Cape Town Thoughts

Today is my third-ish day here. I am not sure what I really expected but I am surprised. I think that I anticipated that it would be more ‘third world’-y but it’s definitely not. Other parts of South Africa may well be but this city is definitely first world – as a matter of fact, I keep getting mixed up about where I am and I keep reminding myself I’m in (friggin’) Africa!

I haven’t started messing with the pictures I’ve been taking, so any pix posted on this blog at this point are from other people…(thank you interwebs).

I have mostly just been to the tourist sites so far, so it’s hard for me to judge what the city really is like. The first day I arrived, Ilda picked me up at the airport and took me to their wine area. We went to a farm that makes wine & cheese and also happens to have goats climbing a thingy (I don’t know how to describe it – one of those Rapunzel thingys) and a lovely restaurant. After 33 hours of traveling, it was so nice to be able to walk around and stretch. I felt pretty good when landing, but quickly faded. We had a great lunch and cheese platter and then she dropped me off at my hotel. I ended up passing out around 6pm, woke up at 8 for an hour or so and then slept through until 8am!?!?!

The good news about sleeping all that time is that I am over the whole jet lag thing.

The next day, we headed over to Robben Island, which is where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were held from the 1960s until the 1990's. I had really mixed feelings about going there as I expected it to be a very solemn and sad place. We took a little bus ride around the island at first and the tour guide was talking about people coming to the island to get married there and that they are building places for people to come and stay overnight. I just didn’t get it. I had a good conversation with Ilda about it and she said that the other perspective that I wasn’t seeing was that this was the place where the plans for post-apartheid South Africa were made. This was reinforced by the tour, led by a former political prisoner who had been imprisoned on the island. He talked about how they had committees and organized political discussions and how they passed around snippets from newspapers. It turned out to be incredibly inspiring. At the gift shop on the island, many of the items for sale included the phrase “Triumph in the face of adversity” which I thought was a great way to look at this horrible period.

We lightened things up with lunch on Long Street, which provided excellent people watching and I had a chance to meet one of Ilda’s sisters and her husband, who was very enthusiastic to talk about computer security.

That night, Ilda took me to a really great, artfully decorated restaurant named the Sidewalk Café which was in a neighborhood up on Table Mountain. The area reminds me a lot of southern California – I liked it a lot and the food was excellent – I told the waitress that it was my favorite restaurant in Cape Town – after my 2 days.

Yesterday, I went to a market and then took the cable car up to the top of Table Mountain. I took a nice walk around the top of the mountain, then had a snack and hung out there several hours waiting for sunset, which was around 8pm. You have incredible views of the city, the ocean and north of the city from on top there and it was a really pretty day. I can’t wait to post my pictures so you all can see.

Today is Ilda’s bridal shower. It’s at her favorite beach. I am not great with groups of people I don’t know, but I’m sure they’ll all be nice. After all, they’re Ilda’s friends. Also, this will make it somewhat easier at the wedding since I’ll have met these people today and therefore have a deep personal connection with them. They are having a traditional braai (barbecue) there, which means they’ll be cooking lamb. As I’m a fowl pescaterian, I’m going to be sticking with the veggies since lamb neither has wings or fins. Should be interesting and hopefully, will provide some good photo opps.

Sorry for spouting so much in this post. I’ll try to be better at writing shorter, more frequent updates now that I’m settled in here.