Durban...for seven months.

Hello all.

I arrived in Durban on Saturday evening and was met at the airport by Ellie (the other Durban intern from the Canadian Bar Association) and a friend of one of the previous interns. Jan (the friend) took Ellie and I back to our temporary accommodation. It definitely leaves something to be desired, but the view is amazing.

We are currently living beach-side and it is quite gorgeous and is making me want to learn to surf. There is something about seeing those surfers out there every morning and is very appealing.

Yesterday Ellie and I wandered down the beach to the soccer stadium built for the World Cup last year. I can't figure out what is going on there now, as there doesn't appear to be a sports team that is using it. However, right next door is the much more important rugby stadium where the Natal Sharks play. Hoping to get to a match in the near future (Currie Cup is going on right now). Oh, and rugby. As some of you know, rugby World Cup started this week and it is everywhere on TV and tons of jerseys. LOVE IT!!!! I have accepted that I will be cheering for the Boks in their pool, although yesterday's match had some split loyalties as SA was playing Wales and generally I would be cheering for Wales. In the Canada pool though, I will be cheering for Canada loudly and the South Africans seem to be good with that, as it seems to be an attitude of "Anybody but the All Blacks".

After our wanderings, we headed out to the suburbs where a co-intern of Ellie's (Amy) lives and invited us over for a Braai (South African BBQ). Amy's fiancee is doing his post-doc here in Durban researching HIV/Aids, and invited a number of his coworkers over as well. Mostly American's doing medical research involving HIV/Aids or TB. Mostly very interesting. It was great to get out of just our little neighbourhood and see a little more of Durban and made me feel just that much more settled in. Today has involved some apartment hunting and researching, but I plan on

having only one more general settling in day and then start work on Wednesday. Excited for that.

And because none of you helped with the naming of "Yet to Be Named" Ellie took the initiative and has named him Johann. My guess is he must be a fairly musical penguin, so that adds some interest to our traveling group.