one more thing...

I forgot to add, this is a picture of me and all of my housemates (plus one extra). We are at a concert in the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens, it was phenomenal. 

1st of the month

Its 00:13 on March 1st here in beautiful Cape Town. I'm getting ready to go sleep out on our porch, where some of us moved our mattresses yesterday. Sleeping outside is magnificent, especially on hot African nights. Not much else to say for now, just checking in on the first of the month; but also, to my friend Scotty Petesch I'd like to say: eat my shorts. Nate, over-and-out...

Will work for bandwidth...

          Sorry about the long break in blog posts. As I settle in I find I have less and less to report, besides the fact that it is still warm and sunny, and I am still sitting by the swimming pool. Other than that, the internet at my house has been down for close to a week here, and it is slowly draining the life force from my body. Our internet has been going down intermittently for periods of 3 or 4 hours since the first day I arrived. But maybe about two weeks ago, it went down for about 3 or 4 days, which was brutal. We got it fixed, but then a couple days later it went down again, and it has not gotten fixed yet. Apparently there is a problem with the line to our house or something; either way, it probably won't be up and running again until next week. During these hard times, these lean days, I have had a lot of time to contemplate, and reevaluate my reliance on the beast we know as the "World Wide Web."
          We do have internet on campus, but it is unbelievably slow, and its almost worse than just not having any internet. You wait and wait and wait, hoping a page will load, but in the end they almost never do. I am posting this blog from an internet café, which are a good option for internet, except for the fact that you have to pay for food, they give out limited internet vouchers (today mine is for 20 megabytes, which is really not that much) and you have to bring your laptop out in public, which is generally not a great idea in this country.
          So for the last few days I have been existing basically free from the internet. And it has been refreshing. I have less to worry about, fewer obligations to fulfill, I waste less time on Facebook or ESPN (or Blogspot...) and I have just been relaxing. I have gotten some reading done, watched a few movies, learned to play a little guitar, and in general have had a very chill few days, without any internet to hold me back from the good things in life. With all of that said, I did feel an immediate sense of relief as I logged back on today, as the internet flooded over my body, and my thirst was finally quenched. The internet is a necessary tool in this modern world and I generally need my daily dose in order to sleep well at night. But a few days off never hurt anybody, and I would go as far as to recommend trying it...

Other than that, all is quiet in the Western Cape... Nate, over and out

Soccer is in the air

Soccer is in the air here in South Africa, with the biggest sports tournament in the world arriving in about four months. I watch soccer all the time, there are soccer ads and billboards, and we play soccer all the time. Everyday at maybe three o’clock, kids go down to the UCT turf field, where there is a relatively new small sided, net enclosed, mini field. It is the greatest thing ever, with lines, mini goals, and even penalty kick spots. We play 4 vs. 4, winner stays, first goal wins. There are usually about 4 or 5 teams down there at a time, and it is relatively competitive. We always bring an American squad down there, and play simple, aggressive, powerful American soccer, which is effective, even if it is not as pretty as some of the South Africans we play. I am just amazed at all the spontaneous soccer going on everywhere here, it is very refreshing. In the US playing a good game of soccer takes organizing and tracking down enough people. Here there are enough people for small-sided tournaments, everyday of the week for hours on end. Now I understand why the rest of the world is so much better than us at soccer… All of the Americans here seem to be soccer fans or players also, probably because the World Cup happens to be occurring at the end of the semester. That’s about all I have to add for now;  I love soccer and so does everyone here, its great. Nate, over and out