Some observations about South Africa....

• There are ANTS infesting my room. I can’t leave anything out or there will be hundreds of ants everywhere. I got some DOOM! so hopefully my ant problem will disappear.
• I have no mirror in my room. The only one I have is a 3 x 3 inch mirror in the bathroom.
• The lack of mirror is fine because no one really does their hair or makeup too perfect here.
• EXCEPT for all of the South Africans. This is most definitely the most stylish place I have ever been. No one is ever wearing any type of sweatpants or tshirts. They are definitely always “dressed up” by American standards. This is also the only place that I know of where a girl can pull off teal satin capris or zebra stripped leggings on a Monday afternoon.
• They use tomato sauce instead of ketchup. It is much thinner and sweeter.
• Laundry is EXPENSIVE. Shawn and I spent R120 (about $18) on laundry this week. Someone does it and folds it but it is still a ton of money. We don’t really have any other options though because the price is based off the weight of the laundry and we have to have clean clothes!
• Transportation (like all of Africa) is a huge issue here. It is a pain to go anywhere. We either have to walk, take the minibus (which is always a sketchy experience), call a cab (which is pricey), or use the larger bus system. They don’t really have efficient public transport.
• I have yet to encounter Starbucks.
• Everyone from Europe smokes. A lot. It is a weird adjustment because we are used to the “smoking ban” back home. People are usually smoking just about everywhere here.
• All of the dairy products seem to be different here. Everything is much sweeter and not as rich and creamy as it back home. This includes chocolate and ice cream L
• You really can hear five different languages being spoken in the same room. It has taken a while to get used to. It was uncomfortable not knowing what people were saying and having people talk around you but you just learn to deal with it.
• You must prepay for EVERYTHING. You have to prepay for electricity, internet (by the megabyte), airtime (phone minutes), tuition fees (they are super big on this even for international students), paper copies, healthcare and just about every other thing you can think of!
• They have “American” brand foods but they are manufactured in Africa. I can tell the difference J
• We have no idea how to read nutrition labels because it is all in kilojoules. This tends to be okay because we haven’t eaten too many things out of packages besides stuff we already know is bad!
• They did have quite a bit of stuff here for Valentine’s Day. Shawn bought me some beautiful flowers.
• Africans don’t go to the beach. Only “foreigners” tend to go to the beach to hang out.
• Africans listen to American music and watch American TV. We listen to Algoa FM and it is an awesome combination of 90’s pop, really weird stuff, and the random Ke$ha songs. Yeah, and we wonder about our image overseas?!?
• Wearing shoes is completely optional in almost every situation.
• It is really hard to get used to the left side of the road thing. We have had many near crashes at the grocery store and walking up the stairs.
• A lot of the keys are skeleton keys. When they handed them to me I felt like I time traveled to the past! It is weird carrying them around on my everyday key ring.
• Shampoo is expensive. A bottle that would cost $3 at home costs over $10 here.
• They don’t have spiral notebooks. It is strange writing on basically a legal pad all of the time. 

• There are many more and more to come……