Greetings from South Africa. It is cold here, by which I mean September 1^st was the first day of spring, and the high today will be somewhere between 60 and 70. I’d give exacts, but the forecasts are in Celsius and all I remember of that is that water boils at 100 and freezes at 0, and 20 is about room temperature in a high school chemistry lab. By day, I can get by in short sleeves and jeans if I keep moving and stay in the sun, but at night I’m glad I brought a couple sweaters and a fleece. It also gets dark early, with sunset around 6:30 at the moment.

I’ve been in Cape Town less than 48 hours and have yet to really talk to anyone who isn’t in my program, barring Alfonso, my taxi driver from the airport, who pointed out a lot of tourist attractions on the way and told me that when he saved enough money he was going to travel to America and see Memphis (Graceland) and the Bronx. I regretted to inform him that Wisconsin was no where near Memphis, and, unless he had a particular interest in exotic dairy cows, was probably not worth the extra money to visit. Another taxi driver told us last night that after 20 years of driving taxis, he was quitting in a year to move to Germany, where a friend will help him find something new to do. I’m not sure who will be left to drive taxis next year.

It’s pretty amazing to walk down the street and hear conversations that I can’t understand at all. It’s tough in English sometimes, too, because the accent is different, and not everyone’s English has the same accent. In a loud bar, even Australians are a little hard to follow.

Since opening my mouth at all pretty much flags me as foreign (though not necessarily American, it turns out), I’m finding myself pretty shy when I do have to talk. Buying groceries took forever because I didn’t want to ask where the peanutbutter was kept. I also try not to look at my map a lot when I go walking around, and it will probably be a week or so before I do anything so touristy as bring my camera along anywhere. Sorry, Mom.

Work starts next week. In the meantime, I’ve been reading the Cape Times (where I’ll be working) and listening to local radio to get a feel for current events. Politics and government spending is big. Sport is big. A few American items have popped up already; they’re mostly editorials about the presidential race. Barack Obama is in, Sarah Palin posing with slain caribou is out. Calvin & Hobbes is also in.

I’ve included the view from my bedroom. I’m on the 11^th floor, which is what we would call the 12^th, and to the north I have a great view of Table Mountain and some suburbs. There’s more city on the other side of the mountain, and I’m sure I’ll be hiking up there before the month is over.