June 30: Rugby!

It's Friday, but there's no braai this weekend; we're holding off until Monday, which is the Fourth of July. I'd never really thought about celebrating Independence Day in another country, but it's going to be really cool. We've got some special stuff planned!

My classes are going really well. I turned in my bio-diversity essay over the family Proteaceae today. Since we had Monday off in Swellendam, this week of classes goes until next Tuesday. We have the weekend off in between of course.

Tomorrow we're going into Cape Town. We're going to spend some time in the city and go up Table Mountain. I really hope the weather's good! It's been pretty nice, cold, but today was clear again.

This weekend is a really important weekend in Cape Town. The Super 15 Rugby (the main rugby competition in the southern hemisphere) semi-finals are in town! I don't claim to understand all of how the Super Rugby Union league works, but as best as I can tell it's like this... There are three countries that compete in this league: South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Each country has five teams. The teams play each other nationally and internationally throughout the season. The game tomorrow is the Western Province Stormers (Cape Town) vs the Crusaders (Christchurch, New Zealand). Even though there are rivalries between the South African teams, pretty much everyone in the country will be supporting the Stormers tomorrow, since they're the South African team.

One of the girls on my trip was able (amazingly) to somehow get six tickets to the game tomorrow. I was lucky enough to be able to get ahold one of them! We had tried to get tickets on Monday when they went on sale, but they were already sold out. I think she was able to bid for them online. It only cost a few hundred rand, which isn't that much money at all (only around $30ish), especially for a semi-final game like this! I'm really excited! After Table Mountain tomorrow, we're going to stay in Cape Town for the game which starts in the late afternoon. My roommate, Phil, is going with us too. I don't know too much about rugby, some of the South African guys have been trying to explain it to me since we got here, so I'm starting to get it. We got here right in the middle of rugby season, and on my first night here Philip - South African Philip, not roommate Phillip (who we call Phil) - and Dirk were trying to teach me about it when we watched the Stormers play the Sharks on TV. It's going to be a really cool experience! I think I at least know when to cheer and for whom. (White and blue is good, red and black is bad!)