July 2: Victoria and Alfred Waterfront

Well, yesterday was Saturday, and the plan was to visit Table Mountain in Cape Town. It would have been really cool, but the whether wasn't great. It wasn't raining very hard, but the clouds were way to thick. If we had gone up the mountain we wouldn't have seen anything.

That's at the foot of Table Mountain. We hadn't even gotten to the building yet. It would have only gotten worse going up! I guess that's ok. I mean, every other time we've gone out it's been really nice.

 Instead we went to the V&A Waterfront. Named by Prince Alfred, and built for his mother, Queen Victoria, in 1863, the Waterfront is one of the most visited locations in South Africa. It's home to lots of shops and restaurants on the sea, as well as the world famous Two Oceans Aquarium. A lot of people on our trip wanted to go shopping, but a small group of us (around 10) went with Clinton to the Aquarium. With our Stellenbosch ID cards it only cost us about R70!

The Aquarium was really cool. It's named, of course, after the two oceans that meet at South Africa (Atlantic and Indian). There are two main sections of the aquarium, one for fish from each ocean. At one point we were in a two-story room with a glass wall probably 30 feet high full of sharks!










We got there just in time to be able to watch them feed the African penguins (the same kind we saw at Boulders that day). They swallowed their fish whole. Each penguin has a unique diet, so it's this lady's job to keep track of who eats what.


















We stayed at the aquarium until one or so, when we left to eat lunch on the water. We ate at this great place out on a boardwalk over the ocean. I had the seafood special, which was really cheap and included three prawns, three mussels, the catch of the day (I don't know what it was), and a calamari steak served with rice. The calamari steak was especially good. The prawns were good, but they still had eyes which really freaked me out. I had to face them away from me while I was eating.

Then we went into one of the sports stores at the waterfront to try to find Stormers jerseys for the game that evening. Unfortunately all of the official products were at least R700 (about $100). We then finally found a vendor selling jerseys from a cart for R100. I'm pretty sure that they weren't "100% authentic licensed products", but they were cheap, and that's ok with me. I don't think that anyone with me payed full price for the real ones. They're not as nice, but we really only needed them for one game.

We spent the rest of the time on the waterfront browsing in the stores and hanging out at this music store that Clinton knew. He had a bunch of recommendations for good Afrikaans music, and we listened to that for a while, until 3 when it was time to leave. It was fun, even though Table Mountain didn't work out. I guess I'll just have to come back here some day!