The End

Well that's about it. I hope those of you who read some of my posts enjoyed them. Thank you for reading! It was a really incredible and amazing experience, and the trip of a lifetime! Also, thank you to Alex whose comments always provided interesting commentary!

I hope that someday I can go back and visit Stellenbosch again. If you ever get a chance to visit South Africa, do it! Even though I'm glad to be back I miss it a little bit. It's a beautiful country with awesome people, and I'm really lucky to have been able to have had this experience.

The Last Night

We left the game reserve in the afternoon and drove a few hours more to our last stop, Mosselbaai. (Mossel Bay in English). Mossel Bay is another beach resort town, and it was really nice and quiet, even though its one of the larger towns we've visited.

 It was still light when we got there, so all the guys and a few of the girls went walking through town. We stopped at a grocery store first, because we were really hungry and got ice cream. Then we walked down to the beach where one of the guys decided that we needed to take a cheesy jump photo which we have decided to call "man jump". This photo has become all of our profile pictures on Facebook for the next 48 hours.  I'm the one in the middle in the white polo. I look really short!

 The place we were staying that nice was really nice. It was an old house which had been put on the national historic register. They served us a nice dinner outside.

That's the outside of the hostel where we stayed. We were the only guests, and the place was really nice. This was our last night together before we all went our separate ways. It was kind of sad. The next morning we got up early, because we were leaving at 6 to drive back to Stellenbosch. It was a 6 hour drive, and we stopped at a truck stop (same one we stopped at when we went to Swellendam!) for lunch. We got back around 1.




 Everyone had different flights, but mine was one of the earlier ones that day, so I had
about 45 minutes in Monica to pack all my stuff up and say goodbye to a few of the Option 2 people, Jan Willem, and Dirk. Then the bus drove me and four other girls to the airport. We were on the earlier flights, most others were flying out later that evening. The four of us checked in to our different airlines and had lunch together in the airport. My flight was at 6, so I was the first to leave. I said goodbye and went through security and passport control. I still had a while, so I called home to burn the rest of my phone card. My Emirates flight was just as nice flying out, although the weather was a little bit cloudy. I flew through Dubai again. It was a night flight and I got there around 5am (it was still unbelievably hot there). I didn't leave the airport that time. Then I flew Emirates again to Frankfurt (but I've already posted about that). I had a really nice night to rest in Germany, and then I flew US Airways back to Charlotte and then to Dallas. I got in around 9 at night. Somewhere along the way they had lost my luggage, but it was ok because I got it the next day. It made going through customs so much easier though! All I had to worry about then was myself, my passport, and a small carry on.

Garden Route Day 5

On the fifth day of the Garden Route (the last full day) we went on our safari. I had been looking forward to this all week. We drove out to the Plettenberg Bay area to the Plettenberg Bay Game Reserve. We got there early, and our car was being worked on, so we hung out at the game lodge for a little while. There were lots of nice couches to sit in and a big fireplace, and we drank hot chocolate while we waited. After about an hour we met our guide. He took us in a jeep around the park. We were really lucky, and got to see some cool animals.

There were tons of zebra all over the place!

Hippos. If you look, there is a baby between the two big ones. We were really close to all the animals that you see in the pictures. My camera's zoom isn't that big!

Rhino! If you look closely you can see that his horn is cut off. Our guide said that they do that so that poachers don't kill the rhinos. If they don't have horns the poachers have no reason to kill them.

Giraffe. We saw a couple of these guys walking together.

Cape buffalo.

Lions! That was really cool to see. They were the only animal that wasn't roaming free on the reserve. They had several acres fenced off just for them so they don't attack the other animals. It was really cool to be that close to them! They were kind of hard to find at first, but we finally did spot them. The game drive was about 2 and a half hours total, and it was really cool, in fact, along with the rugby game, the safari was one of my favorite things I did for the whole trip.

Garden Route Day 4

 Day 4 was a pretty relaxing day. We went to Storms River and visited the highest bridge in the Southern Hemisphere. It's also the worlds largest bungy jump. I had no interest in doing that!

Some people did though, and they suited up and did the jump. While they were jumping, the rest of us had lunch at a burger place on the cliff with a huge window where we could watch the jumpers. There was also a big screen TV streaming live an up close video of the jumpers. We got to enjoy our burgers and cheer when our friends went off the bridge.



I'm not afraid of heights, but I had no desire to jump off of a bridge with a rubber band tied to my feet! No matter how high up it was!

We had a relaxing night at our lodge. We sat around a huge fire pit where an older man was playing Neil Diamond songs on his guitar. My cold was still hanging on, and I wasn't the only one, so a night off was really nice. Earlier in the week Charl had recommended this South African cold medicine which I picked up at a pharmacy when we had stopped for lunch. It dissolves in water like alkaseltzer, and it tasted like strawberry. It was pretty good, and it really helped me. Still, a relaxing day was really nice to have.

Garden Route Day 3

 Day three was another early morning. We had a short drive to the Cango Caves. We were there a little early, so we had hot chocolate at the headquarters. By the way, I had a lot of hot chocolate in South Africa, and it was always really good everywhere I went. The caves were really cool. The guide said that they used to have concerts there. Charl got to go to one of the last concerts there when he was a little kid, and he said it was really cool.

 After the caves we stopped at a grocery store and bought stuff for lunch. We ate in George, a nearby town, and then we headed to Craga Orphaned Elephant Sanctuary. The elephants were so cool! We got to walk with them, and the trainers told us all about them. They are being rehabilitated from being pets so that they can live in a national park as elephants instead of pets.

 There's me walking with Marula. She is the oldest, and the leader of the elephant heard at the sanctuary.

 That's Marula on the right! She's named after the Marula tree which produces a fruit elephants love. At Moyo they put marula sauce on our ice cream. It's really good.

We left the elephant sanctuary in the late afternoon and went to Monkeyland, another rehabilitation center for monkeys learning to live in the wild after being kept as pets. Its a huge area fenced off where the monkeys get to roam free. It was really cool. By the end of day three we were starting to get really tired! This is a picture of me and a few of my friends in Monkeyland.

Garden Route Day 2

 On the second day of the trip I woke up before dawn so that I could go on the whale cruise. I wasn't the only one, about six others got up around 6 too. I just figured I might as well try to do as many things as I could, and besides, I could sleep on the plane! Unfortunately, Keith told us that the seas were too rough, and the worst thing you could do is try to sail along the southern tip of South Africa in rough seas. South Africa is known for its shipwrecks because of the dangerous currents and rocks. Everyone else went back to sleep, but I didn't want to go back to sleep for an hour. Once I'm up I'm pretty much awake for the day. I walked down to the beach about a block away and took some pictures of the sunrise. This is the longest beach in the Southern Hemisphere.









The land out to the right there is the southernmost tip where we were the night before. We were still really close.

 This is the inside of the place where we stayed the night. It was really nice! They let each group that stays there sign the walls, so we did. Kaitlin drew the words, and we signed all around it.













We've left our mark for future winter school students! We also found where the 2009 and 2010 American winter school students had signed.

After breakfast they led us on a short walk along the beach. This is the group! Although we had already been together for over a month, we got to know each other really well over the course of this week. We left the coast and drove inland a bit to the Little Karoo desert. We stopped at Warmwaterburg (that's really its name) which is another hot spring in the Karoo. While some people went swimming, the rest of us watched the rugby finals inside on a big screen TV at the springs. The Crusaders (who beat the Stormers the other day) were playing the Queensland Reds who actually ended up winning.


 After Warmwaterburg we drove on to Oudtschoorn, which is a town famous for its ostriches. We got to feed the ostriches and take a tour of the farm. Some of the lighter girls were able to ride them! I learned a lot about ostriches. Aparantly there are three main types: red, blue, and the most common black. The black ostrich feathers are the most valuable. An ostrich egg can take up to 250 lbs of weight, and we all got to stand on one!

Next they took us to the Cango Endangered Wildlife Ranch, which is just outside of Oudtschoorn. It's a sort of zoo, but not really. A guide takes you from exhibit to exhibit and explains about the animals. This is a pygmy hippo. He's the size of a large dog, but full grown!

 Yeah, I really got to do this! Those are baby cheetahs. They were purring the whole time!















After the cheetahs we had some free time to explore, and my and my friend Jillian found an exhibit where you could walk with a loose wallaby! He was really friendly.

Unfortunately the bus left while we were doing that! The lady who ran the zoo called Lawrence, who had already realized we weren't there and was coming back for us. She gave us one of the zoo's fliers to hold and took pictures of us with it while we waited about ten minutes for the bus to come back for us. Everyone on the bus liked our sign!





We stayed overnight in Oudtschoorn. The lodge had a really nice outdoor fireplace, and the braaied ostrich steak and ostrich kebabs for us. Ostrich meat is really healthy for you. It has basically no cholesterol. It's really lean, and it tastes delicious!

Garden Route Day 1

Well, I've been back for a little over a week now, I guess it's time to start updating my last few posts over the Garden Route road trip. It's taken me a while to get these posts up because for the majority of the trip my camera had been out of batteries, and we didn't stop anywhere that sold them until one of the last days. So I've been stealing people's Facebook photos, and now I have enough to be able to make decent posts. All of the photos for the first and last few days are mine.

The closing dinner was the last official event at the University. The next morning fifteen girls and six guys (plus one girls mom, brother, and sister who signed on for the Garden Route as a family vacation) boarded the same bus with the same tour group we took to Swellendam and headed out. Our tour group consisted of George, our driver, Keith and Sylvia who ran the tour, and Lawrence who was the tour guide. Although it was an Option 1 trip (Option 2 still had another week) not everyone could go. At first we were told that none of the South African students would be able to go because of their classes, but at the last minute Charl was able to sign on to go, which was really cool. This is along the same road that we took in Bio-Diversity! This time we actually did see a few whales way out in the water!







Our first stop was the beautiful beach town of Hermanus near Gordon's Bay. We drove along the R44 mountain road that morning, and stopped in Hermanus for lunch. (My friends and I were brave, with coaxing we finally tried an escargot appetizer. It wasn't bad! I probably wouldn't want to have it again though. I also had a calamari steak for lunch and my favorite - cheesecake - for dessert). We had about an hour for lunch and photos before we got back on the bus for another scenic coastal drive towards Cape Agulhas where we would spend the night.

 Looking across the bay from Hermanus.

 When we got to Cape Agulhas it was starting to get dark. That's the old lighthouse at the Cape, and I believe it's still in operation today. Cape Agulhas is the southernmost tip of Africa (Cape Point is the 2nd most I think.) It's less impressive than Cape Point for sure, but it was still pretty cool to be there.

 Where the two oceans converge. You can't tell though. The only way to tell is with thermal radar to track the ocean currents.

 I am standing in the Indian Ocean! It was really, really cold, but I had to do it! At the moment when this picture was taken I was the southernmost person in Africa! Somewhere in the distance about 2500 miles behind me is Antarctica.

That night we went to our first stop. Technically it was a backpackers lodge, or hostel, but the places that we stayed at were really nice. Since there weren't many guys, we were all in one dorm type room with bunk beds. The place served us dinner. They braaied on a big indoors fireplace. Keith told us that if we wanted to get up early the next morning we could go on a whale watching cruise at dawn. I planned on doing that.

Frankfurt Layover

Hey everyone! I'm back online again! I got to Germany a few hours ago, and thought I'd do a short post before dinner and bed. It's been a really long day! Well, it's actually been several days. We finished our Garden Route (posts about that will be coming up sometime in the next few days) and had to get up at 5:30 on Thursday morning to drive six hours back to Stellenbosch. We only had an hour in Stellenbosch to pack up before the bus took the first group of students to the airport. I was in the first group. There were 4 of us leaving at the time that I left. Most everyone else was going to be leaving at 11pm that same night. My flight was early though, it was at 6.

I was the only one going through Dubai, the other three girls with me were going through Amsterdam, so we had lunch, and then I went through security and everything to board my flight. It was nice, Emirates still has not disappointed me! It was really long though. I was on a night flight, but I couldn't sleep. I was having lots of trouble getting comfortable, so I watched The King's Speech and Lawrence of Arabia (guys, that's a long movie! Good though.) They served us dinner and breakfast on that flight, and I landed in Dubai at 5:30 in the morning. It's hot there! Even though the sun was just coming out when we stepped out of the plane (we had to use the stairs) it was already in the 90's. Back to the northern hemisphere and summertime I guess! Although I'm not sure how cold it really gets in Dubai winter...

My next flight left at 8, so I didn't have much time to sit around in Dubai, I definitely didn't have enough time to get out of the airport like I did on the way in. The next flight was relatively short (only 5 and a half hours, compared to the 9ish hour flight the night before). This one was a day flight though, so I definitely couldn't get any sleep. I got breakfast again and lunch too. Two breakfasts; good day! It was interesting, because flying from Dubai to Frankfurt for each meal they offered an Arabic meal and a German meal. I had the Arabic breakfast and the German lunch.

There was a really nice older couple next to me on the flight. They were coming from Australia to take a tour of Germany and Austria. They told me about all the traveling that they've done. They'd been to more places in the US than I had!

I got to Germany at 2 in the afternoon. When I was getting my tickets before I left, the flight that I wanted from Germany had been sold out, so I had to get a flight the next day. I wasn't too happy about it then, I had figured that I would just be ready to be home, but in the end it's a good thing. I hadn't been able to shower since 5:30 that morning leaving Mosselbaai, and I felt awful. Emirates had given me a toothbrush at least, and I was using it every few hours (partly just to get out of my seat for a while, because I can't sit still that long. Plus, it felt really good to brush, it kind of refreshed me on my flight.) It was really easy getting to the hotel though, there was a shuttle that came to the airport every half hour. The hotel is only about four minutes away from the airport, and they take me back again tomorrow morning. I spoke a little bit of German to our driver, which was cool. There was another Australian guy waiting for the shuttle with me and we talked about Rugby for a while. He said that he had been pulling for the Crusaders in that game I was at. Oh well!

So now I've had a shower and I feel much better! I will be getting my Garden Route trip pictures up slowly over the next week or so, I want to try to do the trip justice, because it was a really amazing experience all around. I'm about to try to go find something to eat, and then I'm going right to sleep (even though it's only 4:30 in the afternoon) because I haven't slept in two days. So I apologize if this post is a little bit long and rambley, but I'm really exhausted.

Last full day in Stellenbosch!

Today is my last day in town before leaving on the Garden Route. At 11 this morning our internet shuts off, so I wanted to be sure to do one last post before that happens. I'm not sure if we'll have internet on the garden route, but if we don't I will post those pictures when I get home.

Today is another free day. I'm about to go drop off my laundry and start packing for the garden route. This evening we have a closing function, it will be the last time that Options 1&2 are together; they do the Garden Route next week.

I'm feeling a little bit better today, and I don't think I'm going to go to the doctor, but I will stop by the pharmacy and pick up some cough drops for my throat. I want to be feeling great for the Garden Route.

So anyway, if we have internet, I'll try to post some photos while I'm gone this coming week. If not, my next post will probably be in a week from Frankfurt!

Update: I'm including some photos from the closing dinner. The school catered a really nice dinner and we had another sokkee dance before we left. It was our last time to be together with Option 2, and we had a really good time.

This is where the closing dinner was held. Jan Willem and Dirk made some speeches, and the food was catered from a nearby restaurant. It was really good! The venue was part of the university near the school's Rugby field.








With some friends at the dinner.
















Me with Shaina and Phil, the three Texans on the trip!

July 6: Free Day

Yesterday was the very last day of the last class. We had a slightly confusing group picture (we had taken three shots when Jan Willem realized that two guys in the group weren't actually part of our group and we had to start over), and finished our exams in the afternoon. I turned in my final essay for class, and then I was done!

I also had the best fish and chips yesterday for lunch. The place was sort of hidden and out of the way, but it was highly recommended to me and I thought I'd give it a shot. It was called the Coastal Shores Fishery, or something like that. It was run by this older Afrikaans couple, who were super friendly. The wife worked the counter while the husband cooked the fish in the back. She talked to us about America while our food was cooking, she said her son had been to Texas and loved it there. That's one thing I'll really miss here. Everywhere I go the people who work the restaurants are really friendly and will just strike up a conversation with you while you wait for your food.

Today is a free day. We have today and tomorrow off in Stellenbosch. After that about half of the group will begin flying home within the next day or two. The rest of us (about 20) are going on a tour of South Africa's world famous Garden Route along the southern coast of Africa next week. I've been really looking forward to it. Everyone that I've talked to about it doesn't have enough good things to say about the Garden Route. Seriously, everyone I've told about it just goes on and on about it. Last night I was out with some friends for pizza and our waitress was so excited to hear that we are going. She said it was one of the most beautiful areas in Africa.

I'm not ready to leave Africa yet, but it's almost time. It feels weird though. This weekend the first groups of people will be leaving. We've spent a month together, and I've become pretty good friends with a lot of the other students in this program. It will be nice to see my family and friends back in Arlington again though, but I'm not looking forward to the 100 degree heat. (The high today is 63.)

I'm not feeling great today, I have a cold and a sore throat, but I'm determined to power through my last two full days in Stellenbosch. I'm kind of taking it easy today, I went out for a late breakfast with some friends this morning, and I'm probably going to be doing a little more shopping this afternoon. Tomorrow, if the weather is nice, I'm going to try to go up Stellenbosch Mountain. It's beautiful today, I can see the mountains again for the first time in several days. Today there's not a cloud in the sky! I hope it stays this nice for the rest of my stay here in Africa!

Independence Day

I hope everyone had a great Fourth!

Mine was spent a little bit differently than usual. For one, it's cold. It's the first time in my life that I've ever worn a jacket on the 4th of July. It's weird, because it's not a big deal here (for obvious reasons!).

We didn't have class Monday. Instead, our program had set up a service project for us to do, sort of a taste of what Option 2 has been doing for the last few weeks. Early in the morning we boarded the train in Stellenbosch station (yes, that train again). We took a first class plus car to Lyndoch, which is just two stops away in the countryside.

Lyndoch is a primary school. It started after Apartheid as a sort of social experiment, putting children of different races together in the same community and class. In that way it's been successful, however the school is struggling financially.

We met up with Grant, the leader of the Option 2 students, who also happens to work at the school. He took us around the school, and we helped out with the sweeping, weeding the vegetable garden, mopping, and cleaning up the school. It doesn't sound like much, but after we had finished you could tell a huge difference. We also walked along the railroad tracks outside the school and picked almost 20 bags full of trash that people had thrown out of the train. After several hours of this we were really tired and sore (bending up and down for hours on end will tire you out!) but it really felt good to help out.  After working for a while, Grant brought in a big pot of vegetable soup that his elderly mother had made for us when she had found out that we would be helping out. It was so good!

Around 4 in the afternoon we took the train back to Stellenbosch. Dirk and the South African guys began building the braai fire, but I had special plans for the night. A small group had managed to get reservations at Moyo for one last night. (The tree restaurant!) It was really cold outside, but we were able to sit near a fire. There was lots of different food that they didn't have the first time I went. I tried ox tail (I couldn't get past the fact that it was a tail). I also had kudu, springbok, and ostrich. I also got some souvenir shopping done at the restaurant store! I'm really glad that I got to go back there one last time. I tried to get some pictures, but it was too dark outside. Hopefully one of my friends got some good ones that I can put up. Dirk drove us and picked us up in the school van, and when we got back the braai was still going on. We couldn't do fireworks, but we had some sparklers and those popper things that you throw on the ground, and we sang the anthem. It was fun. It was a different experience to celebrate it so far away from the US!

Happy 4th of July from South Africa!

I just wanted to take a minute to wish all of you back in the USA a very happy Independence Day! It's kind of weird spending this day in a foreign country, but we're determined to do it right! We'll show South Africa what today is all about!

Hope you all have a fun and safe Fourth!

-Michael

Stormers vs Crusaders

 After spending most of the day at the waterfront it was time for the rugby game. We had only found out about the tickets the day before, and everything was sort of last minute, but things just seemed to fall into place. Our plan (this is what Dirk told us was the best way to do this before he left for Swellendam) was to take the train from Cape Town to Nuweland. After the waterfront the bus dropped us off at the station. Charl, who was basically in charge with Dirk gone, got off the bus with us and took us aside. He basically told us "don't talk to anyone, don't make eye contact with anyone on the train." He then gave us his phone number and his dad's phone number (just in case, call if anything happens), and told us how to use the train. We had to get a metro rail plus (first class) ticket to Nuwelands. It cost R7 ($1) for the first class ticket. I can't imagine what coach was like. The first class car was pretty sketchy. There was graffiti all over the inside of it. We had to sit on little benches along the sides of the car, and these people kept walking up and down the car trying to sell stuff. One lady was selling snacks and drinks, one guy was selling leg warmers, and one guy was selling smarties (the candy) and superglue. I can't think of a situation when I would need any of those things on a train ride.

But we survived the train and made it to Nuwelands (Newlands in English. Everything is bilingual here). Newlands field is the home of the Western Province Stormers, who we were there to see play the Christchurch Crusaders in the Super 15 Rugby Semi-finals. We met the guy who we were buying the tickets from. He was a really nice guy, and he was definitely legitimate. He had bought the whole row to sell and sat just down from us and talked with us during the game. We had the supposed "cheap seats", but we were really close to the field, only about ten rows or so up. The view in the picture on the left is what I could see from my seat. The guy was selling the tickets for a profit, but he really only made about R50 from each one.

That's the Stormers team! That's who we were there to support. It was a good game, unfortunately the Stormers ultimately lost. I was pretty much able to figure out what was going on throughout the game, at least I got the gist of it. This game was a really big deal especially. Instead of it just being about two rival teams, South Africa and New Zealand put their internal rivalries aside and supported each team nationally. South Africa was for the most part supporting the Stormers (even though during the year the South African teams have rivalries with the Stormers), and New Zealand supported the Crusaders. There were a lot of South African and New Zealand flags, and lots of people at the game were actually wearing Springbok (South African national team that competes for the Rugby World Cup) and Allblack (New Zealand) gear to support their country.

There's me down there! We had two blocks of seats with one row in between. The three of us down there are together. Check out the Stormers jerseys!

 Here's the other guys two rows up!

 This guy a few rows in front of me was on the wrong side of the stadium! He was attracting way too much attention. People were booing and shouting at him in Afrikaans. When someone finally pulled the flag down everyone on this side of the stadium cheered.









Even though the Stormers lost it was a really good experience. I had a lot of fun. The cool thing about Rugby is that the clock keeps going for two 40 minute halves. It makes the game go really fast. It was cool to experience a real rugby game. One of the funniest things was the food that they were selling at the stadium. You couldn't get a pretzel or nachos or anything like that, instead there was a guy walking around with a big tray of doughnuts selling them! There was also a guy with this weird backpack on, which I later found out was full of hot chocolate which he dispensed into styrofoam cups through a tube!

After the game we left the stadium and had to walk down the street to the Southern Sun hotel where our ride was supposed to pick us up. We didn't take the train back to Stellenbosch. That would have been too dangerous, especially at night. Instead we used our tour guide, Johan. He had been working with Jan Willem, and had organized a lot of side trips for the people who wanted to go shark diving or skydiving. He had a bus come to pick us up and take us back to Stellenbosch. It was a good relief to know that we were getting back safely with someone we trusted. The game was only about two hours long, and we were back in Stellenbosch by about 8 in the evening. Even though it was so last minute things really worked out perfectly for us. We got back to Stellenbosch all together and alive, which was great. Getting to see this game was one of the most fun things I've done here yet! (and that's saying something!)


I saw this sign at Newland field and had to get a photo. No musical instruments allowed! No vuvuzelas, guitars, or drums!

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!