Discovering the Beautiful Nature!

This weekend, I spent many hours in the car, discovering the amazing landscape of the region around Cape Town. On Saturday morning, I got up very early for driving to the Inverdoorn Game Reserve together with two German friends which I met at school. After three hours, we arrived in the middle of nowhere in the game reserve. During the journey, we had used many opportunities for taking a shot of the breath-taking landscape.

On the safari, we saw many different animals like elephants, lions, cheetahs, zebras, giraffes or springboks. It was awesome being so close to this animals, absolutely not the same feeling as when they are behind a glass as they are in a zoo. Although it was very windy we could enjoy our safari very much. As I've not received the pictures of the animals yet, I'll put them online later ;)
On Sunday, we drove along the coast to Hermanus, a mecca for whale-watching, because it is the season of the whales coming close to the coast. The reason for this are the calfs, they have to grew up in a safe area unlike the high sea. Hence, we had the enjoyment seeing whales right after we had arrived there. Unfortunately, they didn't show any intentions to jump, so we saw only their back or sometimes also a fin. Nevertheless, it was a great experience, also due to the beautiful view we had while we were driving around the False Bay from Hermanus back to Cape Town.

Finally, we finished off the great weekend with a Mojito and dinner in a Cuban restaurant called "Cape to Cuba". So here is the final word, used by the South Africans in nearly every situation: Cheers!

We Got Our Cake and Ate It!

Only one more day is left until I'll have absolved the first school week here in Cape Town. I really like my class, it is a mixture of diverse cultures. The six other classmates are coming from Gabon, Angola, Spain, Brazil and Germany. Generally, school is very different compared to the one in Switzerland. I've class from 9:00 in the morning to 12:40, what creates many opportunities to visit the city, having great discussions with the new friends and doing a lot of sports. As an example, yesterday, we went on the table mountain...but let's start at the beginning of the story:
After school, I had lunch together with Florian in a good restaurant. Afterwards, we decided to go for a drink to Waterfront, the most touristic area here in cape town. While we were enjoying our Mojito, suddenly another friend wrote that we could go up to the Table Mountain - by cable car. As Florian has already been there, we decided that we have to walk up, otherwise there wouldn't be enough action for us. So we started our journey, which was quiet exhausting due to the extreme steepness:

Unfortunately, it got very foggy on the top of the mountain and we had to fight against a cold wind falling down from the top. But in the end we succeeded and arrived on the top...and got this view:

Hence, we were looking for another reward, so we decided to take an Irish Coffee. But right at the moment when we wanted to enter the restaurant, the sky cleared up and we had a beautiful view for a short moment. Thanks to our fast reaction, feeling like Japanese tourists, I could take a shot:

So I can conclude this post with a final idiom: we got our cake and ate it! 

Welcome to Cape Town!

Welcome to my blog about my language stay in South Africa! I will weekly write about experiences I made in Cape Town, as nice places I visited, people I've met, cultural customs and other surprising or shocking things...To start off with, here my first entry about my expectations and really first impressions of Cape Town!

For the next eight weeks my location will be Cape Town. I've heard from many people that this is such a wonderful and lovely city. We will see :)...But why have I chosen to pass my language stay 9000 km away from home? Actually, the amount of positive feedbacks I received for this city convinced my. Furthermore, I like the combination of four weeks of school and 4 weeks of volunteering project. Like this I hope to see different aspects of a country with a long and shaken history. Is the topic of Apartheid fully out of the way? Or is it still possible to see a cultural difference between black and white? This are a few of the questions which were in my luggage when I arrived on the airport of Cape Town and met for the first time the wonderful landscape around Cape Town.

The goal of this language stay will initially be to improve my skills in the English language. For that reason I'm visiting during the first four weeks the language school "International House Cape Town" in the mornings. As I've off the afternoons, there will be many possibilities to participate on events of the school, visiting the town, shopping and doing a lots of sports, like jogging on the wonderful beach.

A big topic is the security in Cape Town. Is it true that you have always to be afraid of being mugged on the streets? I asked this question right to the first person I met in South Africa: The driver how picked me up at the airport. He told me that it won't be a problem, Cape Town is the safest place in South Africa. So my concerns were disposed and I was really looking forward to inspect the city.
The first week will be most about getting familiar with my new environment: meeting new people in school and elsewhere, visiting the different parts of the city, finding the best restaurant and so on. So finally I can just record that I'm really happy being here in Cape Town and will hopefully meet many interesting people.