Busy Busy Week

The past week has been pretty hectic as you might can tell from my lack of blogging. The last time I wrote was on Sunday and now it is Saturday. We went to the Old Biscuit Mill today and had some wonderful food and drink, then tried to go see The Hangover 2, but it wasn't playing until later. Hopefully soon we will be able to check it out.

Our week has been filled with great things including Coach Dooley and Barbara Dooley speaking to us, visiting a local vineyard, seeing penguins, and a visit to Robben Island.

The Haute Espoir (meaning High Hopes) vineyard was a beautiful place and we were able to attempt to make our own blend of wines.

On our way to the vineyard

The winery

Grape vines

Rob stands about 6 feet 7 inches tall, 310 pounds, trains and fights in the art of Mouytai and owns his own vineyard. Certainly not the man you expect to be greeted by at the front gate of a vineyard in South Africa, but sure enough he walked us from the gate up to his winery. He loves what he does and loved teaching us about the things he loves.

Thursday was spent at Cape of Good Hope, Cape Point, and Boulder Beach. Boulder Beach is the home of hundreds of African penguins. They are everything you would imagine just in relatively hot weather.

After our trek with penguins we got back on the bus, ate lunch, and headed to Cape of Good Hope. We were able to climb on the rocks and just go exploring.

Dustin and myself at Cape of Good Hope

 We climbed up one mountain went down the other side, back up another, and then made it down to the beach on the far side of the area.

Brooks and Carey playing hide and seek

The guys at Cape of Good Hope

 After exploring Cape of Good Hope we headed across the way to Cape Point, the second most southern point in Africa. On the way we saw ostrich, baboons, and more dassie. When we arrived we climbed to the lighthouse then went on a short walk to the lighthouse that was built later for better visibility.

Jack and Brooks out in the "no entry" area

The lighthouse from below

This has been a crazy week and I hope you enjoyed this post and there will be more to come about Friday and our adventure on Robben Island.

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

Local Markets

Today is Saturday which for us is a free day. My roommates and I woke up around 10 this morning and started showering and getting ready for a busy day. First stop the Old Biscuit Mill. The Old Biscuit Mill is a large open air market with food and craft vendors. When you first walk in you immediately see a crowd of people and as you get closer you realize that they are crowded around tables of all types of food. Cheese, wine, bread, honey, chocolate, caramel are just a few of the many "raw" goods you can purchase. Jack was kind enough to buy our room a loaf of ciabatta bread for dinner, but more on that to come later. As you weave through the crowd of people that includes locals and tourists you begin to see more prepared foods available. There are smoothies, waffles and ice cream, oysters, paninis, crepes all freshly made in front of you. Jack, Sam, Jake, Challis, and I all decide to get paninis from a vendor. They had some sitting out front to show what was available.

Breakfast Panini and Chicken Delight, two of over a dozen options

Jack, Challis, and I all decided on the steak sandwich with taziki sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, and chili sauce, while Sam got the Chicken Delight and Jake went for the Breakfast. We walked back outside where we sat with Courtney and Joanna to eat and happened to meet three girls from the United States. Two were students at USC and one at Vandy and all were studying for the semester at the University of Western Cape. We enjoyed a great lunch and continued to walk around the market seeing interesting sights such as a water sculpture that looked like something da Vinci could have designed.

The basic premiss of the machine is water is pumped into buckets on the far side that get heavy and turn a wheel that in turn makes the hose above the three galvanized buckets back and forth filling them up gradually also. In the end the large galvanized buckets dump back into the pool that is where the pump receives water from.

We soon decided to leave the Old Biscuit Mill and head for the Green Market, a market in downtown Cape Town know for its craft work available and use of bartering skills is key. When you arrive you are overwhelmed with the shops in the market. It is mostly tents set up that are split into quarters and each quarter has a table with items set up on them. These shop owners had everything you could imagine belts, bracelets, T-shirts, keychains, masks, and artwork of all kinds. If you even look at something the shop owner will immediately begin asking you how much you are willing to spend and tell you he will give you a great price. The key is to act uninterested in the things you actually want and barter your way down to a good price. I was able to barter one guy down from R220 to R150 for what I think is a great present for Mom, but don't ask what it is cause its a surprise.

Lego Man made of Coca-Cola crates at the Waterfront

After we left the Green Market we headed to the V&A Waterfront to do some grocery shopping and head back to the apartments. We had a great day at the markets and are counting on another great day on Sunday (now today). Headed to Hillsong Church now and will be sure to let everyone know how it goes.

Surprise Hike

"Be well hydrated, eat breakfast, bring water, and come here in workout clothes in the morning." were our last instructions on Thursday night from Courtney. Our trip to Robben Island had been postponed because our guest speaker had been held up in Johannesburg after elections on Wednesday. No one knew for sure what our plans were, but everyone assumed it would involve a hike. When we got to our meeting Courtney told us that infact we were heading to Table Mountain one of the highest points in Cape Town.

We were headed to the top-right corner of this mountain

We loaded up onto buses and headed to our drop-off point at the base of the mountain. We all left at once from the base, but some people were determined to beat the clock to the top and others were planning on taking their time. I headed up planning to take my time and enjoyed the hike all the way. It was difficult, but we took breaks along the way and had plenty of water.

We would be on top of this mountain in just a few short hours

Taking a water break along the way

The view from the top of our trail

We finally made it to the top. 1010m higher than when we left

Rock Dassie, looks like a beaver, but is the closest relative to an African Elephant.

A view from the top of the mountain looking into the Atlantic Ocean

A view of Camps Bay and the beach front where we are staying

Climbing Table Mountain was a wonderful experience and made me realize how much I miss hiking. I hope that everyone enjoyed the picture heavy post today. Cape Town is a beautiful place and I know we will find more beautiful places to visit while we are here. Goodbye for now

Sunday - Thursday of Week 1

Instead of doing an outdated blog for each of the days I missed before starting this blog I'm just going to pack them all into this one then start back on a daily or every other day one that is up to date, sound good?

Sunday our new friend Ish took us on a tour of the city. We went past beaches, shops, got lunch at the V&A Waterfront, and ended our journey atop Signal Hill.

Jake Taylor, Jack Konas, and myself at Camps Bay

Signal Hill seemed like it overlooked the entire city, but we would soon come to find out that it is nothing more than a mole hill.  We spent about half an hour on top before heading home.

A view of Devil's Peak, Table Mountain, and the city from Signal Hill

Our night ended with salsa dancing and dinner at Buena Vista, while Group 2 arrived on their flight from Atlanta.

Our Monday was mostly a free day, since Group 2 went on their city tour, but we had a brief meeting in the morning, met some more new people, then spent the day exploring Center Pointe and the area around our apartments.

Tuesday a professor from University of Western Cape came and spoke to us about the history of apartheid in South Africa, and how the government attempted to reconcile the wrong done. It was interesting learning about District Six and the forced removal of blacks from their homes, but what I thought was most interesting was how the government under Nelson Mandella and other Presidents tried to recover from apartheid. The entire story of apartheid in Cape Town is amazing and certainly worth learning about, but I won't bore you with the details today.

We began Wednesday with our first classroom type session, although it was far from an actual classroom. We had taken a strengths finder online before coming on the trip and spent our time learning more about ourselves and others. My greatest strength is Adaptability, which typically is described as someone who can "go with the flow" and discover the future one day at a time. Discussing these strengths further made me feel connected to others on the trip and learn a lot about myself.

Thursday had to be the most interesting day of the week by far. Kevin from the Amy Biehl Foundation (www.amybiehl.co.za) came and spoke to us about her story and the foundation her parents set up. Amy was an American that came to South Africa to help people affected by apartheid with the voting process in 1994. She was murdered on the eve of the election by four men who saw her as another white person trying to keep them down, sadly she had been helping at the forefront of the fight against apartheid. Her parents set up a foundation that today has over ten separate facilities that sponsor an after-school program with kids in the townships around Cape Town. They teach music, dance, acting, and give the kids a hot meal five days a week.

We were lucky enough to visit two of the schools and see some of the classes that the kids participate in. Courtney challenged us not to take our cameras so that we could truly connect with the children, but we got to see their homes and had between thirty and forty kids perform several dances for us before we went home.

Courtney told us to be well hydrated on Friday and meet the following morning in workout clothes in the Lagoon View room.

In the beginning

I'm just getting into this whole blogging thing, but I am going to do my best to keep it updated and try to help you (whoever you may be) see South Africa through my eyes. Hopefully I will be able to update this often so I won't forget anything to put up, but we will have to see how that goes.

The flight here was surprisingly simple yet incredibly exciting.  Made it through security in Atlanta after saying bye to my parents without a hitch and met a few people before getting on the plane.  I sat next to Michael Boynton who I have gotten to know much better just in the first couple days since there are only 20 guys on the trip. The flight got interesting when about two hours into a nine hour flight the lady sitting in the middle seat of the row in front of Michael and I began to seize. It truly was a scene from a movie where all the flight attendants crowd around and have to ask over the PA if there is a doctor onboard. The rest of the trip to Cape Town went off without a hitch.

When we arrived in Cape Town we picked up our bags and headed to our home for the next five weeks. A great place right on the beach and about a mile walk from several restaurants and shops. Joanna gave us a quick briefing of the area and told us to stay in the hotel for the night until we knew the area better. Met a lot of new friends that night, but kept it pretty low key. Day two is when the action started...

Photo complements of Kelly Sugrue (View from her apartment)