only thing is we haven’t been able to connect to the internet. For one thing there isn’t wifi in the dorm that we’re living at (aannd facebook is banned during the day) so whenever we would want to connect to the internet we have to go to the library but that hasn’t been working for any of us. So I’ve been writing these blogs on a word document and saving them. But if you’re reading this it means we finally connected, yay! And I keep running out of minutes on my cell phone, so no internet and no cell phone, yikes!! It’s bringing us a lot closer though, we have nothing to do but entertain ourselves together! Having no internet at our dorm means we’re going to be going out a lot more to avoid boredom, so that’s the silver lining!

Alright, so it is day 3 and we had our first night out last night! Interstudy hooked us up with the awesome cab driver, Akay, and he is the most caring helpful person in the world! We went out to dinner in the city last night and he took us over and gave us his welcome lecture; “you can do anything you want in my cab, the only thing I won’t allow is that three letter word.” He almost brought us to tears because he was so kind and helpful. Durban isn’t exactly the safest city (sorry Mom, you might want to skip this next bit, I love you! I’ll be fine!) and pick pocketing is super common, so he told the girls to keep our money in our bras and just always be on the lookout. But anyway, we go to this Italian restaurant Akay recommended and it is the chillest atmosphere! The weather couldn’t be better and the restaurant was really open, all the walls were windows. And to top all this off we have the most gorgeous waiter, like the kind of attractive where I couldn’t look at him without giggling. So we finish dinner and ask this gorgeous waiter where we should go next and he recommends a place called “The Booty Bar,” so of course we go because 1. How could you ever turn down a place with that hilarious name? and 2. We told him to meet us after he got off. So we get the this bar and order some drinks and fumble around with the Rands like stupid Americans. The one kind of bad thing about being here is that it is infinitely different, almost opposite in culture/customs. Which means people automatically know we’re foreign and when we talk it’s obvious we’re Americans (who have a really bad stereotype here, we jut kind of get in the way). But anyway we get our drinks, which are super cheap, 17 rand which is about 2 or 3 dollars. Everything is so cheap here!! We start chatting with these boys sitting next to us, Australians! We hit it off and talk with them all night. My favorite one was a boy named Jack, who has dreds and works as a carpenter. He kissed me goodnight! And to top of all this fun our cute waiter came to meet us!! Liz chatted it up with him and they exchanged numbers! Go Liz!!

Today we sat through 3 hours of orientation, which wasn’t too fun after a long night out. But we toughed it out and after that we went to this restaurant “Joe Cool’s” which was RIGHT on the ocean!! It keeps reminding me of San Diego, but in a more tropical/exotic way. When South Africans aren’t in a hurry to get places they are very very chill and sarcastic to interact with. I LOVE the humor down here, an example is a sing of a pool I saw the other day: “Welcome to our _ool: notice there’s no P, try to keep it that way”—classic!! I don’t think there’s a prettier city in the world then Durban. It’s so colorful with tall, unique shaped buildings. Combined with the tropical warm weather and being right on the Indian Ocean, it’s paradise. I can’t wait to show you guys pictures.

I have a feeling it’s going to take me a while to get used to getting around. There’s a couple different modes of transportation, “taxis” aren’t like the taxis in the U.S., they are more like huge vans that carry 13 passengers. They sit on busy street corners and wait until every single seat is filled until they can go. It costs 5 rand, which is less then 1 dollar. But they run generally on specific routes, so you can’t tell them exactly where you want to go. The buses are pretty easy too but it was hilarious because today we didn’t have enough coins (it was 4 rand, about 50 cents) and we held up a long line of annoyed locals. But I figure we’ll get the hang of it soon enough.

So sorry this is so long, there is so many new experiences happening here it’s crazy! Thanks for following, love you guys!