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Week 7: Student Life in Stellie

By rbhargava

As usual, Week 7 in South Africa was another fun-filled week of fun activities and adventures. Some of the highlights were a braii (barbecue) with classmates from the LSCE course I am in on Friday, a trip to Simonstown on Saturday with some residents of Metanoia, and paragliding in Cape Town on Sunday. This week I'll talk more about life in Stellenbosch and focus on some of the everyday aspects of being a student here.

I may have mentioned it earlier, but in the center of campus is a student mall called the Neelsie - complete with dining options, a small grocery store, pharmacy, barbershop, bookstore, and more. On the top floor is a computer lab and space for student society offices. During the day, the mall is completely packed with students, and is a great place to grab lunch and appreciate how many students are at Stellenbosch, and how diverse the student population is. Although Afrikaans is the language of choice for most students, you'll hear English, Xhosa, German (so many German exchange students), and many other languages while sitting in the dining area of the Neelsie. By far my favorite part of the Neelsie though is the movie theater inside - run by the Pulp Film Society. The movie theater has 2 theaters, each showing 4 movies everyday of the week. Each theater has a selection of 4 movies that it shows everyday, and those movies rotate throughout the week. Members can come in and watch any of the movies playing for free at any time, and can grab popcorn or some snacks from the snack bar. The society also has a large range of dvds that members can rent for 10 rand (about $1). The selection of movies playing both in the theaters and available for rent are superb, and thus I have gone several times to watch movies in my free time. Most recently, this past week was German cinema week in one of the theaters, so I was able to watch two fantastic German films - The Lives of Others and The Edukators. As one can assume, the Pulp Society is quite a dangerous one, as any free time can easily be devoted to going to see a movie for free. Pulp is one of the reasons Stellenbosch is such a great place to study, and I can only hope that GW can follow suit and create a similar society with proper facilities in DC to enrich student life in Foggy Bottom.

Having been in Stellenbosch (or Stellie as many students like to call it) for over a month and a half, there are also many funny details about life here. Although Stellenbosch is a relatively small town and one can walk almost anywhere in the town within 30 minutes, many international students end up renting/buying bikes. The university rents bikes out to international students called MatieBikes and quickly ran out within the second day of international student orientation. The bikes are relatively cheap bikes that a Dutch student astutely pointed out were actually part of a bikeshare program in the Netherlands that the university must have bought are painted over with "MatieBike" written on it.  Many more international students who wanted bikes did not get a MatieBike in time, and therefore were forced to buy the cheapest bike - a "Spider" from a local bike store. By far the cheapest bike in town, the Spider has taken over all the bike racks in town along with the MatieBikes, and local students enjoy laughing at these ridiculously ugly and poor functioning bikes all over town. The fact that the majority of bike riders in the town are international students anyways makes the town an interesting home to the most uniform (and horrible) bike selection in the world - MatieBikes and Spiders.

Although there is much to do in Stellie, many international students (including myself) have all found many different things to do in their free time. For many, this means wine tasting as there are over 200 different wineries in the region. So if you want to become a wine connoisseurs in your free time as a student, this is the place to be. Stellenbosch also happens to be surrounded by beautiful mountains, so many others like to hike the mountains. There are a few nature reserves nearby, and the hikes are absolutely beautiful. From my previous posts, you probably noticed I fall under this category and have hiked several times since getting to Stellie. The last big thing to do around here is of course surfing. Stellenbosch is about 20-25 minutes from some of the best beaches in the world for surfing, and some exchange students here have come primarily or partly because they wanted to surf here. The surfing society here takes students out to the beaches twice a week, where they can escape the stress of university life on the waves. With all that said, between wine tastings, hiking, surfing, and all the other great outdoor options in the area, it is easy for everyone to find something to do around here. Where else can you wake up on a free day and have a million different choices of what to do and where to go. In any given day, students can hike a mountain, surf a wave, go on a safari, whale watch, visit Cape Town...No doubt, it would be hard to find a better place to be a student and appreciate life than here in Stellenbosch!