Wine Country

Well, we're back from wine country. Again, what a day. It was cloudy and sort of wet and drizzly but the area was still spectacular. Great wines too. We went to 4 different wine farms and I ended up buying a lot more wine than I expected to. It'll be fun figuring out how to transport all this back!!

We ate lunch at a place called Franschook, small and cute town with a surprisingly good French restaurant. Then back for more vineyards and amazing views. The strangest part of the day was when we were heading to the last wine farm, we saw ostrich and antelope (bok) in a farm on the side of the road just by the highway. We stopped to take some pictures and then moved on and a quarter mile later, we saw zebra! It was very cool indeed.

The last place we went to was an area called Spier. They have a game resort/restaurant/hotel/vineyard and we ate dinner at this incredible restaurant called Moyo. It is outdoors and you sit under tents (they give you heaters and big fires and blankets to keep warm) and they have this huge, amazing buffet. It was wonderful. Of course, I ate waaay too much but it was really neat. They also come around and paint your face - very cool.

We all had a really nice time and they played great music and had some live music as well. Lots of fun.

Now we're home and luckily, it's an early night. I'm off to enjoy some sleep. Tomorrow, we're sort of on call so I'm thinking we won't get a lot done but if the weather is nice, we're going to try to do Cape Point.

Late late Friday night...

September 30, 2006 9:22 am Capetown, 3:22 am Atlanta

Well it has been a crazy couple of days but not a whole lot to blog, really. Work was hectic and by 5 pm yesterday, we were all ready to blow off some steam. Of course, we didn't actually leave the office until nearly 6! We decided to try to do sundowners again but since it was so late, ended up going to a bar right in the city that was attached to the Radisson hotel. The bar was really cool - sat right on the beach, above the rocks with the waves crashing right below us. Unfortunately, the Capetown weather was off kilter and it was FREEZING, not to mention severely cloudy. So we didn't actually see sundown. It would be an amazing place to go on a warm day though!

We still had fun - we ended up meeting up with a couple of people from the client and hung out and had cocktails and watched the seagulls freezing their butts off, and stupid kayakers who were kayaking around in the sea. It was really cold but the bar gave us all blankets and there were heaters all over so it wasn't too bad.

We were trying to decide what to do for dinner and John, who is our 'local' American (he's been pretty much living here for the past 2 years) wanted to take us to a place called Madame Zingara's. It was supposed to have authentic African food and a really cool atmosphere. When he went into the hotel to call for reservations, the concierge told him that the place had BURNED TO THE GROUND the night before! It was very strange.

So we ended up at this place called '95' which is an Italian joint. Amazing food - John knew the chef and so we had a really lovely evening, the wine flowed continuously, we all ate really well and had a great time.

The night progressed from there - we ended up wandering around the main drag in Capetown (looks like Bourbon street but without the smell! Or at least, without the SAME smell). We went to a few clubs and danced a bit. One of the places we stopped at was this amazing restaurant/club called Mama Africa. They had these guys playing the marimbas - it was incredible. They were playing this funky african version of Amazing Grace and I finally felt like I was seeing a bit of Africa. Anyway, I stopped drinking fairly early and am thanking my stars for it. We didn't get home till nearly 3 a.m. and are heading off to wine country this morning so I really did NOT want to be hanging today.

As it turns out, I feel great. I could use some more sleep and I still never made it to work out but hopefully that can all happen tomorrow. We need to be on call tomorrow because the client is in the process of going live so we can't really do much too far from the office. So I'm thinking it'll be a good day to catch up on some work, work out, sleep etc. We shall see.

Today - wine country! I can't wait!

Work, work, work...

Busy day today. I'm still at work and probably will be here a while. So not a lot to report about today!

Last night, we went to Camp's Bay for sundowners (do you see a sundown theme here?) and then out to the city for Indian food. It was most excellent. I had a good time but I am getting a little exhausted from eating out every night and being on the go all the time. I shouldn't complain. I was really hoping to go work out this evening but it doesn't look like it's going to happen, alas. Maybe tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are a few more pictures!

Me on table mountain:




"The Apostles" - taken from Camp's Bay:

Freaking Third World...

Last night, my iron did not work. I thought the problem was that I was drunk (which I was). This morning, I woke up, hungover and realised that the iron, hairdryer, lamps, all were not working. Turns out that although the overhead lights work, the power outlets are all dead.

No iron, no hairdryer, nothing. I had to come down to the boys' apartment to blowdry my hair. What a pain. Tomorrow, I'm going to have to come down here to iron! But hopefully the electrician will come by tomorrow and all will be well.

Yesterday was a rough evening. We ended up at work way too late and then went out for dinner and drinks. Ate at this amazing Greek place and polished off way too much wine followed by free shots of this chocolate and vanilla liquer stuff - just amazing.

Then Judy and I came home and drank another bottle of wine and stayed up and yakked into the wee hours. 7 am came waay too early.

Today was a fairly busy day but we left at 5 to catch sundowners at Camps Bay. It was an amazing sunset - I'll post pics when I can. Then we went to eat at an Indian restaurant where I got to play 'expert' and pick out food for everyone. It was an excellent meal - the tandoori chicken was better than mine and that's saying something, if I do say so myself.

But of course, more wine was had and now I'm completely exhausted.

So bedtime! More soon!

Dull work day...

Argh.

Still no Internet at work. The IT guy decided that I had a virus on my machine (even though I don't) and left and never came back. I guess I am unclean and not worth being on their network.
So I've been getting lots of documentation done in the mean time, which is great, but I am really frustrated at the moment because I feel like we're all wasting our time a little bit. There is a whole hell of a lot to do and it's hard to have our hands tied like this.

In other news, it's an absolutely beautiful day here, again. It's actually really warm and so the jacket and sweater I wore to work this morning have been successively stripped off as the day has progressed.

One funny story - the doors in our flats lock with a key on both sides. It's really odd, considering that is a fire hazard in the U.S. so you never see it. So if you want to get out, you need a key. The two guys who are with us are staying in our colleague's flat - he lives here normally and is back in the U.S. at the moment on vacation. Anyway, his cleaning lady was coming today so he told them to make sure they let her in. They suggested just letting her not come for this week but she apparently really needs the money (she gets 100 Rand per visit - that's about $14) every week. So they had to let her in, leave for work and therefore LOCK HER IN and then go back to the house at lunch to let her out.

Very bizarre.

Panic in Southern Africa...

September 26, 2006 1:01 PM Atlanta, 7:01 PM Cape Town

I had a heart attack this morning. First day at work, first day to meet the client, all this pressure and stress and I get out of the shower, turn on my hair dryer and it explodes. Seriously. It turned on really loud, the heating element went bright red and then it sparked and died.

I almost cried.

I ran around the flat yelling 'my hairdryer died! my hairdryer died' much to the confusion and concern of my roommate Judy, who is a lovely, low maintenance woman who doesn't use a hairdryer.

I hit the reset button several times to no avail and finally was about to give up and just assume I'd be meeting the client looking like a wet cat when I heard a little 'click' from the heating element cooling down. I tried again (on the right voltage setting this time) and it worked.
OK, it's not a close up meeting with a lion but it was VERY STRESSFUL!

We got to work and of course, my Internet connection had not been set up as yet. Today is a public holiday in South Africa so there were not many people in the office. It was good because it was a fairly easy easing into the work week. Tomorrow, I am sure chaos will begin :)

That's really all I have for today. We haven't done much of anything. I did get to go work out at one of the local gyms this morning, which was nice. Oh, and this country is just so beautiful. It poured with rain last night and when I woke up, there was a waterfall outside. Seriously. A waterfall. I took pictures.

We're getting ready to go to dinner and it'll probably be an early night so I probably won't post again until tomorrow.

Ba!

Table Mountain

September 24, 2006 - 10:50 pm Capetown, 4:50pm Atlanta

Sleepy!

What a day. Again. First off, we went to Table Mountain, which is the dominant
geographical feature in Capetown. It's gorgeous and you get to ride up it in a
fairly terrifying cable car which has a rotating floor. It was actually really
beautiful, as long as you didn't think too much about it.

Table Mountain was very cool and had what was truly the best views of Capetown.
I took a lot of photos but it really doesn't compare to seeing it for real. It
was very similar to the grand canyon in that respect, I think.

We then went down to Capetown and spent some time in this fantastic flea market.
I had a blast because I got to haggle, not just for my stuff but for the other
people's too (since they were no good at haggling). I ended up getting this
incredible giraffe soapstone statue for next to nothing. Just fantastic - it
was a lot of fun.

We spent too long at the flea market so it was nearly 3 when we finally sat down
in Capetown for lunch. We ate at the waterfront at a mediocre sports bar (very
strange to have an American-like sports bar in South Africa). The meal was not
great and the service sucked but the view was spectacular, and since we were all
starving, we enjoyed sitting and resting and eating.

After that, we went to Camps Bay, another great spot, right by the beach, for
sundowners again. Had a few drinks, watched the sun go down - there are worse
ways to spend an evening.

We're home now and I think it's time for bed. I'm wiped out and we have to work
tomorrow. Luckily, it's a public holiday so at least we can go in later than
usual!

I'm off - will try to write more tomorrow! I'll post more photos too.

Busy first day!

September 24, 2006 1:15 am Atlanta time, 7:15 am Capetown

I don't have Internet access in this apartment but I wanted to at least write out a post and will post it from my colleague's apartment later today. I posted the one from the plane last night.
I got in around 8 am local time to an absolutely gorgeous day in Capetown. The weather was just gorgeous - sunny and cool. Aaron, one of the other folks from BlueCube, came to pick me up and take me to the apartment I'm sharing. The apartment is OK - nothing spectacular (although it has a great view) but it's clean and comfortable and after spending the past two nights on a plane, it is high luxury!

Lucky for me, I had managed to catch a few hours of sleep on the plane. I actually probably slept for nearly 8 hours, so I really did ok. They had already made plans with Francois - one of the contractors we work with here - to go on a game drive yesterday. So of course, I went along.
We were a little early when we got there so we took a detour to this fossil park, where in the past 5 years, they've excavated what they believe to be a river bed where several animals got trapped in an estuary. There were pygmy giraffes, long-neck giraffes, whales and seals, all in bone form and all several million years old. Pretty impressive stuff. Also, apparently, in the region, they found bones of a now-extinct africa bear.

We were lucky to have Francois with us because he managed to get us the 'extra' stuff that most tourists don't get. They took us into their closed excavation site, which was very cool. After that short detour, we were on our way to see some living, breathing animals :)

But first, lunch! We ate at the game reserve - a really lovely area.

While we were waiting for lunch, we noticed that one of the park guides was walking around outside with a baby ostrich. Judy and I went out to take pictures and check it out. It was only 2 days old and really quite cute! I'll post pictures when I can. Apparently, the guide's wife had found it that morning - it had gotten lost so he was going to try to find it a group to put it back with.

I had a traditional South African dish called boboti (sp?) which was a sort of meat pie. It was Ok. I was expecting it to be spicier since they said it was minced, curried meat but they use a lot of fruit-based chutneys to spice their food so it was pretty unusual. At that point, I was so hungry, they could have put a live wildebeest on my plate and I'd have dug in though!

The only real problem I had was that after lunch, I felt something on my arm. Went to squoosh what I thought was just a little bug and realized it was a tick. And apparently, a nasty red tick that, had it bitten me, would have given me tick fever (nothing deadly but basically a nasty flu that wouldn't have been a whole lot of fun). So of course, I spent the rest of the day feeling like I had bugs on me, particularly when I was on the game drive!

The place is one of the many private wilderness parks in the area. No real predators, but lots of antelope, a few zebras, buffalo, wildebeest, ostrich galore and 3 rather elusive giraffes. We managed to see pretty much everything and at the very end, we went hunting for the giraffes. Our guide spotted them in the sand dunes at one edge of the park so off we went. Once we got as close as we could without the vehicle getting stuck, he actually let us get out and walk to get a closer view. I've never gotten out of the vehicle while on safari so that was pretty cool. We saw them, probably 200 yards away, but didn't get a really great view. But we noticed they had moved closer to the road on the other side of the dunes so we headed back into the car to try to chase them. We got to the road and saw them in the distance. We turned the engine off and waited and giraffes, being cool and curious creatures, basically walked up to us. It was amazing. I had forgotten how gorgeous those animals are. I got about a billion pictures, plus some video. I'll upload all my photos tomorrow and post them. I managed to get a few up today but the videos are fantastic!

After the drive was over, the guide took us back to where the lions were. They have 2 lions but they are in an enclosure. Since I'm not really a big fan of animals in cages, I wasn't really impressed but then he took us in the back, to where the lions dens are. He called them (and they came!) and they came into their little pens in the back. We were maybe 3 feet from these creatures. And they really didn't seem very happy! The lion kept jumping at the cage and growling. You really have no idea how big and scary and gorgeous those beasts are until you've seen them up close. Simba and Nala (yes, that was what they were called) were just beautiful and cool (I have lots of video of that too) but I felt really sad to see them caged, particularly since it really seemed like they were not happy to be there. Still an amazingly cool experience though. It was wierd seeing them so close after just reading the Lionboy series too :)

The game drive had been COLD - it's still spring here and the wind is pretty chilly. We had blankets on the vehicle but once we got back, we were all sort of frozen so we stopped for coffees and teas and to warm up a bit.

(By the way... I'm lying in bed on Sunday morning as I type this. I can hear birds outside and something that really sounds like a baboon. I wonder ...)

We left the game reserve around 6:30. Since it was quite late and most of the other places we could have visited were closed, Francois decided to take us for 'sundowners.' We have basically learned to just follow and trust him, so we let him guide us and as we wound through the streets, BOOM, all of a sudden, we were at the beach. At sunset. We parked and got out and Francois pulled out cold beers from the back of his Land Rover for everyone. (The guy is like a South African Willy Wonka, I swear!). We wandered around on the beach, watched the giant waves coming in from the Atlantic, picked up some shells and took photos as the sun went down. It was simply amazing.

After that, we just headed home. Francois dropped us off and we headed back to our flats to clean up a bit and do some geeky checking of emails, downloading of photos etc. At one point, all five of us were sitting around, laptops open. Us 'Cubers really know how to live it up on a Saturday night!

We headed out for dinner pretty soon though and ate at a really nice Italian place, just a few minutes walk from the flats. After a couple of glasses of wine and a good Italian meal, plus the remaining jet lag, I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow!

I slept pretty well, although I got up around 5:30 and then was fairly restless until 7 or so when I finally woke up. It's now 7:45 and I should probably get my ass up and get cleaned up. We're meeting at 9 to go to Table Mountain and then into Capetown to check out the city.

I'm sure I've missed a bunch of stuff in this post but I wanted to get the highlights down before I forgot. I'll do my best to blog daily, at least on days like this. Once the week starts up, it'll be mostly work so there won't be a whole lot of interesting stuff.

Anyway, more soon!