International Economics

Working on the assignment... "The Importance of Tourism for the South African Economy".

Outline:

1. The economic characteristic of tourism

2. Economic impact of tourism

2.1. Transfer to South Africa

3. Income by Sector, Employement, Prices

4. Future perspective

Officially DUT Students now

The Origin

Pre-Gaming

So if you like to go out clubbing, the Origin is the place to be...
We've spent a great night out at the club. Lots of house music, a few floors and a live band.


But before we arrived at the club, our fellow students from Ravensburg invited us to their place for a little pre-gaming. ;-)

Where Paddy had a lot of fun with the german shepard...

Paddy & the German Shepard

9 Clark Road, Durban, KZN, South Africa

Township Circle

Township Vibes

Tonight we went to a Township (Westrich) close to Durban. Where the two guys (King and Mbijana) from our welcome day at the university were playing music again. They had a full programm of dance shows, poetry, music and Zulu Food (which you eat with your hands or spoon by the way).
I also posted two youtube songs, one from the Township guys (King and Mbijana) and the favourite song of the night... or shall we call it our "Minibus-Song" from Naima - Lelilanga:

*smile*

Dancing with Precious

Zulu Dance

Kathi, Sandy, Paddy, Jens & Maren

Turn it in .com

www.turnitin.com is a good help for professors to detect plagiarism.

That's one platform which is used at some lectures at DUT. 

Mr. Raap gave us a short introduction this morning about this webportal. 

Each group leader is responsible to upload the ongoing progress of their assignment onto this page and it is quite surprising how well this programm works. Mr. Raap showed us some examples where former students submitted their assignments and the programm analysed the exact sources which were used (in cases of plagiarism) and furthermore the percentage of copied context in that essay. 

So it's on one hand a good tool for us to check if our assignment is correct (it does spell-checking as well) and a big help for the professor to determine any plagiarism. 

I wouldn't be surprised if this might be applicable at our german universities as well in the near future... ;-)

First Lecture

Today we attended the first lecture from Mr. Tshepo. He teaches Retail 1 in the Management Department. There will be 3 lessons per week and each'll last 60 minutes. By the end of this week we will get our assignment for our research project. 

We figured out that they offer plenty of different courses at DUT, you just need to see the lecturer in person and check if you may register for the class. 

Some of them have attendence lists, where you have to show up regularly and others don't. 

Tshepo suggested to attend his lectures, since the assignment will mostly refer on it. 

Tomorrow there is a meeting with Mr. Raap, whose class was recommended to all of us. It's about Interntional Economics. He gave us the freedom to pick a topic by ourselves regarding a Southafrican economical issue or a somewhat comparisson between Germany and South Africa in Terms of international economics. 

But he set strict rules about how many words we'll have to write, usage of the Havard Referencing System and so on, but we will get more details tomorrow at class.

The Fitness Gym on Campus is quite good, we've been practicing each week now. The other students also participated in different sports (Boot Camp, Running...)

We also went surfing on sunday, butI will post some pictures later on when I received all the pictures which have been taken so far. 

So, tomorrow we are going to have the second lecture on retail 1 and after that Consumer Behaviour. 

Markets of Warwick

Saturday Morning we went to the Markets of Warwick. A Guided tour through all kinds of different markets in the Center of Durban. Usually the area around the markets are highlighted for us as "No Go Areas", that's probably also a reason why the tour guide organized a bodyguard for us. Some markets are really huge, the "early morning market" has tons of fruits, vegetables, flowers etc. ... Everything is much cheaper as in the local supermarket (Pick 'n' Pay). For Example a 10kg bag of mandarins for R20 (less than 2€). Most of the traders sleep at the market, since they have a long way to travel. One market was quite interessting, where they chop off meat from Cowheads (please don't scoll down if you feel uncomfortable seeing a dead cow), we got the chance to taste the meat and some bread...

Cow-Head-Meat

Manchester vs. Durban

Today on Nelson Mandela Day (18^th July) we are going to watch the soccer game at the Moses Mabhida Stadium.

"The overarching objective of Mandela Day is to inspire individuals to take action to help change the world for the better, and in doing so build a global movement for good. Ultimately it seeks to empower communities everywhere. “Take Action; Inspire Change; Make Every Day a Mandela Day." 

(http://www.mmstadium.com/events/

manchester-city-mandela-day)

Paddy's new friend

Ina, Paddy, Sandy, Kathi & Jens

Moses Mabhida Stadium

Durban International Filmfestval

www.durbanfilmfest.co.za

Tomorrow the 34th Durban International Film Festival will beginn. Lots of Movies, Shortfilms, Documentaries will be shown at several venues.

Venues

Wavescape

Registration in Progress

Main Campus

Since yesterday we are busy getting all our courses... We got a very warm welcome on monday morning with lots of information and some hot tunes from the Township Vibes (great musicians).
If you want to register the cources you need to go to each department and speak to the lecturer. They are very friendly and helpful, we even got arranged a course which already ended for the local students. Next week we will have to start the regular lectures.
Jason from the Sport Department offered us a broad variety on sports.
Paddy and I signed in for the gym and will start our work out tomorrow.
Now we are going to the movies...

Indrani Naidoo (International Education Officer)

Music at the Lake

http://www.qwiki.com/v/PizO9Ktg



So we've been to the music at the lake today at the Durban Botanical Garden.
The Concert was starring the south african legend Johnny Clegg. Obviously we have never heard about him, but the locals were celebrating this event with
picnics, drinks etc. ... Here are two Youtube Video of him: Johnny Clegg - Asimbonange & Great Heart...

The Botanical Garden was crowded, they even limited the tickets to 5.000.
Johnny Clegg is touring for over 30 Years now and will be performing in Cape Town at the Baxter Theatre (18. - 20. September 2013).

Sunset & BBQ

Sunset

"The Watering Hole"

Chicken, Feta Cheese

Fish, Sweet Potatoes, Corn, Pumpkin, French Bread

SUNSET

Durban Beach

Welcome Beer at our Hostel

After an 8 hour flight from Dubai to Durban we got picked up by Phumi (a really friendly guy) who works for the University.

And drove us to our Hostel. 

The Hippo Hide is really nice, we got a quick tour, our Keys, Wifi Code and cool Beer out of the fridge ;)

Black Label and Castle, suggested by Phumi. Black Label is definately my New favourite Beer!

Tomorrow we're heading downtown to check out Durban. 

Leaving Dubai

Here you can follow our next flight (EK 775)

http://mobile.flightview.com/TrackByFlight.aspx?loc=fndflt

Dubai at Night

Buri Khalifa

Dubai is damn hot but also a worthwhile Trip for a short stay. 

We would suggest to get a NOL Card (Metro Ticket) for almost 3€ - 16Dhs and take a seat at the very front, since all the trains are riding driverless you might have a perfect view there. 

The Metroline is mostly above the ground and departs every 7 minutes. 

Furthermore you will be able to take the Bus as well with the NOL Card, and be surprised, like we were, when you figure out that even the Bus Stops have AC. 

It's litterally impossible NOT to catch a cold, thanks to the hot weather and super cold Air Conditioning (at the MALL, Metro, Hotel or Bus stop).

The Dubai Mall is worth a Trip! It includes a huge Aquarium! In which you can Even go Shark Cage Diving or through Tunnels. 

And if you get hungry, visit the Food Court. In case it is RAMADAN (which surprisingly started yesterday) you won't be allowed to eat their until darkness.

... waiting for the Fountains

Dubai on a Wednesday Morning

After a Great flight with Emirates Airlines and a bunch of New Movies watched and nearly no sleep, we made it to Dubai safely.

Our luggage is stored at the hotel, so we took the metro downtown to the Dubai Mall, where we are now waiting for the shops to be opened.

Unfortunately, we didn't get the chance

to change clothes at the hotel. Now our dresscode is kinda inapropriate.

Well, we figured out the following:

Flight Tracker - Emirates

http://de.flightaware.com/live/flight/UAE58

Tonight we are going to leave Germany, here is a link where you can track our flight: Emirates #58

Ready to take Off ...

Getting more and more exciting...

... Surfing @Durban, quite popular and a great spot. The following website contains useful information about weather forecast and a surf-report: magicseaweed.com/Durban-Surf-Report

Luckily we found some surf schools in Durban as well, learn2surf


Recently I saw a new Episode of Sport Xtreme 360⁰ about surfing.
If you are interested follow this link and watch the past episodes. blog.zdf.de/sportxtreme/
The Host Jeannine Michaelsen (@Michaelsen_J) introduces each episode a new sport and interviews professionals about it. They have published 15 Episodes so far (every month a new episode)... from Mountain Biking at "Cape Epic" to Parkour/Freerunning. 

BAZ BUS

www.bazbus.com

As we stated earlier this might be a great way to travel throughout the country. With BAZ BUS you are able to Hop-on and Hop-off at any location along the route until you arrive your final destination.
Below you will find the entire route. It also passes the gardenroute ...