Scholar Orientation Weekend

This past weekend was my Rotary Scholar Orientation Weekend. Rotary International paid for all 33 of us South African scholars to stay in a hostel in downtown Cape Town for three days and spend some quality time together. Unlike my American outbound scholar orientation, this one involved minimal Rotary indoctrination. Not that I don't love a little "Service above Self".

On Friday, we all met at the hostel and then drove to the base of Lion's Head, the mountain right next to Table Mountain, overlooking the downtown area. This is what Lion's Head looks like:


No, we didn't climb all the way up. Here are some pics I took (or stole from Trevor) of the climb:

The city bowl area

Camps Bay

The Scholars enjoying sundowners in a shady cave

On the way down, we were met by a group of Rotarians who had organized an African drumming lesson for us. We were part way down the mountain, overlooking the city at sunset. Perfect!


We had dinner that night at our scholarship coordinator's beautiful home in the Gardens neighborhood of Cape Town.

On Saturday we got up at the crack of dawn and went down to the waterfront to the Royal Cape Yacht Club. This was where we had breakfast:


The rest of the day was full of speakers, some more interesting than others. That night we all enjoyed ourselves out on the town, to various degrees... someone came back to my room at the hostel at 4 am.


On Sunday we were up early again and off to do some dragon boat racing. We split into two teams, and had three races. Unfortunately, my team only won one out of the three. And I got drenched by an unnamed scholar's fast and furious paddling technique. Other than that, it was great fun!

My huge muscles made me an amazing dragon boat racer. Fierce!

Then we piled back into the vans and drove to Stellenbosch - wine country - for the afternoon. It must be one of the most beautiful places on the planet. We enjoyed some wine and a braai (South African barbeque) and wandered through the vineyards and gardens. Amazing!

The entire Scholar group

Jen Hotsko in the vineyard

Probably the most beautiful garden in the world

From there, we went on to Kirstenbosch, a botanical garden not too far from my home, where they host outdoor concerts every Sunday night. Although we only made it for the last few songs, we brought our picnic basket and enjoyed the scenery. We will definitely be going back! We ended the night with a big dinner at an Italian restaurant down the street and said our goodbyes.

Classes are now in full swing. I have a zillion pages of reading to do. Fortunately I only have class for 5 hours a week. Aaaah, the life of a grad student!