Qwaqwa

       We have officially made it to Qwa-Qwa which is the other campus of the University of the Free State.  It's in a valley between huge mountains, so quite like JMU it's VERY windy. And absolutely freezing. It was actually snowing and hailing a little bit ago and I'm typing in the computer lab wearing gloves.  It's very cold and in about 5 minutes we're supposed to head outside and play traditional South African sports games.
       Yesterday on our way here we got to go through Golden Gate National Park, which was very pretty. We even saw zebras in real life!!!! It was so cool! They were just there in real life! We also saw Wildabeasts, Spring Buck, and bisbuck. Those names may be wrong but it's something like that! But zebras in real life! They were so cool! Then after we got here we checked into our rooms. It's three to a room and the rooms are ginormous and so warm. Warm enough that you actually want to take your jacket off in the room. And they aren't JMU style triples, they're big rooms and lots of room for everyone! It's so wonderful! And each room has it's own color theme and ours is pink. Brooke isn't a huge fan but I love it! After checking into our rooms we headed down to dinner which was STEAK and potatoes. It was delicious. They also served us maize, which looked similar to mashed potatoes but was more grainy in texture. The maize was very interesting and I couldn't really tell if I liked it or not. But the steak and potatoes were absolutely delicious.  After dinner there was a impromptu dance sesh where Michael Jackson came on and everyone formed a circle around this guy who may have actually been Michael Jackson reincarnated. After that we were kicked out of the dining hall because it was closing and we headed back to the room to have a chat with some of our South African friends. It was a lot of fun! Then I decided I wanted to shower after our long 5 hour bus ride from Bloemfontein to Qwaqwa. Turns out everyone else decided to do the same because I had to take a freezing cold shower. It wasn't fun at all. This morning though they had hot water again for everyone who wanted to wait until the morning to shower.
        This morning we went on a tour of the town surrounding Qwaqwa and drove to the top of a mountain to get a bird's eye view of the town. It was freezing and really windy. Kind of like being on Skyline side during the windy winter at JMU. We took amazing pictures and got to see awesome rock formations and got a great view of the town. We all lost feeling in our fingers and toes but at least we got great pictures! After that we headed back to Qwaqwa for lunch which was fried chicken, cauliflower and broccoli covered in cheese and rice. It was delicious as well. We all decided we wanted to stay here and not go back to Bloemfontein because of the food. (Sorry Bloem!) This afternoon we're supposed to be playing traditional South African games, both board games and physically active games, but it's currently sleeting outside. So that makes us all hesitant to leave the dorm and head across campus to the gym where we're playing. Granted, it is only a 6 minute (we timed it this morning) walk across the entire Qwaqwa campus.. Can you imagine? I don't think you could even drive from Festival to Memorial in 6 minutes!
     Hope everyone is enjoying the warm weather! If you would like to see some of the pictures from the Conference you can go to the UFS facebook page and look through the photos. Just a warning.... we may or may not appear to be sleeping in some of them. We have to get up at 6am every morning! Here's the website: https://www.facebook.com/UFSUV enjoy!