A South African New Year

First things first: I suck at blogs. My entries are always weeks, if not months, apart. Still, I'm going to keep at it.

So: A lot has happened since my last entry. I made it to South Africa just fine, after two days of grueling flights. It occurred to me as I was walking down the passageway from the airplane, having had my passport stamped and wondering which line to stand in (there were only two: one said "RSA citizens" and the sign for the other line read "all other African citizens") that it had been quite a while since I had seen my boyfriend, Morgan. As I continued to walk, all of the weight of our cross-continental relatiionship seemed to overwhelm me and I was just about to turn when I saw a huge smiling face, clad in a faded UNC shirt, pushing through the crowd. While I was still pretty nervous about seeing him, the weight seemed to lift and right then I figured out what I had worked so hard for throughout the semester.

Since then, I've been living quite a fun (and MUCH more relaxing) life. For the first time in months, I'm sleeping in past 7am and enjoying the morning - and not lacing up my running shoes as frequently as I probably should. We've been keeping busy, though.

Morgan arranged a great surprise for me last week. He is a TV reporter for eTV, one of the national TV stations here, so he made use of some connections and I got to go to the Sea World in Durban and see the world's largest dolphin (he looked more like a miniature whale!) and it's 3-week-old baby. Very cool. We also went snorkeling with some fish native to the region and opted to later drop down into a pool of sharks. It was a FANTASTIC day!

I've also been meeting a lot of people. I visited the Zulu family in Cato Manor that I lived with this summer and dropped off some Christmas presents with them that I'm hoping they enjoy. I've been meeting a lot of Morgan's friends as well. I went to my first official braii (*South African version of a BBQ, very popular) and also went to a friend's 21st birthday celebration. It's funny how the legal drinking age here in RSA is 18, but the 21st birthday is still quite the big deal. My 21st is on January 5th (4 days!!!) and I'm pretty excited myself. I think we're going to have a braii...

As far as New Year's celebration, it was great. We scored complimentary tickets to a rooftop party at a hotel followed by dancing at a bar nearby. I must admit though, I did truly miss seeing the ball drop. BUT I don't think I'll have another South African New Year's anytime soon, (or at least not next year) so I soaked up every minute.