The brochure had a photograph of the mountain, a sentence about biodiversity, and a line about the vibrant local culture. I want to be fair to whoever wrote it: there is no version of two paragraphs that would have prepared me for the actual shape of this city.
What I got wrong was the geography, and the geography is not incidental. I had assumed a city center with things arranged around it. Cape Town is not arranged around anything; it is a set of places held apart by distances that were designed to hold them apart, and understanding that took me most of a semester and a great deal of embarrassment.
I am wary of the essay that turns a semester abroad into a lesson learned. I did not learn a lesson. I learned an address book, a bus route, and how little of a place four months buys you. That last part seems worth saying to whoever reads the brochure next.