I am done with classes!! done! I can't even believe it. To celebrate we went to our favorite restuarant last night and then saw the new pirates movie (which was entertaining but really all over the place). Em, you will be happy to know that people here dressed up like jack sparrow too, but none were as good as you. With three huge papers due in the last week, I actually have been doing work for the last couple weeks. I know it's hard to believe since I'm in such a beautiful place, but it's been pretty much life as usual, just like crunch time in Champaign. It was hard to try to juggle paper writing around everyone else's schedule since we all had papers due this week and only three computers to go around, two of which have German keyboard, which isn't that different but the z and y are switched and I couldn't use spell check...a dire necessity for me. So needless to say, there was a fair amount of late nights and coffee consumption, but I am happy that nothing but three finals stand in the way of a lot of traveling. Finals start June 1st and all three that I have to take are two hour essay exams and all the professors gave pretty big hints about the content, so I'm gonna keep the studying to a minimum and cram in lots of last minute cape town activities. Only three weeks left here and most of one of them will be spent in Lesotho! I think we're all trying to block out the fact that we'll have to be leaving soon. Even with no more class, I've still got some planning to do and things to figure out before the trips, so I know it's going to go by quickly. I'll write soon about the weeks adventures...we're doing something crazy tomorrow :)

Originally we were supposed to go to Robben Island when we first got here with all the study abroad students, but they didn't get it organized until just now...meaning last saturday. The Island is actually a lot bigger than I was expecting and the view looking back on the city and the mountians is amazing. The prison itself isn't exactly what I was expecting. I guess I was picturing more of a museum with pictures and stuff to walk around and read at your leisure, but really it was more of a fast-paced guided tour. They drive you around the island, and then we went into the prison for a little while and saw some of the cells, which were tinier than you could possibly imagine...probably something like 6 feet by 10 feet, if that. It's unbelievable to think that people spent the better part of their lives there for no crime at all.

Sunday I spent a very lazy day lying in the grass at the Kirstenbosch gardens and half-heartedly doing some school reading but mostly just looking for cloud shapes. Yesterday I went to Khayelitsha with my Sociology class, which is one of the townships. I am so conflicted and confused by the townships. I still have a lot of think about to sort everything out in my head. They look so horrific from the outside and I'm sure people there are bitter, but it's a community just like any other with stores and restaurants and little kids running all over the place. Not that I'm going to go wandering around there, but I really didn't feel particularly unsafe. We talked to one women who has started a soup kitchen there out of her own pocket. Since she can afford to fund it, she is probably one of the few people there who could actually save up and leave if she wanted to, but instead she chooses to give away her extra savings. It was amazingly inspiring and makes me feel incredibly selfish. She truly must be one in a million people who would choose that path. I would really like to spend more time there. It was a nice reminder of why I wanted to come here in the first place...to experience something completely different that I have no previous understanding of.

As for this weekend, I've got to start cranking out some papers because I'm planning to travel for most of finals week...and one of my roommates birthday's is Friday and the other is Saturday, so it should be fun.

I can't believe it is May already!! Time here is going entirely too fast! I finished classes on May 25th and then have a final on June 1, 5, and 14 before I leave for my trip on the 17th. I'm trying to plan another smaller trip between the 5th and 14th too, possibly to Lesotho! I'm anxious to get out and do something because I spent a lot of the long weekend at home watching movies, playing cards, and baking banana bread with my roommates. The weather was cold and rainy, which really took away a lot of our motivation for doing anything, plus a lot of things were closed because of the public holidays. But even though I don't think the temperature got below 50, it feels a lot colder here because the houses are not built for cold weather and it's the same temperature inside as outside! It's not too bad, but it was very appealing to stay home with blankets and hot chocolate this weekend. I did do some shopping in the city though, and we made it to a rugby game, which was really fun and our team won! The stadium is literally right down the road from us, so it's always really noisy and crazy when there is a game. In other news, our internet has been out for the last week and, according to telekom, the super inefficient phone company that has a monopoly in the country, they have no record of us ever having an internet line and think they can't fix it for at least two more weeks. It's not that big of a deal, but it would be nice for school because we all have research papers to write as the semester winds down, but oh well. I am learning to live without internet :) But I apologize if I'm slower with answering emails, but they school internet is usually fine, although painfully slow. Enough complaining! Despite the bad weather (it got back up into the 70s yesterday though! woo!) and lack of internet, everything else is great! It's going to be very hard to leave, but I'll be happy to see everyone!