The Windy City

Port Elizabeth is a very windy city. It's a place where your car door can break if you leave it open or where your picture turns out blurry because the wind moved your camera.  Therefor, it is not only named the "Friendly City", but also the "Windy City". The weather is very hard to predict and half the time predictions are wrong. This because it's at a point where the weather can come from either Cape Town or Durban and this greatly influences the temperature. Spring is particularly unpredictable, but the it shouldn't get much colder than 10°C. I have had a day where the weather was "from Durban" and   the water temperature was nice enough to swim.

The beach side of Summerstrand

  

This year has apparently been a very wet year and ground water levels are saturated. Which is very different from a few years ago where they had long immense droughts and the people had very limited access to water. Until recently they also went through daily general power cuts of a few hours as there were capacity shortages.

A "bakkie" (pick-up truck)

Library of Port Elizabeth

Downtown PE has a whole different atmosphere than Humewood, where I'm staying, or Summerstrand, where the university is. It's the most dodgy part of town, however in comparison to other South African cities, I've heard that it is still quiet alright. It's just a little hectic and it would be a no-go at night. PE in general is very divers if you look at the people around you and you here a mix of English, Afrikaans and Xhosa. Everyone is really friendly.

Some downtown pictures

Sports are a big deal in South Africa, mainly rugby, cricket and "soccer". The stadium in PE has a peculiar shape and it is not easily missed when you drive around. The city was one of the venues for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

PE stadium