A very incomplete picture summary of the past month

Ok so here are just a few of the pictures I've taken, mostly from the trips we've gone on as part of the seminar. Some of these are from almost a month ago! I can't believe it. I feel as if this is a pretty insufficient record of what we have done, but it'll have to do. I've been doing so much every day that cataloging the past month would be a monumental task. Ok, so the abbreviated version...

All of the seminar folks on one of our first trips, to the Cape of Good Hope. Huge beautiful cliffs and the bluest water I've ever seen.


Penguins at Boulder Beach--the ocean's ballerest ballers.


The view from the top of Table Mountain--downtown Cape Town and the city bowl.

One of my favorite things so far--the Quiver Trees, a succulent plant (they secrete liquid if broken) that grows near Nieuwoudtville, SA. The trees were used by the Koi and San as quivers for their arrows. There were hundreds of them in this area--amazing, it felt like some sort of sacred space. I'm really not doing this justice, just trust me it was awesome.

Me on the Cederberg trip--we spend five days in the wilderness outside area north of Cape Town, studying the vegetation and having just a generally awesome time. You can't tell from the picture, but the area around Cape Town is one of the most diverse and unique on the planet, home to the world's smallest and richest floral kingdom. We've learned alot about this unique ecosystem (called Fynbos) , and a new species is discovered almost every year.

Right now I'm sitting in my new room, having moved a couple days ago to this house from the one that we had all been living in. There are 10 (soon to be 11) of us living here, including myself and four other swell people from my program. These next two weeks are going to be pretty hectic, meeting people and finishing up with the seminar--we have a couple large papers and an exam, not too bad but hard since I'm not exactly in work mode right now...ah well, I really don't have much to complain about--it's beautiful here and every day is an adventure! I'm starting classes on the 17th and I'm looking forward to that.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures--I'll post some more sometime soon. I'm thinking of all you guys back home!

-Dillon

What it do, everyone?

How's it going? Things are swell with me, thanks. You may know that I'm in South Africa for the semester, studying at the University of Cape Town. I've decided to start a blog to share my experiences here--sending pictures in emails is really finicky, and this will be proof that I'm actually here.
I arrived in Cape Town on January 3rd and for the past month or so I've been having class, living and traveling with 13 other students and a great staff of people from UCT and America. The topic is a very broad "Globalization and the Natural Environment", and its given me a great opportunity to learn about South Africa and get settled in here.
I'm thinking that I'll probably just post when I can get to it, when I have some good pictures or something crazy happens--hopefully this experiment works out, and I hope you enjoy reading it!
Cheers, Dillon