South-Africa Exchange 2013: Week #5

Today, I came to the sudden realisation that we're already over halfway through our exchange. Why does time pass by quickly when you want it to go slowly instead? Anyway, I’ll tell you my story of last week.

On Thursday, we could buy roses for Valentines Day at Herschel. After you wrote down your message on a little card, you had to take it to the school’s library where the organisers had placed five huge cardboard boxed for the following schools: Bishops, SACS, Westerford, Reddam, and Herschel, of course. When I arrived, all the boxes, especially the one for Herschel, were almost completely full! In the afternoon, I studied for my General Arts & Culture test.

The next day had a great start, the first thing in the morning was writing my test. Yay! Luckily, the test went well and the rest of the school day passed quickly. After school, I went to Cavendish to buy birthday presents for Tessa.

On Saturday morning, I woke up by the sound of pouring rain dripping onto the balcony. What? It rains in Africa?! Yes, it rained all day long. With a raincoat on, Di took me to Houtbay, a pretty fisherman’s suburb, where we visited the market. Here, I bought some presents and souvenirs for friends and family, and we had a nice coffee.

After dressing up (the theme was ‘formal’), we headed to Tessa’s house to meet the birthday girl. There was about 25 people there; the exchange group, new friends and family. We sang happy birthday to Tessa in Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Xhosa and many more languages, so you could say that it was quite an international birthday! Everything was so well prepared and organised; the lunch was great. There was a buffet with croissants, rolls, red velvet cupcakes, cheese, salmon, fruit, bacon, avocado, all kinds of salads, cream cheese, jam, cake and much, much more. The party (lunch) continued till about 17.30, and in the evening Emma and I went to a house party, only to wake up early again next morning.

Sunday was a great, great day! At nine in the morning, Domas, Pieter and Tessa come to our house to get a lift to Houtbay again. Here, we bought tickets for the boat to… Seal Island! The weather wasn’t cooperating, again, since it was freezing cold (17ºC), windy, and a little rainy as well. Nevertheless, we got onto the boat that took us to Seal Island. As the name refers, it’s an island with seals. The only thing is that it’s not an island, you could describe it better as a couple of rocks in the middle of the sea with lots of cute, though really smelly, seals living on it. See the pictures below. We got back on shore at around eleven, and decided to go for a walk along the coastline before having lunch. Feeling hungry already, we walked into the first nice-looking restaurant we passed, called ‘Dunes’. We all ordered a fish (daily catch; anchovy) and chips meal, with pecan nut brownies as dessert. We paid the bill, walked outside…with a waiter running after us! We stopped and turned around, wondering what was wrong. Apparently, he thought we didn’t tip him enough, since he asked the following: “Have you ever been to a restaurant before?” “It is normal to pay at least a ten per cent tip!” After excusing ourselves, and not paying a single cent more of course, we walked back to the harbour where we were picked up again.

The weekend ended with a braai; spare ribs, boerewors and chicken.

When The Best Day of the Week (a.k.a. Monday) had started again, I came across my day with studying for Latin. Luckily, the afternoon (with Frio’s!) was waiting for me! So after school, we walked to Cavendish where I spent the rest of the afternoon, relaxing, shopping and talking.

Tuesday was a little more exciting; as you probably know, Herschel is a school with lots of old traditions that, even today, are still maintained. This day was marked by the pancake race! To be quite honest, it was the most random thing I ever saw at a school. At one o’clock, during lunch break, the whole school went to the outdoor hockey field where teams ranging in age from about 5 until 18 were ready to rock ‘n roll. Every first person of a team was holding a frying pan with a pancake in it, and had to run to the other side while flipping the pancake five times, before handing it over to the next person. Yes, I told you it was random, but it was great fun and we laughed a lot!

On Wednesday, I was finally able to tick off something from my bucket list that I was hoping to do for a long time now: climbing up Table Mountain! We gathered at Bishops again, and arrived at the start of the trail at around 9 o’clock. Even this early, it was already boiling hot. The first part of our hike was walking straight up the steep mountain; and we could see the Cable Car full of people passing above us. Mr. Court (Bishops) took the eager-to-climb Holland exchange group with one Argentinian boy (Matias) to the so-called Indian Venster. It was literally a ‘venster’ –Dutch for window- made out of solid rock. See the pictures below. We met the others a few hundred meters higher, after we climbed over, under and through rocks and rock crevices. The second part of our hike consisted of climbing and clambering, trying very hard not to trip, and dying from the heat. Finally, at around 11.30, we reached the top. We enjoyed the magnificent views; it was completely clear up and around the mountain while a thick blanket of fog covered the whole of Cape Town. Then, while eating and finishing a whole loaf of bread that Matias brought with him with crisps, we bought our tickets to go down by Cable Car again. On our way down, we could see our own footsteps far beneath us, all the way up the mountain.

I spend most of my time in the afternoon studying, swimming and eating at Tessa’s house before I had to get back to Herschel for my hockey match, which we won again.

Finally! My own clothes! Thursday was civvies day, Valentines Day themed. Every single girl at Herschel was wearing either red, pink, flowers, or white. The breaks were great fun as well, everyone was dancing and singing around the fountain while music was playing. During the lessons, we got heart-shaped chocolates and roses from our friends and from other schools.

Yesterday, the 15^th of March, was the Herschel’s Founders day. In complete contradiction to the day before, we all had to wear our formal uniform: the normal dress with stockings and our blazers. First, we were told the history of Herschel in a hall with the entire high school. One and a half hours later, every student was given a Herschel cupcake and we had a short break.

Together with lots of old Herschelians, we walked to St. Saviour’s Church for a long service, where only two girls fainted this time. Another old tradition of the school is that, after the service on Founders Day, all the new girls and staff are officially added to the ‘Herschel family’ by letting them walk/crawl through the longest arch you could ever imagine, made by the arms of all the other girls and teachers. Even though we will only be here for four more weeks, the exchange students also had to bend down on their knees and crawl for a couple of hundred meters to get to the other side of the arch. Next, everyone assembled around the fountain where we sang the school song.

This day of formalities, traditions, and fun ended at the annual Bishops Valentine’s picnic, which I enjoyed very much as well.
The next two weeks, we’ll be away for most of the time. Next week we’re going to an area called the Cederberg where we’ll hike and camp, and the week after that we’re off to the Garden Route tour. I hope I’ll be able to keep you up to date in the weekends!