In Pretoria

So I made it to South Africa with no problems. The flights were fine, but very long. On the way to Amstersdam, the sun rises at 3AM Detroit time, which was pretty confusing. On my flight to Amsterdam, all the people I talked to were headed to different parts of Africa - Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kilimanjaro. I sat next to a retired couple from Mississippi - she was a teacher for 40 years and he a principal for 30, so they were excited to hear about what I was doing. They were headed to Tanzania to take a couple safaris - or as he said it, piddle around Tanzania.

At Amsterdam I met up with Lauren, Teresa, and Mandy who were all taking the 10 hour flight to Johannesburg with me. It was rather uneventful, considering I slept the first three hours and missed lunch by five minutes. But it was interesting flying on a double decker airplane.

We landed in Johannesburg at about 9 PM local time, or 2 PM Detroit time on Saturday. After clearing customs and collecting our luggage, we were met by John, our professor, and Katie, another student on the trip, who took us on the car ride from Johannesburg to Pretoria.

Sunday was pretty uneventful, as we were allowed most of the day to sleep. At 4 we held a general meeting just to touch base with everyone. Sunday also happened to be Ed's birthday, so we had a celebration at both the Italian restaurant at the mall and back at the guest houses where we are staying.

Today it was up early for the van ride to the University of Pretoria for class. We went to the campus devoted to teacher education, where we had a session on Pre-Colonial History of South Africa, followed by a tea break, with Colonial History following that. After class, we headed into the heart of Pretoria for lunch and a trip to the Transvaal Natural History Museum. We actually had lunch on the balcony of the museum. We found out that across the street was City Hall, and that the area of Pretoria we were in was basically the heart of apartheid. After a delicious lunch, we headed into the museum to check it out. We spent most of the time imitating the animals and taking pictures. While climbing into the jaws of a giant shark, I was lucky enough to suffer the trip's first injury, hitting my head on one of the giant shark teeth. Apparently I didn't duck far enough down. No worries, as I am now a-OK.

My time here at the Internet cafe is running out, so I'll end it soon. I'm still adjusting to driving on the left side of the road, to calling the elevator the lift, the bathroom the toilet, and a number of other differences.

Hopefully tonight I won't wake up at 3 AM again, and actually sleep through the night.