Blake Tyra's South Africa Study Abroad Blog: Getting Involved

Friday, February 26th, 2015

9:00pm South African Standard Time

Weather 75° F Sunny

I am finally over my sickness and out and about again. It was a rough and boring past 2 weeks, but I made it. I watched 3 full seasons of Breaking Bad, if that says anything. Now that I am back in the swing of things, I am becoming more involved on campus and with other students outside of class. NMMU sends out at least 10 emails a day to us students about different activities and clubs to get involved with on campus. I am impressed with how much they have to offer students and that they greatly encourage campus involvement. It has made it easy for me to find events and activities I am interested in.

On Wednesday, I attended a Beethoven Concert on campus. It was wonderful! The stage was set with 2 Steinway pianos that filled the auditorium with lovely music by excellent pianists. The program had many different instrumental combos. They started the show with a piano player and singer that performed Adelaide, a song that Beethoven composed based off the German poem by Friedrich von Matthisson. The next performance was a beautiful piano solo of the 3^rd movement of Sonate Op.81a. The third performance was an amazing piano duet of the 3^rd movement of Concerto No.5 in E-flat Major. It was breathtaking and exciting to watch 4 sets of hands swiftly glide along the shining keyboards. They were in perfect sync and executed the entire song perfectly and gracefully. The final performance was a triumphant piano and French horn duet. They performed Sonata for Horn & Piano. The French horn player was out of this world. He has the shiniest horn I have ever seen and he played it with such grace and power. I didn’t know French horns could play that loud! It was a fantastic concert and made me miss the 20+ piano practice rooms at St. Cloud State and the 2 pianos in the basement of my dorm. There are limited pianos on NMMU’s campus and none at my hotel. However, I have gotten the chance to play some piano while I’ve been here; when I was volunteering at the Cheshire home for disabled adults on Monday, I played in the dining hall for the residents. After my first song, wheelchairs were filing in to the dining like a plethora of cars on I-394 during rush hour. It was fun to play for the residents and give them something to brighten their day. Their favorite song was Ode to Joy—which just so happened to be by Beethoven.

This school is so cool! They have their very own surfing club. Surfing is the big thing here: From sunup till sundown you can spot surfers riding the waves along the beach. I looked into the club and found out that they have lessons for beginners. I think it would be a blast to learn to surf, so I signed up for their next available lessons in the end of March. I am excited to see what it’s really like and to have a whole new watersport adventure, something a bit different than MN watersports.

I am so looking forward to this weekend. On Friday, 15 of us international students will be driving out to Plettenberg Bay for the weekend. The bay is a two and a half hour drive west from Port Elizabeth, towards Cape Town. We have reserved a large room at a lodge for Friday and Saturday night. The lodge looks amazing from the pictures and has great reviews on Trip Advisor. It even has everything we need for a braai so we are starting the weekend with a good old South African braai barbeque. Over the weekend we have some really fun things planned so far. I am most looking forward to going crayoning. I’ll be able to ”Explore the river with AfriCanyon, navigate through the river shallows, jump, zip-line, swim through fresh-water mountain pools, slide down natural water slides and abseil in and around waterfalls as you dip down into the river gorge”. It sounds like a mixture of rock climbing, zip lining, a natural waterpark and walking through parts of the river. Sign me up! Another excursion we have planned is to go swimming with seals. They are soooo cute!!! In Florida I swam with dolphins and had a blast. I am excited to get in the water with more marine life and have another experience of a lifetime. Our last planned activity is a monkey park. We have heard really good things about it. It sounds like a fun time and should provide some excellent pictures for my blog. There are other things we still could do, such as explore some cool hiking trails and go to a cheetah park. It is looking to be a fantastic weekend that I am very excited for. I am ready to continue making the most out of my time here and soak up all the beauty, adventure and relaxation that South Africa has to offer.

Erin on the beach boardwalk