South Africa!!!!!

I AM GOING TO SOUTH AFRICA!!!!!!! SA Becks invited me down to Cape Town to visit her while she was home for Easter holiday and my mother booked me a surprise ticket with her air miles for my birthday present to go. I have never been to the African continent before—and now I am heading towards the southern-most tip of it! I leave April 25th and am staying until May 4th.

Becks has planned out a while itinerary of things for us to do while I am there. I cannot wait!!!! It’s funny because I honestly don’t recall ever meeting a South African prior to coming to Edinburgh. Yet, arriving here, I have met many! In my group of friends at the University alone, there are 5—coming from Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, and suburbs of Johannesburg. From these friends, I am becoming increasingly educated on the politics of South Africa—from apartheid and its legacy to the AIDs epidemic there (it has the highest AIDs rate of any country in the world). It is also an incredibly interesting place historically and culturally. The country has 11 official languages! I am looking forward to learning even more while I am there – and seeing all of the beauty landscapes I have heard about and seen in pictures.