Sitting on top of the mountain!

So it's been a pretty eventful last few days. School is a lot of fun, as always. I am getting to teach more and more of my own lessons to the whole class. I mainly do english reading and spelling. I want to come up with a little thing to teach them about marketing - perhaps make them draw their own advertisement. My class is older than some of the classes that the other volunteers got, so I feel like I can go a little further in teaching and teach them things that I am really interested in so that they can learn a little bit more about me.

Outside of school, we have all been really busy exploring. On Monday we went to Canal Walk, the third largest mall in the entire continent. Some of the stores were pretty cool, and I probably bought a few too many things. I can't help it - it is all so freaking cheap! I have found that when comparing prices and value to the US, international brands like Coke or Nike equate to about the same price regardless of what currency it is in, but brands that are specific to South Africa or Africa as a whole are really cheap compared to how much you would pay for that product in America. I might need to buy a really cheap suitcase to take home extra stuff in that I buy here.

On Tuesday a few of us went to a botanical garden. We didn't make the connection that it's winter here so the garden might not be so beautiful. We still had lots of fun, but it was kind of a grey, dismal day. On Wednesday we climbed Table Mountain. This was probably the best day I've had here so far. None of us had hiked a mountain before, and we were kind of expecting a little more...guidance. There were no maps, no directional signs, no NOTHING. I mean, I wasn't expecting a cheering section and an information booth at the halfway, but at least a few signs every so often saying "Don't worry, you're still going the right way." The only information we did get was from an employee at the bottom of the hill saying "that path is easier, that one over there is harder." Of course we chose the harder one. We all slipped a few times, but none of us fell off the mountain - yay! A few hours later, we were just running around the top of Table Mountain, seeing the beautiful view of Cape Town from above. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. We watched the sunset over the ocean from the top of the mountain and then took a cable car down. My legs were a little sore today, but it was absolutely worth it.