Durban/miscellaneous

Ok, so I think I have a lot of random and miscellaneous stuff to tell you guys. (I may start to ramble a little) So, I am working on getting my pictures online. It is hard to find enough time to put them up and label them and everything so you guys know what you are looking at. There are so many small, kind of every day occurances that I can't tell you them all. I do want to make reference to somethings that I find interesting though. I may ramble on a little bit, so if you get bored or don't want to read it thats ok. I just want to share it all with you-especially so I don't forget by the time I get home. If you guys have any questions or anything send them my way. I would love to hear some feedback from you guys.
Language:
There are 11 official languages in South Africa with about 72 different dialects. Pretty crazy. Pretty much every person I have come into contact with knows at least 2 languages. Most of the people I have met speak English, Afrikaans, or now Zulu (which is the main language in KwaZulu Natal). I love how my name sounds with the accents. One of the classes I am taking is on the Zulu language. They speak with clicks in some of their words which is really hard to do. There are three clicks for the q, x, and c. The click is different by how you use your tongue.
A few common sayings here are: Yebo, Yes (yebo is yes in Zulu). Is It-they say this at the most random times though, not like when we would say it; like if I were to say "I had fun" they would say "is it?". Seems kind of weird and it throws me off sometimes. They also say now now or just now. Neither of which really mean now.
Food:
The food here is amazing. I am trying so many new things and loving just about everything. (I know Sheri and Keri-hard to believe huh?) There are still a lot of things I need to try though. Even the KFC has different stuff-not that I care that much about trying stuff at KFC though. And apparently, there are only 2 or 3 McDonalds in Durban. Everything here is really sweet-the drinks and sauces and other stuff. They have a lot of sweet chili sauces here, tomato sauce (which is a thinner, sweeter version of ketchup), peri peri sauce and tikka sauce. The bakery kind of stuff is different than ours too. There are no sweet pies-they are all savory and pretty much meat pies. They have these everywhere and can get them even at gas stations/convienence stores. The scones seem more like our biscuits, and the cakes are huge. Also, they like their muffins and one of the most common types is bran. They have these awesome things called rusks, which could be compared to a biscotti in that it is twice baked and crunchy, but aren't a cookie. They have lots of kinds but my favorite is the bran. They have awesome flavored waters. My favorite is the litchi. They really like their chips (fries) here and even have chip sandwiches, which is basically fries in a loaf of bread with sauce. Nobody really drinks tap water here, even though it is safe to drink. If you go to a restaurant and order water, they will give you a bottle unless you ask for tap water-and then they sometimes give you funny looks. There is this awesome little stand on campus that sells really good and really cheap curry and bunny chow (which is curry in a hollowed out loaf of bread)-yum! (I could go on forever about the food here-you know how I love food! Sorry if it bores you guys.)
It is also different going out to a restaurant. They never ask you if you want separate checks and they pretty much don't do it. The servers don't usually come back to ask you how your meal is or to refill drinks. They don't have soda on tap and only give you cans. They are very good at clearing you plates right away, but will never give you the check unless you ask for it.

So I am now in Durban and staying in the dorms. We each get our own rooms which have little sinks in the corner. They are actually quite convienent. We have had classes now for about a week. I am taking the one on Zulu and then one called Culture and Diversity. We are learning about film and politics. Kind of a drag that we actually will have some homework to do.
There are about 20 people from EC and maybe 5 from various other schools. We definitely outnumber every other school. And, there are only 3 guys in the program. There aren't too many other students here on campus because they are on winter break.

The campus here is gorgeous. There are trees and other vegetation EVERYWHERE. Apparently, there are also monkeys on campus. I have not been graced with seeing any yet, but one girl said a monkey came up and stole her burrito. Kind of funny. I have seen a couple of cats though. This is a huge campus and we are only on one small part of it called Howard College. There are many hills in Durban and the campus is very hilly. There is this one building on campus that is at the highest point in Durban. At some spots on campus you can get a really nice view of the city.

Because it is winter here the sun sets really early. It always feels really late when it is only like 6:00. It can be hard to do stuff here when we are in class all day and then it gets dark early. Pretty much everything shuts down when it gets dark except restaurants or bars. The bars here don't have a closing time and can/will stay open all night as long as they are making enough money. Durban is a pretty big city (about 3.2 million). The downtown area is always packed with people but seems a little sketchy. Would probably never walk around there. You pretty much have to take a taxi everywhere (and I'm not used to that). That has been one of the hardest things to adjust to. We do a lot of waiting around here. They don't have they same standards for being on time as we do.

So far in Durban we have gone to the beach, to a rugby game (to see the Sharks), to the malls (unfortunately not how I wanted to spend my time in Africa), and on a tour of a HIV/Aids clinic called the Dream Centre.
This weekend at the beach they were holding the Mr. Price surfing competition, which was cool. They have a pretty nice beach area here. It is really long and you can walk up and down it and there is plenty to see. There are people and stands one after another selling their stuff. Most of the stuff is exactly the same and we have seen it all along our travels as well. In pretty much every town they had little markets and they sell things like animals carved out of wood, masks, beading (beading is everywhere here), and paintings.

They have 3 malls here and they have everything you could possibly want in the mall. These are pretty much the only places to shop and they even have the grocery stores in them. They don't have separate grocery stores like we do. The Gateway mall is massive and has a big rock climbing wall and even a wave pool in it. Its actually a bit ridiculous and seems unnecessary.
The rugby game was kind of cool even though I really had no idea of what was going on.
The Aids clinic was pretty interesting. Everyone there was in stages 3 or 4 and all because of unsafe sex practices. It is kind of taboo here to talk about sex but sex is everywhere and they have condoms in pretty much every bathroom. They have boxes of them and they come in packages of like at least 6.