Home Stretch

Woke up to the sun rising over the Durban harbor this morning. We are staying in a convent for the next week, and being 3 stories up on top of a hill, facing the ocean really has its advantages ☺ Friday we went to Hluhluwe (pronounce shloo-shloowee) Game Drive and while listening to the Lion King Soundtrack saw several animals, the most exciting moments involved a rhino, a herd of giraffes, and an elephant that passed 10 feet right behind our van! The sunset behind the mountains was also very impressive, and never ceases to amaze me with its illuminating hues of pink, read and orange. We stayed overnight at a hostel in the deep woods, and were constantly having run-ins with bush babies. Don’t be fooled by their cuteness, they have a knack for hypnotizing you with their apparent innocence before taking your food, and jump around the roof at night so you can’t go to bed. On our way home to Durban we bought breakfast from some women on the side of the highway. I got a full pineapple, with the stalk and everything, but the pointy skin had been shaved away so I could eat it like a drumstick. This was possibly the best pineapple I’ve ever had, despite the sticky mess I got all over myself. Today I woke up at 7 a.m. without an alarm clock, a moment my parents have tried to get me to accomplish for 6 years now. This afternoon we are going out to the beach to hang out and make sure we get into the Fan Park for the final. It’s going to be so crazy and I have to make sure I buy a Spanish flag so I can wave it while I hear the Wavin’ Flag song one last time in South Africa. Víva España!

P.S: For those of you who know about my terrible mispronunciation problem (saying aneurism instead of mannerism, etc.) I have a new one for ya. I was in charge of telling the rest of the group where we were staying for the last week or so, and was like “Yeah, so we’re staying really close to the SIT office, in a mortuary place, but for nuns” (I for the life of me couldn’t think of the word convent and totally didn’t catch myself saying mortuary instead of monastery). Imagine how freaked some of the people were when they heard that we were staying in a place with dead nuns, hahaha… hope you had a good weekend!