Alec in Cape Town

Here's an update on Alec's semester in Cape Town:

 

Long overdue report on life and adventures from the past few months.  For those of you who don't know, I've been studying in Cape Town, South Africa, since early July and it has been amazing.  Aside from taking courses at the University of Cape Town, I've been doing a lot of adventuring and hiking.  The hiking here is insanely great.  My dorm is right at the bottom of Devil's Peak, which makes hiking in the NH White Mountains seem tame despite being a bit smaller.  Trails involve shuffling around massive boulders while inches from 100+ foot cliffs in wind with 30 mph gusts.  There are also literally hundreds of trails that go farther than you can go in a day, so I keep trying new ones and have yet to be disappointed.  Sure beats that hundred and fiftieth run through the Brunswick Commons.  Other fun activities the last few weeks have included shark cage diving with great whites, bungee jumping off the highest bridge bungee in the world, visiting beaches, a mountain biking wine and brandy tasting tour with my dad (visited for a week in August), and exploring the city.

 

I just got back a few hours ago from our week long spring break during which I did a road trip with 6 friends from the program that I'm on.  We stayed at backpacking hostels and the like while driving up what's called the Wild Coast--- the eastern coastline of South Africa.  We did a short safari in a large national park/elephant reserve, went hiking, tried to learn to surf, and culminated by spending 4 days at an eco-friendly backpacker lodge in a remote village called Bulungula.  This place literally was only accessible by walking or ATV's until 2010, and now is an incredible destination in by far the coolest place I've ever been.  It's partnered with the village community and so 40% of it's profits go to help the surrounding community.  Honestly I don't even really know how to describe it right now--I'm still feeling shocked back into civilization right now being back in the city-- it was so totally different from how I've been used to living, and I can't express how incredible it was.

 

Anyway, I'm back now and will try to be in better touch with people through facebook etc.  I hope orientation and the start of classes went well for everyone.  Don't work to hard at school and have a blast training while you still can before Nathan starts throwing erg tests and intervals at you.

Hei Hei frå Svalbard!

More Svalbard details and video from Riley:

Here is Kaitlynn and my first blog post from Norway/ever. We have now been in Longyearbyen for a little over a month and we are having a really awesome time. We both live in neighboring barracks, formerly housing for Norwegian miners.

It's a 3k walk to UNIS (school) every morning, the northernmost university in the world.  UNIS is the only school in the world that gives out rifles to their students and live rounds for shooting polar bears. While we’re on about record breaking, I challenge anyone to try and swim outside further north than 79º. Classes have been going well and we just got off a weeklong cruise with our respective departments. Every time I (Riley) go running it feels like I’m on a boat. My professor is also a real B.A. (beautiful animal). She and I (rock) bouldered underneath our kitchen table, an activity I am going to bring to our ski team.

Kaitlynn and Maeve (Colby skier/enemy) are teaching everyone how to knit and I am teaching people how to make bread and ski. This past weekend was particularly exciting. Yesterday all three of us competed in a Quadrathalon, which consists of a 5k kayak, 13k mountain bike, 5 rounds of shooting at 40m and a 6k run! Kaitlynn won for the women and I was second. Going into the shooting range I was first but unfortunately my years of getting rid of squirrels on the farm had not prepared me for the big guns and I missed one shot. Kaitlynn missed one too, but not as badly. The guy who beat me was a master Norwegian skier from the mainland who had some game, which makes me feel better. Maeve’s kayak kept turning to the right so she canoed the first part of the race.

Today, we followed Nathan’s training plan and did a 2.25 hr over distance ski w/ specific strength…ON A GLACIER! It took us 50 minutes to hike from the cheese block (Kaitlynn’s barrack) to get the glacier. We brought our German friend Tobias as well, featured in the film.

So far no polar bear sightings yet except for the dead stuffed ones in Longyearbyen, but we have seen whales, polar fox and lots of very fat Svalbard reindeer.