One Day Til Lift-off

So, tomorrow I begin the 28+ hour trip to Cape Town, which is undoubtedly the longest and most uncertain of my life so far. I have only been to Florida and Nevada (which hardly counts) prior, so this is a huge deal for me.

Anyway, ignoring all my nerves and worries at the moment, it is defintiely exciting. I will be living in an old Victorian mansion in Cape Town for the next 5 months, along with 21 other people. 21 people in one house! I can't really imagine, but I am getting my own room, so that's good.

Instead of explaining too much history or stats on Cape Town or South Africa right now, here are some links that can do that for me:

http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/Pages/default.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Africa

http://www.southafrica.net/sat/content/en/us/home

I will no doubt be learning more about the country when I am there, so I don't want to give a huge lecture right now. If you don't know already, there was a system of racial segregation and political and economic discrimination against non-Europeans known as apartheid in South Africa between 1948 and 1994. Apartheid is still a recent memory for South Africans, and many inequalities from that era still exist. I highly reccomend the film Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony which is about music and revolution from apartheid. The link to the movie is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9BXqbxC9tA

Oh and I ordered some rand, the currency of South Africa, through my bank, and it's really pretty! I only have the 200, 100 and 50 rand notes right now, but I sure the rest of the currency is just as awesome. Right now (because currency values fluctuate so often) 1 ZAR (South African rand) = 0.12 USD (United States dollar), or 1 USD = 8.23 ZAR. That's a pretty sweet exchange rate, so I am looking forward to that!

Back of rand

Front of rand. The 10 rand note has a green rhino, and the 20 rand note has a brown elephant. All of these animals make up the "Big Five" wildlife species of Africa.

I have two huge, 32" pieces of luggage that are only partly full so I can bring back tons of stuff. Right now I am scrambling to get everything together, both physically and mentally, and I think the physical part is coming along better.

Well that's it for an introduction for now. I need to print out my boarding tickets, and I need to calm down a little too!