Sundays in South Africa

Sunday started for me with a trip to Hillsong Church. The church was started by the band Hillsong United who writes all the music for the worship services and then each church has a band and pastors. Based in what used to be South Africa's largest night club the venue reminds me of Workplay in Birmingham.

Hillsong Church - Cape Town

The music was a fabulous and the preacher spoke about pressure and dealing with stress in life through God. I think we will be going back again next week if we don't find another local church to try.

After church we headed to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens for lunch and to walk around. When we arrived we walked into the restaurant and saw Coach Dooley and his wife Barbara. We all introduced ourselves then sat down at the table next to them. Our view was incredible from lunch looking at the backside of Table Mountain.

Our view from lunch

During lunch Zach had the great idea to try and get some sort of dessert for Madeline's birthday and after talking for a few minutes to the manager inside we decided on a seven layer chocolate cake. Our waiter sang "Happy Birthday" with us and enjoyed a slice of cake also.

Laura Talton cutting Madeline's cake

Although we made a pretty big dent in the cake we were unable to finish it; I asked the waiter if they had a box of some kind to put the rest in and he brought it back wrapped in foil in the shape of a swan.

Anna Lynn, Madeline, and Anna with the cake swan

When we finished lunch we began walking around the gardens and seeing all it had to offer. There were thousands of plants and flowers although it is nearly winter down here so only a handful were actually blooming. Birds were flying around and obviously were very use to humans because they were not scared away by our pictures. We are still unsure of what type of bird they were, but they look like large pheasant.

Pheasant bird

Ducks

The highlight of the gardens was the view we found of the city. On a large grassy area we had a view of the city with the mountains behind us. After sitting there for a while we headed back to the apartments and had a group dinner at The Brasserie then went to sleep. Monday would prove to be another great day in South Africa.

Our view of the city