The Res: Liesbeeck Gardens

Howzit Everyone!
As promised I'll tell you a little about my home away from home so I can prove to some of you skeptics that I'm not in fact living in a mud hut and that I actually have a single room bigger than my one at Skidmore! Pretty exciting, although there have been a few bumps along the way...
So we got to Liesbeeck Gardens (pronounced Liz-beak) on Saturday at 10am only to find that our rooms had not been cleaned, and many of the vacation housed students hadn't moved out yet. This was rather upsetting, as many of us had aspirations of unpacking and finally getting our things out of suitcases and just figuring out what our temporary home was going to look like. The RAs were kind enough to take us over to the mall in Claremont where we bought some small necessities (laundry detergent, sunscreen, towels, etc.) until our rooms could be prepared. Unfortunately even by 4pm many of the rooms were still uncleaned and several students had to stay in more temporary housing while other students moved out. It wasn't too dreadful though, as we were treated to a wonderful braai out by the pool (yes, we do in fact have a pool right next to the Res, so cool!) where we stuffed our faces and played some basketball on the courts there.
I'll admit it looks a little like a prison (we even have a warden and two sub-wardens) but overall the res is really nice, with running water, working electricity, and even a computer lab and wireless internet access. Overall I'm really pleased with it, and really can't complain about too much:)
However, we soon discovered that the bedding and kitchen supplies provided for us were less than stellar, as much of the bedding I'm convinced had been recycled since the beginning of the program, and I chose to sleep in my sleeping bag for the first couple of nights until we could go out and buy new bedding. Not an expense I was thrilled to make, but necessary nonetheless. However, the program director and our fearless leader Quinton Redcliffe called a meeting this morning to apologize for the confusion with moving in, as well as the provided bedding and kitchen supplies, and has assured us that CIEE will cover the cost of the new bedding so long as we have our receipts. I'm praying I can find mine...
As for the kitchen utensils... We're missing quite a few, and the pots and pans are, let's say, well worn, but everything seems to be functioning despite. Our oven doesn't close all the way though, and I'm told that you have to harass maintenance a few times before things get done because they're all lazy: the receptionist's words, not mine. But my friend Kat and I used the stove top last night to make pasta and chicken so at least that works. We don't have a microwave though, so that's next on the list of unexpected purchases.
The rooms are set up in suite styles, with four single rooms, a kitchen, and two bathrooms per suite. I'm living with another CIEE student, Mercy, who's super nice. My other two suitemates will be UCT students, and while one just walked in as I was sitting down to write this, the other hasn't yet arrived. I'm very excited to get to know both of them, as so far the students I have met have been the nicest people ever.
Otherwise I'm still acclimating myself with the campus, although I'm proud that I was able to make the Jammie ride (the buses on campus are called Jammies, I think that's so cute) from Upper Campus to the Res without a problem. (UCT is so large that the campus is split into six campuses: Upper, Middle, Lower, Hiddingh, Health Sciences and Breakwater to accommodate the 25,000 students) International students are required by law to register with the University, so yesterday many of us spent two to three hours standing in line at the International office waiting to get pre-registered, which was literally supplying a copy of your passport, visa, and a piece of paper with contact information and such. A bit frustrating, but that's the way things are around here: everything's bureaucratic and time consuming. Such as approval for courses: in order to take a course, you have to be approved by the faculty, or essentially the department, to take the course. This requires that you obtain what's called a "pink form" because of its color, from the faculty office (faculty are essentially colleges, so because I'm taking English and History courses I'm considered part of the Humanities faculty), fill that out with the course information, and then present it and a copy of my transcript to the head of my department (for example, the head of the English Language and Literature department) who then determines that I'm qualified to take the desired course. She signs off on my pink sheet, which I then present at registration (which happens on Friday and is essentially the same as pre-registration, only now I'm signing up for classes). Basically it's a lot of walking around this HUGE campus and waiting in reception areas for people to finish lunch and spend all of four seconds looking over your transcript and then signing your pink form. But, at least the weather's nice and the campus is really pretty, and I'm going to have the most toned legs imaginable because everything is up a hill or a flight of stairs. Whoever decided that putting an enormous campus on the side of a mountain was clearly not thinking properly.
Anyway, I'm going to leave off with that so I can get myself back over the campus (I'm typing this out on my laptop on the wireless internet: finally!) for a wine and chocolate tasting:)