The Student Room Group

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Reply 1780
In SA now. Organising internet is turning out to be a complicated and expensive ordeal :sigh: The flights all went really well, and the airports were very quiet. I had the worst tube experience of my life yesterday, however, which has reaffirmed my instinct never to go through London on a weekend (or rush hour) if at all humanly possible. I took a large bag without wheels instead of my rucksack, figuring that walking from Kings Cross station to underground and climbing onto the Picadilly wouldn't bee too much of an exertion. Of course Picadilly didn't stop at Kings Cross yesterday, so I went onto the Victoria line. The train was so crowded that once we all fit in I fell over and my body remained suspended upright, propped by the people around me, despite only one foot and no hands making any contact with the train :shifty: At this point a girl decided to get her arm stuck after the doors closed, and somebody started yelling 'activate the emergency button', which I had to do as everybody was looking around in confusion and I was right next to it. And then we had to wait for them to come round and shut it off....

So yes. And the irony is that the coach ran from my door step (literally) at Parkside, to the very terminal. I only opted for the train because I'd checked on the websites to make sure there wasn't any engineering works or anything, and because it was [supposed to be] much quicker and half the price (even after I threw in the taxi price from Parkside to the station)!!!

After that, 16hrs of travel by air was practically luxury :rolleyes: And Air France is very good :yep: Creme Fraiche and Compote for breakfast, and camembert with the main for dinner :biggrin: And the steward made a point of serving ladies first irrespective of seat order (skipped out the guy in the middle of my row of three) which is a first for me.
Reply 1781
I've just rediscovered my fountain pens :coma:

That sounds like a pretty bad trip there craggy :eek:. How long are you away for?

EDIT: In other news, I've finally set up my media centre :yy:
Reply 1782
visesh

That sounds like a pretty bad trip there craggy :eek:. How long are you away for?
Coming back for full term :closedeyes: I'll be trying to do dissertation work, but have also got two holiday trips planned (Cape Town and Drakensberg) :biggrin: Its going to go way too fast!
visesh

EDIT: In other news, I've finally set up my media centre :yy:

Media Centre? :s-smilie:
Reply 1783
Athena
There's a lot of cave art in the Drakensberg (IIRC) and lots of quite cool cave dwellings. Doing an African pre-history module really inspired me to visit SA and Lesotho.

:yep: I've been to the Berg frequently, as my family often go there for holidays.
Reply 1784
Craghyrax
Coming back for full term :closedeyes: I'll be trying to do dissertation work, but have also got two holiday trips planned (Cape Town and Drakensberg) :biggrin: Its going to go way too fast!

Media Centre? :s-smilie:

A bunch of gadgets/cables/software that enable me to watch and listen to all of the videos and music stored on my computer in my study, in my lounge through my home cinema.

Ah **** there goes the phone. Looks like I'm off to The Dark Side in a few hours.
Reply 1785
Athena
Transplant at the JR?

Ja. I think so. Don't have the details yet. That's the 4th time this fortnight...
Reply 1786
visesh
A bunch of gadgets/cables/software that enable me to watch and listen to all of the videos and music stored on my computer in my study, in my lounge through my home cinema.
Sounds like you're doing a good job advancing your kingdom :yep:
visesh

Ah **** there goes the phone. Looks like I'm off to The Dark Side in a few hours.

Ouch :s-smilie: Have fun with that. I'm looking forward to collapsing very soon. I can't have had four hours of solid sleep on that plane last night, and I'm beginning to sway.
Craghyrax
After that, 16hrs of travel by air was practically luxury ... And the steward made a point of serving ladies first irrespective of seat order ...

Hmmm, sounds absolutely terrible to me...
Reply 1788
FadedJade
It is worse than Skegness. Trust me.


But, but,....!
My bets on The West Wing.
Reply 1790
23 today! :frown:
Reply 1791
Got internet. Sadly South Africa is in the Dark Ages :dry: You get charged by the amount of data you use. 512mb costs me £30.
Apagg
23 today! :frown:

I feel your pain :rolleyes:

Happy Birthday anyway :p:
Reply 1792
That reminds me, was thinking of going to Cape Town for a holiday sometime in the S African summer - is this a bad or good idea?
Apagg
23 today! :frown:


:birthday: 23 is a good age.
Reply 1794
Apagg
That reminds me, was thinking of going to Cape Town for a holiday sometime in the S African summer - is this a bad or good idea?

Fine as long as you can handle heat :biggrin: Cape Town gets less hot than the rest of SA though. Its close to the point where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic, which results in alot more temperamental weather there. The rainy season in most of SA is summer/spring, whereas in Cape Town its during the winter. So yeh its a good time to go. And everyone loves Cape Town. Try visit some wine estates while you're out there too (in the countryside surrounding Cape Town)
Reply 1795
Craghyrax
Fine as long as you can handle heat :biggrin: Cape Town gets less hot than the rest of SA though. Its close to the point where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic, which results in alot more temperamental weather there. The rainy season in most of SA is summer/spring, whereas in Cape Town its during the winter. So yeh its a good time to go. And everyone loves Cape Town. Try visit some wine estates while you're out there too (in the countryside surrounding Cape Town)



I think I'll be glad of heat after enduring the British winter :biggrin:
How expensive is it, if you don't mind me picking your brains a bit?
Reply 1796
Craghyrax
512mb costs me £30.


Wow, that's ridiculous. Is that normal?
Reply 1797
Apagg
I think I'll be glad of heat after enduring the British winter :biggrin:
How expensive is it, if you don't mind me picking your brains a bit?

Unfortunately I'm not really sure. Prices have hugely skyrocketed since I was here last on lots of things. Most of the stuff I've paid for has seemed to match UK prices crudely, with more selective stuff (which there's not much mass demand here for) being more expensive here than there.
I think stuff like entertainment is cheaper than the UK. For instance, the local cinema does films for roughly £1 every Wednesday!
I'll update you in a week or so once I've actually left home and done stuff with my friends. And of course I can give you an idea after going to Cape Town next week. We'll do some touristy stuff like renting a car and going up Table Mountain and so on.

But yeh, I've been shocked at how expensive it is since I last visited :sad:
Reply 1798
Scipio90
Wow, that's ridiculous. Is that normal?

Kind of. I had to 'rent' the little 3G device for my laptop at the airport (£25 for the month) and buy my data bundles on top of that. Other people using 3G have contracts which allow them a certain amount of data per month at a certain price and charge them more highly if they go over. This is all using wifi run by the mobile phone network providers. The only alternative is broadband via ASDL lines (run by the national telephone company), but the technology and service for this is dire. Last time I was here my family were using it, and the line would cut out for no reason periodically and it would take them days to sort it out :banghead:

The issue is that the country doesn't have the capital to pay for the infrastructure for widescale broadband. They're apparently laying a new fibre-optic cable from India to here under the sea... but even then the majority of the country are far too poor to really use internet, so the few that do really have to pay.

Internet on people's mobiles here seems far cheaper and more widespread.
Reply 1799
If you look at maps of the world's undersea fibre network, Africa is essentially not connected at all. I think there's one cable that loops down the west coast and that's about it. So I guess SA is pretty stuck too when it comes to 'net connections.


edit: here's a pic -






Internet on people's mobiles still uses the normal fibre-optic infrastructure btw - they just run cables to the phone masts. It's only the very last bit that's wireless. So I don't know why that's better than ADSL - guess the mobile phone companies just spend more on providing enough capacity than the fixed-line ones.