Just a few things

Well I finally got around to posting the rest of the Capetown pictures on my picture site. You can find them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanessa_in_sa/sets/ and it shows all 3 of my picture sets.

I realized as I was posting the pictures that I failed to mention that while we were in Capetown one of the mountains started on fire. Apparently this happens there every few years, but it was strange to watch it. We were on a walk back from the waterfront to the city center and noticed it, and were able to watch it spread (it was really windy that day) and we also saw the helicopters dropping water on it. It made for an interesting walk.

I included pictures of Boulder Beach as well, which is where there are African penguins. They were really cute and I wanted to play with them.

Pictures from Robben Island round out the trip. I wish I could do a better job of explaining that place, I think I'd like to learn more about it, actually. Basically all I've gathered is that throughout history it's been used to jail people, sometimes criminals sometimes political prisoners etc. The policies of apartheid (preferential treatment based on ethnicity) existed within the jail as well, as I think I mentioned before. Nelson Mandela spent 18 years in his cell there (which I put up pictures of) and he's probably the island's most famous prisoner.


In other news... last week I had a couple of firsts happen. We had Wednesday off school because it was Human Rights Day. What did I do to celebrate? I went paintballing! Sounds silly I'm sure, but a bunch of people were going and since I'd never been I thought it would be fun and worthwhile. I was actually pretty decent at it, and besides the welt on my back and getting shot in the head it was relatively painless. I'd definitely do it again :) Last weekend we also made it out to a township, which was a very neat experience as well. It turns out what I thought townships were, and what they actually are, are very different things. I've got pictures from that as well, so I'll save the full explanation for when I get those posted... just wanted to give you something to look forward to.

Hope all is well. I hear it's getting warmer there. It's starting to cool off here, and it's rainy more often. I'm still hopeful that there will be hot days when I can go to the beach... but sadly my tan is fading. Still getting my Easter break planned, but I'll keep you updated once I get that all figured out as well.

Until next time...