Done with MSK!! Woo Hoo!

I have officially finished the musculoskeletal and rheumatology sequence, yay!! Tomorrow it's off to Toronto for the weekend to hang out with Taylor and have some Canadian fun times! I love that driving to Toronto is possible. Just four more days of class until this semester is finished! I can't believe M2 year is halfway over, eek!

It's been a while!

The past couple weeks have been kind of crazy. I eventually finished my neuro exam and passed the class, yay!! I also cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner for my family which turned out pretty great! The Ohio State-Michigan game was very exciting and came down to the very end when we went for two and didn't get it. Was a very sad ending, but Michigan fought very hard!

After a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with my family I started the musculoskeletal/rheumatology sequence. I just took my quiz and the pathology final over the weekend and now we are into week two of the sequence, which is the final week! I'm going to Toronto this weekend, and I am very excited about that, and then just a week of dermatology before winter break! I am so excited to have a few weeks to spend in California, and I will be starting my proactive Zyrtec tonight so I don't get sick, woo!

This past weekend was also Tag Day, which is an annual fundraiser one of the student groups I am in does to raise money for Mott Childrens Hospital and various other children's charities and organizations in Washtenaw County. I had to solicit money on the street for many hours (11 in total actually), but it was mostly fun. Some people were very generous and some were rude, but at least I was with my classmates.

This post was hectic and unorganized, sorry!

A lovely singing quartet that donated to us and then serenaded us

Tagging with Bella and Allen during Midnight Madness

We met a synchronized skater on the street who want to apply to Michigan

Chuggin Along on the Neuro Train

Nothing much new here. I had a sleep study on Thursday night, and let me tell you, sleeping with a nose down my nose and throat was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. I didn't get very much sleep at all so we will have to wait and see what the study even saw (I'm really expecting mostly normal). Besides that I got my new car, woo!! I am in love with it. I also officially sold my sister's car, which ended up being quite dramatic as Molly neglected to notice that BOTH of her front tires were almost completely flat. I'm talking rims barely off the ground had to call AAA to get some air just to get the the gas station to pump them up flat. It was ridiculous. The sale ended up taking two and a half hours, but the family was really nice! I enjoyed hanging out with them for the afternoon at least and we sure had a LOT of time to bond.

It was also Big Game weekend, which went incredibly wonderful for me (sorry to all the Bear fans in the family). We won Big Splash and crushed it in Big Game, setting records for the most points scored by a team in the rivalry (63) and for the biggest margin of victory in Big Game (50). Arizona also joined the party by defeating Oregon and putting Stanford into the Pac-12 Championship game in two weeks. Basically all was good on Saturday (beside my study habits!).

Speaking of studying, it's my Neuro final weekend (which goes until Wednesday). I'm chugging along trying to shove all of the information into my brain in order to take my exam. I am hoping to take it tomorrow, though I am not going to push it if I am not ready. I also went to the dentist today (yay clean teeth) and picked up the Thanksgiving turkey! I studied by the fireplace in the Ann Arbor Public Library afterwards and it quickly became my new favorite study location. I think I will be headed there a lot more often from now on. It also snowed a lot this weekend. So much fun. It was 18 degrees of awesome. Winter is really really here now. At least the weather of The Game (Ohio State-Michigan) on Saturday is "milder." Its high of 37º and low of 30º. Could be worse!!

Back to studying. Ive been rambling too long :)

Sleep study-ing

Go Stanford!

Lots of snow

White everywhere

Studying at the public library

Another week of Neuro in the books!

This weekend we had our second neuroscience quiz, which explains my utter lack of posting. I am so much busier this year than I was last year and it feels so crazy! The work load doesn't feel and less manageable, but for some reason the time just slips away. I think it may be because I am in class more. Today was a crazy 8 hours of lecture! That's way too long to be sitting in one place and listening to people talk about confusing things. We finished up with the nervous system and neuromuscular junction and muscle disorders and then moved onto the ear. Boy oh boy is the ear a complicated and confusing organ. Every day I am more amazed by how often everything goes according to plan in the human body (and in the body of all organisms on Earth really). It's crazy stuff! This week we are finishing up the ear and learning about the eye and vision and then it's time for the neuroscience and special senses final exam on all 1,106 pages of our syllabus. Sounds like fun times, doesn't it!

And Ann, I will send you that recipe soon. I haven't had a chance to scan it yet, but I'm going to try to remember this week!!

Best Brussels Sprouts!

So last night I made another meal from Plated. Monkfish with mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts with pancetta and hazelnuts. I must day the brussels sprouts were the best I have ever eaten and they were so easy! I will definitely be making them again! Thats all really. Still in neuro, did a TweetChat for admission tonight. Nothing else is really all that new or exciting. Just renewing my love of cooking plate by plate!

First Snow

November 11, 2013. That is the date of the first snow in Ann Arbor for the 2013-2014 winter season. Boy, did winter start earlier this year! There was snow in the forecast but no one actually thought it would snow, which made everything quite a surprise. I saw a few flakes falling amongst the raindrops just around sundown and thought that must be the snow they were talking about. A few hours later, however, I looked outside to find all the plants on the ground dusted in white and all the cars were essentially coated in snow. Molly's car even saw the snow for the first time! I guess we are in for a long winter out here. Maybe I should finally go downstairs and get all of my warmest clothes out of the storage unit so I have a nice warm jacket to wear when I have to walk outside! The snow is pretty much all gone now, leaving only a few patches behind to remind us all that winter has come. I am now extra ready for Christmas as I see the 70+ degree weather in California.

On a different note we are now in the Neuroscience sequence and have a 1,106 page course pack for three weeks of material. It is crazy! The first quiz went well though and the subject matter is mostly interesting, so it is one of the more enjoyable sequences thus far I must say. Our final is right before Thanksgiving so I get some time off for the holidays without any studying to do at all, yay! I also signed up for a weekly food delivery thing called Plated. Basically you order a few meals from the menu each week and they deliver you all of the fresh ingredients. You then follow the recipe and cook the delicious meal and its wonderful! Such a nice way to get some new ideas and have a few new things to eat. I'm going to have to use it sparingly because it's expensive, but boy is it delicious! I just got my second box today to try out some new yummy recipes! Woo hoo! It has also encouraged me to make some other new and creative dishes which is nice. I used some leftovers to create a delicious stuffed baked tomato the other night, and I also made some amazing sundried tomato and goat cheese stuff chicken roulades wrapped in prosciutto! Yay for eating delicious foods!

Another beautiful afternoon in the Big House vs. Nebraska… we lost :(

My chicken roulades (copied from MasterChef Junior)

My first meal from Plated: Polenta pizza crust with ricotta, brussel sprouts, and cremini mushrooms

Another Plated meal: Steak with homemade pilaf and Swiss chard

Molly's car dusted with snow

Snow this morning on my walk to class

Peds Pulmonary Clinic

Yesterday I "shadowed" in the pediatric pulmonary clinic at the children's hospital. I thought I would just be shadowing, but I ended up going to get the patient histories by myself before presenting it to the attending physician. It was actually a much better experience that I anticipated and I felt way more comfortable doing clinical work by the end of the afternoon. I even caught a physical exam before on one of the children finding the doctor listened to the patient! The parents of all the kids were also great and I had no problems yay. I love kids!

CFM week has come to an end

This week was the last of our two week CFM block. The first two days of the week were jam packed but the rest of the week was glorious. I slept in every day (I'm so spoiled now), had some time to catch up on TV, and just generally got to relax. I got some new jeans and almost got some boots, but they were very expensive, so I didn't try them on in fear of liking them! I also gave a mini tour of Ann Arbor with my friend Juan as part of my Admissions Ambassador duties on Thursday night, and afterwards I went upstairs to decorate some cupcakes like Minions from Despicable Me (although I havent actually seen the movie). Yesterday was our school wide Halloween party and I went as Rainbow Brite! I was so excited because I loved that cartoon, but no one knew who it was and that made me feel old. People thought I was just dressing up as a rainbow. The party was fun until my foot got stepped on my someone in a stiletto, and then I left because it hurt really bad. My friend and I went to get pizza, which was amazingly delicious, and then we went home. Today I slept in and I'll probably go out shopping with my friend sometime soon. Thats all folks!

Minion cupcakes!

Here's a bonus picture of the Chocolate Chip Banana Break Upsidedown Cake I made a few weeks ago. It was amazing!

5 Year Weekend

This past weekend was my five year reunion at Stanford. I can't believe it has already been five years! Being back on campus with all of my friends felt like we had never left, which was so bizarre. There was a food truck party, a class tailgate, the football game, and general hanging out fun. I missed the class party to go back to the easy bay to hang out with my family, but considering I was totally passed out by midnight and so so tired much earlier. I went to both the Stanford and Cal games on Saturday, which made for a lot of football. The Stanford game was great, but the Cal game was really sad. The team really doesn't look too great this year. I spent Sunday hanging out with my parents, hitting up the farmer's market and REI and downtown WC. Good times. Took the red eye back to Michigan and arrived this morning quite early. I slept from about 8am to 1pm and was worried that I wouldn't be tired enough tonight but I fell asleep during final jeopardy so I'm guessing all will be just fine.

Stanford's Main Quad 

Beating UCLA

With Poppy and Debbie at the game

Onto CFM

This weekend was full of a lot of studying for my Renal final and the Renal Pathology exam, followed by taking said exams. They were actually quite hard and I had to calm myself down in the middle of the main final because I started to get scared of what would happen if I failed. I did not even come close to failing though so that was great! Now we have two weeks of CFM which means open book exam and no crazy studying. I do have to do a full history and physical in the morning which is slightly terrifying because we havent done that in forever. I tried to look over everything tonight but I really wish I had a few more days. At least I will look like I'm greatly improved next week when we do it again (look for the positives, right?). After tomorrow my schedule is glorious for the next two weeks and I can't! This weekend features a trip back to California for my 5-year reunion at Stanford, some great football games, and I get to see my family and my puppies! Can't wait!

New Phone!

My new phone came today and I am so excited! I got a nice new Vera Bradley case and updated everything. Some things are just so weirdly fun and exciting. Besides that I got a lot done today. I sold both of our Michigan v. Indiana football tickets for when I go to California next week (yay!), I cancelled two mail accounts I've been meaning to cancel for a while, and the work on our condo is pretty much done minus a little paint. Good times!

Nothing too exciting

This weekend was quite nice, but the weather sucked and it poured. I had nothing to do so I got some sleep in days, went shopping (but didn't buy anything), had brunch with a friend, and watched some football. Michigan, Stanford, the Niners, and the Raiders all won, and as of tonight the A's are up and one game away from clinching the ALDS. Good times for my sports teams (sorry Cal). This week is our last of Renal and then two weeks of CFM with a glorious schedule which features many mornings off. I will gladly take extra sleep in days, thank you very much! Thats all really :)

A Few Days of Chaos and No Sleep

This week has been pretty crazy and most of my free time has been spent in urgent care and the ER. My sister got cellulitis in her foot/ankle and it got pretty bad so after a trip to urgent care and the follow up visit she was sent to the ER for 24 hours of IV antibiotics. The poor girl also had to suffer through FIVE attempts at IV placement before it was all set up for treatment. Crazy. This pseudo-admission (she just stayed in the ED since it was going to likely be less than 24 hours) also meant that I played chauffeur and food getter in between trying to sleep and get to class. I was happy to do it, but now that it is all over, BOY, am I exhausted! I can't wait for this weekend that is free of quiz and there will be plenty of time for relaxing and sleeping in and doing a whole lot of NOTHING (plus shopping). My sister is now fine and the IV antibiotics definitely helped a lot. Lets hope the new oral meds continue to get rid of the nasty bug. I only wish they had cultured it because I really want to know exactly what it is! Now it time to watch a tiny bit of TV and hit the hay for a hopefully long nights rest. Whew!

Hey Again

I know I've been lacking in the blogging department lately, so sorry about that. I've spent this whole week sick which has been really fun, and last weekend I spent all of my time at school studying for and taking my respiratory final exams which went well. We are now in the renal sequence which is a bit confusing overall, but hopefully it will come together. I have a quiz this weekend so I must go study soon again, yay. Next weekend we have another non quiz weekend so that will be nice! Last night we went to my friend's apartment building to celebrate her birthday. It was nice to hang out with people agin for a little bit, since I havent really done that much with anyone outside of class for a while now. So now it's off to the LRC for renal fun. Ciao.

What the Fox Say?

Watch this. You will be happier. You're welcome.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE)

A weekend away

Over the weekend I traveled to the east coast for my college teammate Hilary's wedding! It was in Marblehead, Massachusetts and it was wonderful. So good to see Hil and a few other friends from college. I flew in Providence, Rhode Island (got to add a new airport to my list, woot!) and rented a car to drive to Marblehead. It was a really quick trip but I'm glad I was able to go. Other than the wedding I'm just getting through respiratory. It's not my favorite sequence thus far, but that's okay. It's over after this weekend so it's really short.

I also went to water polo practice last night. I had a great time and it's making me really want to play. I'm just going to play it by ear and go when I can, but not feel obligated to go when I'm too tired or too busy. Who knows if I will actually play for the whole season, but it can't hurt to get a work out in every so often do something fun that I enjoy.

Cardio done and onto Respiratory

Cardio just finished over the weekend and now we are in the Respiratory sequence, which still has a lot to learn, but lecture time is seriously less (though one of our lectures did go 36 minutes overtime today, ugh). This afternoon we had some optional hospital visits, which turned out to be more like three hours of workshops. I started in the simulation center and learned how to intubate on a dummy. I only "broke" one tooth on my first attempt, but got the tube in the right place. The other two times I got the tube in without any problems and never "killed my patient." After intubation I learned how to do bronchoscopy in the sim lab. I got the hang of it pretty quickly and it was really cool! After that we learned about ventilators and I was sitting right in front of the respiratory therapist. He decided that I got to be the dummy to use the ventilator (not with an endotrachial tube, just with a mouth piece). It was so freaking weird and not all that lovely when you don't actually need it, especially when the PEEP is high since you can't really breathe out very well against it. After the ventilator demonstration we went to a patients room in the critical care unit to learn a little bit about a case. Boy did I feel useless, but I have to remember that after only three lectures (all of which were introductory and one of which was only radiology) I am not supposed to know everything about respiratory physiology yet. The one thing that bothered me was seeing the nurses interact with the patient. They were changing her since she is on a ventilator and they kept laughing at what they were doing (the patient seems fairly conscious too) and even dropped some feces covered pads on the floor of the room. It seemed fairly unprofessional to me, but what can I do at this point. After the critical care unit we went down to the pediatric pulmonary labs and saw how PFTs are done. I volunteered first, but some other guy in my class jumped in and I didn't get to get tested. Sad. That was the last stop for my small group and then I headed home.

When I got home I saw that the meal I had prepared in the slow cooker was WAY overcooked (guess I should underestimate the time given from now on) and basically inedible, which sucked. Oh well, I learned for next time. Just sucks that I lost all that really good quality chicken. Instead I made delicious cheddar and onion quinoa muffins for dinner and they were amazing!! Thank you Pintrest! I have become addicted, but there are so many good recipes, especially for desserts. After dinner I got to learn how to do a male GU exam. How fun. Tomorrow I have my session with a standardized patient where a few of my classmates and I get to practice the male external genitalia exam and the rectal exam. Not something I have ever envisioned doing in my lifetime; hope it isn't too awkward. I feel bad for the man getting 6 rectal exams in one day by people who have no clue what they are doing! At least he is getting paid handsomely! 

My lovely dinner muffins packed with yummy (and healthy) goodness

Back to the pool

Today I went to my team's water polo practice and got in the pool again. Still not sure if I am going to be able to commit to playing water polo this season, but it was nice to see everyone and get back in the water. Thats all really! Now its bed time. Tomorrow needs to be a long day of studying!

Football Season Begins Again

Yesterday was the official kick-off of college football Saturdays for the year! I am so excited that football is back! Molly and I went the the Michigan vs. Central Michigan game yesterday day and it was great! The score was incredibly lopsided (59-9) but it was a fun atmosphere nonetheless. Those blowout are always much more fun when youre on the winning side, and I have sure been on the loosing side of those enough in my life (see Stanford's results from when I was in college, including a 1-11 season my junior year). Speaking of Stanford, their kickoff is next weekend against San Jose State and I'm excited to watch at least part of it after the long anticipated Michigan-Notre Dame "Under the Lights" game! Stanford has a crazy late kickoff, but they have high expectations this year. Makes me nervous, but should be fun! We've never been favored in all of our games like this before in my lifetime so it's so crazy! Anyways, it was a fun day yesterday and I can't wait for the rest of the season!

FCE Pool Party

This morning I studied for a little bit before heading to Huron Valley Swim Club for a pool party with my FCE group. It was a lot of fun to hang out and have some food and swim. We got a tour of the co-living community our instructor Dr. Greenstone lives in (and apparently was instrumental in the creation of the community fifteen years ago). It is a really cool, peaceful, and beautiful area! We also played some water volleyball and basketball in the pool and then played some of the awesome trampoline games at the pool. There was the trampoline basketball game and a trampoline game called space balls that was a lot of fun. It was also a workout. After hanging out for a bit we all went home and I drove two of my friends home and saw their places because one moved and one I still hadn't been too. When I got home I took a shower and now I'm getting ready to head to the computer lab at school so I can study in an area I focus better in. Yeah for studying on a beautiful weekend evening.

Welcome to M2 Year

Let the craziness begin! I began my second year of medical school on Monday, and boy has it been intense. We are starting with the cardiovascular sequence and they are definitely not easing us in this year. I was in class from 7am-5pm on Monday, 8am-4pm yesterday, and 8am-3:30pm today. Tomorrow is another 8am-4pm day, so needless to say I am pretty exhausted. There is a lot of information to learn and its going really fast. A few lectures have been easy to follow, but there are definitely a few that will require some intense re-studying because they were pretty confusing. I will be so happy when this sequence is over and we have less in class time!

Besides class I have caught up with my classmates during lunch and between lectures and spent some time with my sister at home. I also got the privilege of signing up for my required male GU physical exam session where we all get to learn the ever so exciting prostate exam. Not looking forward to that next month at all. I foresee a severe lack of social life for the next two and a half weeks. This is intense stuff! For now I'm just trying not to get too far behind (I'm already behind, it's impossible not to be with this schedule) so I can enjoy all of the things planned for this weekend! I have a pool party with my FCE group on Saturday that we've had planned since last April or May, and the Stanford new freshman send-off/alumni BBQ at Gallup Park on Sunday. Should be fun, and will be even more fun if I can get my act together and quiz early! Back to studying a bit before bed. Not getting a lot of sleep tonight either it looks like.

Made it to the Beach!

After four flights and many many hours of travel (almost 40!) I am finally at the beach in Aptos enjoying time with family and friends. I have walked on the beach and driven into Capitola and Santa Cruz and eaten delicious food made by Grandma. I have seen dolphins, seals, crabs, and many a sand dollar. Tomorrow is my birthday and life is good :)

Leaving Africa

This morning was my very last in Africa. It was sad, but also exciting to be going home. I definitely hope to come back here some day, and hopefully soon! I had breakfast with some people from my tour and then five of us went into Livingstone to do some last minute craft shopping. We took a cab and then I bought too many unnecessary things, but they are awesome and I am excited about all of them. I got some beautiful bowls, a seed bead and wire baobab tree, a picture, and some other little stuff to remember Zambia and Africa in general. Some of the venders even wanted to trade me goods for my hair tie, so I got one of my bowls for very cheap. 

After shopping we took a cab back to the campsite and I got the rest of my things together and found some cash to pay for my t-shirt that I bought for the tour (I had to borrow USD from the guy from Singapore and get some at the airport to pay him back). Everything worked out just fine. I say goodbye to everyone who was still at the campsite and then four of us took a cab to the airport.

The airport was super tiny and looked like a small warehouse. I got out some cash and changed it to USD to pay back my friend. I got through check in and security with out any issues, though it was a little chaotic. The place to Joburg was fine and I saw Victoria Falls from the plane. I was the only person in all of first class so I got excellent service! I had a delicious meal (dessert isn't in the picture) and was very comfortable. The flight was only about an hour and a half and we landed early. I got through passport control much easier than the last time I was here and it was quick. I picked up my bag from the airport storage and got all rechecked in for my next three flights. After checking in I wandered the airport for a while since I had a lot of time to kill. I got some cheap headphones and went through passport control after a while. 

The international terminal here is quite nice and has a lot of shopping. I looked around and got a few more things and then tried to get my VAT back from a few things I got in Cape Town. The guy was really mean and told me I couldn't get it back because I didn't have some stupid stamp. He at least gave me a form to get it back by mail later. Hopefully it works. Other than that I've basically just been killing time at. The airport, talking to mom and waiting to board. My flight leaves for London in an hour and a half! It's going to be a long one.

Super tiny Livingstone airport. Hard to believe this is an international airport!

This completes the ENTIRE entrance part of the airport with the previous picture.

After going through security you go outside.

And you pass the baggage. We checked them in just on the other side of the windows and they just bring them outside.

Victoria Falls from the airplane

Airplane meal from Livingstone to Johannesburg. Delicious dessert not pictured.

The Final Day (8/6/2013)

This morning began my last full day in Africa for my summer of 2013 adventure. We woke up incredibly  early, just before 5am, and packed up our camp in Botswana, ate some quick breakfast, and headed out. We left so early so we could easily get across the border into Zambia. We got checked out of Botswana pretty easily and then headed to the ferry across the the Zambia side of the river. The spot we ferry across is where Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe all meet at the joining of the Chobe and Zambezi rivers. It was pretty cool to see all four countries and both rivers at one spot. Our driver was stealthy and got on the ferry ahead of all the trucks waiting there, which was great because the ferry only fits two trucks at a time and could have taken ages. We got across the river without issue and then literally ran to the passport control on the Zambian side in order to miss the queue.

We got all the passports and visas sorted out without much issue other than the fact that they had run out of visa stickers so they were writing receipt numbers on people's stamps since only one receipt was given when Justin brought all the passports in together. Luckily I already had my visa so I don't have to worry about anything, since I got mine back in May and I had gone with Justin to ensure they didn't stamp the blank page I saved to get back into South Africa so I can get home tomorrow. After passport control we got back on the truck and headed into Livingstone. 

We stopped briefly in Livingstone to get some money and then headed to see Victoria Falls. It is the dry season so the water coming over the falls is 50 times less than in the wet season, but it was still quite beautiful and impressive. If only I had more passport pages I would have gone to the Zimbabwe side to see the main part of the falls that is more impressive than the Zambian side right now. We were at the falls for about an hour and then went to our campsite at The Waterfront on the Zambezi River.

The campsite is quite nice, and there are a lot of people here from many tours as well as other travelers. The only problem here is that everything is so expensive, and I do not have enough time here. There are so many activities to do here from white water rafting that looks amazing to bungee jumping to elephant rides to microlites. Everything looked like so much fun, but since I didn't have much time all of the options went open to me. I couldn't decide what to do straight away, so I went and had lunch with everyone at the campsite's restaurant while I thought about it. After lunch I decided to go on the lion encounter so I went to the activities center and signed up.

The lion encounter was pretty cool, though kind of expensive. We got picked up at the campsite and en drove to a few other hotels and lodges to pick up more people for the encounter. The facilities were quite pretty and right on a different part of the river. We learned a few safety precautions and then headed out towards the area we would walk with the lions. We also learned about about ALERT, the conservation project the encounter is with. The project basically has four stages and aims to eventually introduce more lions into the various parks and game reserves in Africa since their populations have diminished. Stage one of the program is what we could take part in, where cubs breed in captivity whoare under  eighteen months old are walked in the bush to get used to it and develop some of their wild tendencies. We split up into two groups of nine, and after waiting for some wild elephants to go away, went to meet the lions. 

The lions with my group were brother and sister and were seven months old. They were so cute! I forgot their names but they were great. The male was much more lazy and camp than the female, but both were pretty laid back. The female stepped on my foot once, it was really funny. I got to pet both of the lion cubs both while they were laying down and while we were walking around in the bush. We walked and watched them and learned about them and it was really cool! There was a DVD that was made, but it was $40 so I didn't buy it. Maybe some other time when I have more money for things like that, but right now I'd rather spend my money on fun things since I got so many pictures of the lions anyways along with a video or two. Anyways, we walk around for a bit and also saw a few giraffes along the way and a couple of elephants (luckily in the distance because lions and elephants can create charging elephants and a not so predictable situation). We s the other groups lions pass briefly, and they were much bigger, about 16 months. Ours were definitely cuter I would say. When we got back I also s a hippo with a baby hippo across the river. It was pretty adorable.

Once back from the lion encounter our group all met up for dinner and hanging out together since its our last night as one group before a few of us leave and the rest continue on other Acacia trips in a few days. I had a yummy pizza and a delicious banana split, but I wish I could have found anything a little more African for my last dinner. This place doesn't have African food though, so I will live. We hung out for a while before I got really tired and left to get ready for bed. I am now in my sleeping bag listening to the monkeys in the trees above us. Can't believe this is my last night in this beautiful continent! My time on this tour had been too short, but I'm excited to see everyone at home soon!

At Victoria Falls

The Falls

Awesome 7 month old lions

Chobe (8/5/2013)

Today I got up a little earlier than I needed to in order to enjoy Elephant Sands a bit before we headed to the northern border of Botswana. I wanted to use the Internet, but the generator went on yet, and therefore the Internet also wasn't on. Instead I enjoyed the sunrise and watched the pack of wild dogs that had come to the water hole after their kill for, the pervious night. There were also a lot of different birds including hornbills, so it was quite a lovely morning. After the sunrise I went to take down my tent and then went back to use the wifi really quickly before leaving. It's amazing how while camping I don't feel the need to use wifi constantly since I don't have access to it usually. It's quite nice sometimes, but I definitely don't know what is going on at home or anywhere in the world for that matter.

Once we left Elephant Sands we drove north towards the northern border. There wasn't too much too see, but we did come across a few kudus and some elephants along the drive. We got up to the Chobe National Park area by 11am and stopped at the grocery store to get food for lunch, dinner, and breakfast tomorrow. After the stop we made the quick drive to our campsite at the Thebe River Lodge in Kasane and had sandwiches for lunch.

After lunch we had some free time before meeting at 2:45pm to go on a river safari cruise on the Chobe river. The section that we were on separates Botswana from Namibia, so I have now at the very lest seen Namibia, haha. The cruise was really nice as the scenery was quite beautiful and there were a lot of animals. We saw a ton of elephants (I must admit those sightings have become so common that they aren't that exciting anymore), hippos, red lechwe (a type of antelope), water buck, giraffes, buffalo, various birds (including a very cool African fish eagle), crocodiles, baboons, and large lizards. Again, it's very likely that I forgot something we saw. We also watched the sunset over the Chobe and Namibia which was quite beautiful. 

After the cruise we went back to camp and a delicious chicken and mushroom bake was waiting for us at the campsite. We ate dinner and then heard about the program for tomorrow and then I took a much needed shower. After my shower I had makeshift s'mores with the ingredients I bought at the grocery store before lunch. I say makeshift because the marshmallows were called "yumallows" and were strawberry and vanilla flavor combined and there were so graham crackers so I used coconut tea biscuits. They were delicious anyways, so yum! After dessert we chatted for a bit and now it's time for bed. Can't believe tomorrow is already my last full day in Africa after such a long trip!

Sunrise at Elephant Sands

African wild dogs at the watering hole

Zazu!

Huge croc

Hippo

My tour group

Sunset on the Chobe River

Sunset on the Chobe River

Elephant Sands (8/4/2013)

This morning we woke up and had to pack our things into the new truck. I didn't hurry and when I got to the truck fund out that people had taken different lockers so I got screwed and got the shit locker on the ground behind the trash can. That sucks but there's nothing much I can do at this point and I will live for a few days. We had breakfast at the campsite (I just had a piece of toast with peanut butter) and then headed back out on the road towards Elephant Sands.

The bus ride was fine and our first day in the new truck. It's not that different from the old truck, but for some reason I miss the old truck. The roads in Botswana are definitely bumpier than the South African roads, though that could also be due to truck related differences. That we will never know. On the ride the scenery was fairly monotonous since the country is basically 85% covered in desert. We saw a lot of very short trees on sand and barely any villages at all over a good distance. We stopped once in the second biggest city in the country, Francistown, and got the groceries for dinner and then headed back on our way to Elephant Sands again. On the way we played cards which passed the time nicely. 

We stopped literally on the side of the road to make lunch, which was interesting, but where else would we have stopped? We made sandwiches and a rice and tuna salad (no mayo thank goodness) and ate while standing around on the road with barely a car in sight. There were some local children hanging out at the spot we stopped and we gave them our left over food to eat. Also, the four-ish year old was terrified of us and starting crying. Shocker. That must be the age, 3 to 4 years old. They are so often scared. After lunch it was only a little over an uproar to the campsite, and we continued our card games to pass time.

Arriving at Elephant Sands was quite spectacular, as there is a water hole right next to the main portion of the campground where elephants actually come hang out most of the day. When we arrived there were at least five, but a couple left while we were pitching our tents. We came back to the water hole when camp was all set up and watched the elephants drinking. It was so cool to be so crazy close to wild elephants. After watching them for a while it was time to leave on the bush braai that nine of us had decided to do. The braai is an African barbecue and it sounded really fun, plus we were to look for animals on the way there and the way back.

The way out to the spot for our braai we didn't see too much. We saw a lot of tracks of the hyena, giraffe, oryx, elephant, etc, showing us the animals existed in the area, but the animals themselves proved elusive. We saw a bunch of birds and learned about some bushes and the guide was really trying to make up for the lack of animal sightings. We ended up seeing one small antelope and a few elephants together, but elephants have become a not so exciting sighting as they are literally everywhere. We got to the braai spot and set up under an amazing barren tree and the guide and cook starting making our meal.

We hung out while the meal was made and chatted and enjoyed being in the bush. The meal ended up being an amazing one, with T-bone steak, potatoes, vegetables, and salad. It sounds quite basic typed out, but it was quite delicious. We ate in the dark around the campfire and it was amazing. The coals were even just a local root we had scavenged and they made wonderful coals that burned quite nicely. I was really cool. We hung out for a while until everyone was done eating and then set off for the short nighttime game drive back to camp. 

The nighttime game drive I was really excited for because it was finally an opportunity to see some nocturnal animals. Unfortunately again all we saw was one small antelope. Kind of a bummer, but game drives are a gamble and we can't tie the animals to trees for easy viewing. That would be no more exciting than a zoo. When we got back we were incredibly disappointed to hear that we had missed some really exciting commotion at the camp and the people who didn't pay to go on the braai ended up with a cooler animal experience than we had had (not hard to top our two antelope). Apparently a pack of seven African wild dogs (also known as African painted dogs) had killed a kudu which had literally ran through the campground bar and reception. There were also around thirty (!) elephants at the water hole at this time. It was a long and drug out battle and they watched the whole thing, even though it was quite sad. At least the guide told us to get back in e truck and we went to see the wild dogs eating the carcass of the kudu in the bush so we got to see the whole pack. It was really cool! I'm also kind of glad I didn't have to see an animal die, but the video our driver took made the battle look like a pretty once in a lifetime experience. The kudu even jumped over the pool! It was nuts. She would run into the water hole and try to escape when the dogs were being chased away by the elephants who were protecting their baby, but she was so tired there was never a chance. African wild dogs are the best hunters around, and they are 97% successful (lions for comparison are something like 48% successful). 

After seeing the video I watched the three elephants in the water hole for a bit before getting ready for bed. While putting on my pajamas I knocked a mole or something with my fingernail and my back started bleeding a lot, but I got a bandaid and all is well. That's about all for today!

Elephants at the watering hole

So cute!

Awesome tree in the bush

Bush braai with the solo travelers

African wild dogs devour a kudu

On to Botswana

Today was just a travel day as we left Hotel Numbi campground to set off for Botswana. We got all of our things from the original safari truck since it needed to be fixed and we loaded up a trailer that was to be towed behind our mini bus that w would take to the border. The mini bus was comfortable, but I couldn't see out the window and it wasn't conducive to chatting so I got really bored and a little car sick. I ended up sleeping a lot on the journey, which was weird, but I couldn't keep myself awake at all. The trip was quicker that it would have been had we been in the safari truck which was a plus at least. We stopped a few times along the way for bathroom breaks and to get some snacks and it was an okay, but long journey in general.

When we got to the border we got our South Africa exit stamps and waited a bit for the minibus situation to be worked out because the permit they had was for the other truck and so they had to pay a fine. We eventually were ready to go and walked across the border into Botswana where we went through immigration on the other side and got another stamp. My passport is getting really full, I hope I have enough space to get home (I should)! Once across the border we walked to the campsite and put all of our things into the conference room at the campsite. 

Once at the campsite we all hung out on the porch for a while until dinner was ready and then we hada great buffet dinner at the campgrounds. The food was yummy, but not the most amazing meal ever. We then hung out around the fire for a bit and chatted. The new truck arrived around 9pm and we were mostly too tired to pitch the tents, so seven of us decided to sleep in the conference room. Now were getting ready for bed!

Kruger National Park

Today was a very early wakeup call as my alarm went off at 5:10am. We had a simple breakfast and then got in our safari 4x4s for a day of game driving in Kruger National Park in the northeast section of South Africa. Kruger National Park is an enormous park that spans three countries (South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique) and is home to many species of wildlife, including the Big Five. I began the day having already seen four of the Big Five including elephant, rhino, buffalo, and lion and I only needed to see a leopard to complete it. Unfortunately we never were able to find a leopard but at least we saw a bunch of other cool animals!

We began the day by driving to the gate of the park where we checked in and entered. Our guide had asked us what we wanted to see during the day and we told him all of the rare animals we wanted to see like the leopard, the honey badger, a pangolin, african wild dogs, hyenas, etc. He told us we were trying to make life hard for him, but laughed about it. We were pretty sure we wouldn't see most of those things, but we could dream right. He basically said we were very unlikely to spot most and he hadn't even seen all of those animals before.

Our first animal spotting was a giraffe with her baby right near the road. It was very cute, but the light was low and it was on the other side of the 4x4 so I wasn't able to get a very good picture. They were really cute though, especially the baby. We then spotted a herd of elephants right near the road and they were awesome. Little did we know that elephant sighting would be far from a rarity for the rest of the day. We continued to drive on and the next thing we knew we came across a pack of four to six african wild dogs! It was so cool and actually quite unexpected due to the fact that there are only about 200 of them and Kruger is roughly the size of Wales! We were very excited!

After those first three sightings I can't tell you the exact order that we saw the rest of the animals for the day, but we saw a ton. There were many animals that I had seen previously in Uganda, and some new ones as well. I saw my first zebras, wildebeest, impala, kudu, vulture, parrot, and hornbill, as well as waterbuck, duiker, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, buffalo, and elephants. I'm sure I'm probably forgetting a few animals that I saw as well, especially some of the bird species we saw today.

We stopped at a resort-ish place inside the park for a breakfast snack and rest and after lunch was when we heard on the radio that a pride of lions had been spotted. We turned around and drove the 16km to the place they were seen in order to see the pride of lions. They were a bit far from the road, but at least we saw one big cat! I'm still a little sad we didn't see any other large predator, but I will live. The only bad thing about seeing the lions was that it made us do a second loop around park of the park we had already seen instead of seeing a new portion along the river. Anyways after the lions we went on our way to the lunch spot, stopping for a few animals along the way including a huge elephant that crossed the street between both of the 4x4 vehicles our group was in.

Lunch was at a picnic area within the park and we had chicken drumsticks that our tour guide had cooked for us in the morning. They were good, but the rest of the meal had mayonnaise so once again I had a bit of an unbalanced meal. At least the chicken was good and I had an apple in my backpack. After lunch we set off in the direction of the gate we would exit from, seeing a few more animals along the way, especially impala, giraffes, and elephants. We encountered a large herd of elephants with a baby who were trying to cross the road and a stupid man in a blue truck got in their way. The elephants looked kind of pissed and started looking like they might do something to his car, but he backed up and nothing happened. I kind of wish I had seen something go down (so long as nobody got hurt). It was a pretty cool experience. We also stopped at the place where the famous YouTube video "Battle at Kruger" happened. It was cool to see the location and you should watch the video if you haven't already seen it because it is amazing. 

After the area of the battle we headed on our way out. We were driving along a road and spotted the rarest of our sightings all day, the elusive honey badger! It was ridiculously cool and we were so excited. We got to see the full viciousness of the animal as it literally ripped apart a terrapin and we could see and hear it crunching on the shell and eating its meat. It was nuts and such an amazing thing to have seen. Our guide had never even seen a honey badger before and was also really excited. We never ever thought we would actually see one. After the honey badger we really just saw one more elephant before exiting the park and driving back to the campsite.

Once back at Hotel Numbi campground we relaxed a bit and started cooking dinner. We watched a group come perform some cultural dance and song around the campfire and then ate a traditional meal that reminded me a lot of Ugandan meals, but this was probably better. We had made a posho like dish that was probably more like a mix of posho and polenta, African spinach with a peanut butter sauce, fried cabbage, and beef with tomatoes and onions. It was so delicious! I ate my entire meal and was so satisfied. I also packed up tonight since we are changing safari vehicles tomorrow due to the trouble the vehicle has had. Tomorrow it is off to Botswana and we have a full day of travel. I had a wonderful had and I'm excited to see a new country soon!

Sunrise over Kruger

Beautiful view of Kruger

African wild dogs!

Vulture

Parrots!

Impala

Hippo with terrapins on its back

Zazu! (hornbill)

Zebra and giraffe

More giraffes

Me at Kruger

Cool bird

Elephant!

Lions! (hard to see, I know)

Wildebeest

So many elephants in the road

Zebra crossing

Elephant crossing

The site of "Battle at Kruger"; watch the 2007 YouTube below

Southern ground hornbill

Honey badger!!