Today was my second day of class, but I only had one and most of my roommates were done by noon so we decided to go surfing! It was soo much fun! One of my rooommates met a guy who is a UCT student now, but was a pro surfer for a couple years so he knows a bunch of people in the surf shops and hooked us up with boards and wetsuits and gave us lessons! I swear, I have never done anything more difficult that try to get that wetsuit on, but the water is really cold, so it's worth it. The whole way to the beach I was pretty nervous thinking about sharks because they have shark spotters at the beaches that keep a lookout and put up flags when one has been seen recently, but once I was in the water I had other problems to worry about. Right before we got in, he warned us to try to avoid these little stinging blue jellyfish but there's absoultely no way you'd be looking out for those when there are huge waves crashing towards you. I've never been in the ocean with such powerful waves. They were flinging my board all over the place and I looked extremely foolish trying to keep it pointed straight. So I'd trudge out to where the water was just below my waist, which was an excrutiatingly difficult task involving being swept back to shore at least five times in the process, only to get tangled in these enormous seaweed type plants that were everywhere. So finally the surfer guy would come to my rescue and effortlessly paddle me through the waves. When you're paddling into them, the waves sure look huge, but it's even worse when he turns the board around and you get a glimpse of the wave that he's going to push you into. And then he just gives you a shove and yells "UP!" at which point I panic slightly, push up with all my might, and fly ungracefully head first into the ocean, swallowing a least a gallon of it in the process. But I finally got up a couple of times and it was so fun! They weren't actually large waves at all, but it's a start. I road my last wave all the way in, feeling kind of cool, and hopped off, only to have my board go flying, crash into me from behind, sweep me off my feet, and carry me into the sand, where I landed face first. It was a successful day :)