Welp I’m a little backlogged in the blogosphere, so this post is going to have a lot of pictures and just a little writing. Luckily, with my new iPhone that FINALLY came in after the longest and hardest shipping process evaaaa, I’ve been able to take pictures of everything that my little heart desires! Please note the amount of seriously diverse activities this blog post contains as the #1 reason I came to Cape Town: This place has LITERALLY EVERYTHING.
After a super long dinner, we headed to the Sustainability Brothers & Sisters’ annual Farm Fundraiser. The facebook event describes the evening as this: “You know how it goes, we get awesome local talent and upcoming bands to play at the farm, raise money, and plant a vegetable garden in a disadvantaged community!” Basically, Sustainability Brothers & Sisters is an organization that was started on a property in Stellenbosch. There is beautiful house that serves as a coop where people live, keep a garden, and host sustainability-related events. The Farm Fundraiser is their primary fundraiser each year, and my friend found out about it from some local friends she has in Stellie. It was so cool and I’m so happy we went– I felt like we were on the set of a hippie movie, and the music was awesome, especially the last band called Grassy Spark. When the fundraiser ended, we met up with some friends at a few bars in town. Stellenbosch is a college town in the middle of the winelands, which makes for pretty stellar nightlife.
Sunday was a day fullll of wine! Carl planned an awesome full day wine and cheese tour for us, including transportation, lunch and all tastings. It went from about 9-5 and was absolutely incredible. We hit up a few great places throughout the day:
Then it was time for the sunset cruise!! We had booked a whole catamaran sailboat for the night, which fit 45 of us. We docked out of a quay at the V&A waterfront, and here, I got to meet up with my friend Anna who was on spring break in Cape Town from her semester abroad in Botswana! It was so much fun for all of my friends to meet each other. We brought along the bottles of wine from the wine tour, got some free champagne from the boat company, and rode off into the sunset. It was actually the perfect night with great company and great views of the mountainous Cape Town skyline in the sunset. My birthdays will most certainly be going downhill from here… After the boat, we all went to Shimmy Beach Club for dinner. We were planning on going out on Long St. after dinner, butttt we all went home to go to sleep instead. Much needed.
It was really an incredible birthday, thank you to everyone who made it such a good day!!
Then, Katie left and I met up with some friends for a Galileo Open Air Cinema showing of Zoolander! The Galileo Cinema is a company that brings movies to different open air locations in Cape Town 3 times a week. Pretty sweet, amiright??? They provide chairs and blankets and we brought along a little picnic. The V&A location is on a rooftop park-like area, which was beautiful and so much fun. I will definitely be going to more movies like this one!
Simon’s town is home to Boulder’s Beach, which is home to WILD AFRICAN PENGUINS!! I hadn’t seen the ‘guins yet, so needless to say, I was PUMPED throughout the entire hour-ish long train ride. We were sweatin up a storm at the beginning of the ride, but as soon as people started getting off the train, we were greeted by the beautiful beaches between Muizenberg and Simon’s Town. The train tracks are JUST off the sand, so when you’re sitting on the benches, all you see is the water– it actually looks like the train is running over the water. Simon’s Town is the last stop, so we were the last ones in the car and we all looked like puppies with our heads out the window.
Bouler’s Beach was absolutely incredible. The ‘guins are some of the cutest and funniest animals I’ve ever seen. There are no barriers at all between you and them, so it’s hysterical to watch their reactions to you as you get up close and personal. We may or may not have confused some with a gopro on a selfie stick, and some of my friends have some awesome footage of them poking at the cameras. The next time I go, I am 100% wearing my bathing suit so I can swim in the crystal clear water with the lil’ guins!
As the sun started to set, we walked up to the main road to go into town– and conveniently got picked up by a dude in a truck. We piled into the back and made our trip into town muchos quicker! Simon’s Town is such a cute, quaint little place, and we had a great meal at Bertha’s Restaurant. We watched the sun set over the harbor (Simon’s Town is a military base with a very active harbor!) and enjoyed some great food and great company after a super long day. I had a delicious ostrich burger!
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FIRST THURSDAYS
First Thursdays. On the first Thursday of every month, Cape Town’s central city ~comes alive~ as dozens of art galleries stay open and cultural events go on till late. There are quiteeeee a few things to love about First Thursdays:- Wine, wine, wine and more wine. Sometimes even free wine! Almost all of the galleries have lots of wine for you to buy, and if you get there early enough, they even have free wine. We didn’t get there early enough this month…next month we’ll be on it.
- Super cool art. And music. And performances. And more. We started the night by walking around YoungBloods, a super cool gallery on Bree St. All of the art included concrete in some fashion… instruments made of concrete, statues, even clothes with concrete elements. Then we went down to Red Bull Studios for a Christian Tiger School set. We walked around Bree St., Long St., and Church St. to pop into some cool restaurants and small galleries, and then made our way back to YoungBloods to enjoy some wine. Anddd considering we were just about the last people in there, we took a bit of a photoshoot full of selfies and fun– check the facebook album for those beauties. We were bummed to have missed the traditional African dance and music performance at YoungBloods, but there’s always next month. Oh alsooo, you can go to the same places every month because the galleries entirely change their collections each month. Last month, YoungBloods was full of photography! What will it be next month?!
- Hipsters galooooreee. You think you know what “true hipsters” are? Take a walk around First Thursdays and then think again. You’ve got little baby hipsters on their hipster parents’ shoulders, old people hipsters, hipsters EVERYWHERE you look. And we’re just trying to blend in in our Cotton On dresses and Steve Madden heels…
HOUT BAY MARKET
The Hout Bay Market (officially called Bay Harbour Market, but everyone just calls it Hout Bay Market) most definitely ties with Old Biscuit Mill as my favorite markets in Cape Town. It’s open pretty much all weekend, but has live music every Friday night. And the shopping is incredible. And the food is even more incredible. And the location might even be moreeee incredible. It’s down at Hout Bay, a beautiful beach surrounded by mountains (classic cape town), and just the perfect size. I’ve been there 2 different Friday nights now, and the bands have been out of this world both times. I’m not sure of the people who were playing in these pictures, but the previous week was Paige Mac– you NEED to check her out. WAVES FOR CHANGE
On Saturday morning, we had our first Verona CAP (Community Action Project) with Waves For Change. Waves for Change is an organization that specializes in surf therapy for violent communities– pretty cool, huh? You should check out their website to learn more about what the organization does and how it was started. We all headed out to Khayelitsha, one of Cape Town’s townships, to meet up with the kids. We started by playing a game called Tens, where we had a boys vs. girls face off of who could make 10 passes to their teammates without dropping the ball or letting it get in the hands of the other team. We all had SO much fun, and seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces made it even better. Once we were warmed up, everyone put their wetsuits on and headed down to the water! Khayelitsha borders False Bay, and has a beautiful beach called Monwabisi. A few of us sat out of the surfing, including myself, because I had a head cold and didn’t want the water to make it worse right before my big birthday weekend :( Next time! The idea of the CAP was to help the kids surf, but considering they were all better than pretty much anyone in Verona was, everyone just surfed together.
STELLENBOSCH
STELLENBOSCH IS THE MOST PERFECT PLACE ON EARTH. It is one of the many wineland areas that surrounds Cape Town, and is situated next to a few different winelands including Franshoek and Paarl. One of the guys in Verona, Carl, organized a huge weekend trip for about 35 of us from Verona to head down to wine country. We took the train from Cape Town, and it was a beautiful 45 minute train ride– and only 18 rand, which is about $1.50! After we checked into our hostel, we walked down into town, where we all fell in love. The streets are quaint and lined with awesome shops and restaurants and bars, and, as everything is in the Western Cape, surrounded by beautiful mountains. We explored the artsy but majorly touristy “african” stores for a while– one was actually called “Old Art from Africa”– and then broke out the travel book forrrr probably the first time since we’ve been in South Africa. The restaurants all looked too wonderful to pick one, so we had to whip out the book so we could randomly choose one of the restaurants! We ended up at Wijnhuis, pronounced “Vine-huis” (we think), which means Wine House in Afrikaans (we also think). It was DELICIOUS.After a super long dinner, we headed to the Sustainability Brothers & Sisters’ annual Farm Fundraiser. The facebook event describes the evening as this: “You know how it goes, we get awesome local talent and upcoming bands to play at the farm, raise money, and plant a vegetable garden in a disadvantaged community!” Basically, Sustainability Brothers & Sisters is an organization that was started on a property in Stellenbosch. There is beautiful house that serves as a coop where people live, keep a garden, and host sustainability-related events. The Farm Fundraiser is their primary fundraiser each year, and my friend found out about it from some local friends she has in Stellie. It was so cool and I’m so happy we went– I felt like we were on the set of a hippie movie, and the music was awesome, especially the last band called Grassy Spark. When the fundraiser ended, we met up with some friends at a few bars in town. Stellenbosch is a college town in the middle of the winelands, which makes for pretty stellar nightlife.
Sunday was a day fullll of wine! Carl planned an awesome full day wine and cheese tour for us, including transportation, lunch and all tastings. It went from about 9-5 and was absolutely incredible. We hit up a few great places throughout the day:
- Solms-Delta: We started at this beautiful wine estate in Franschoek for a 5 tastings. We all fell in love with Africana 2012, a deliciously bubbly red wine. The vineyard was beautiful and we all learned a thing or 2 about the proper way to taste wine! (those legs doe)
- Boschendal: Stop #2 was at a picturesque wine estate in Franschoek called Boschendal. The farm was probably one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, and all our glasses of wine were lined up on cute little white whicker tables when we sat down. Our tour guide for the day inspired us to take lots of ~artsy~ pictures of each other through the glasses, so that we did. Alex and I bought 2 bottles to share from here– Blanc de Noir and Le Bouquet. Blanc de Noir is white wine made from red grapes, and both bottles were delicious. We also bought some great white lime and apricot chocolate! After the tasting, we got to see the area where they make the wine, and learned a little about that process.
- Le Pommier: We drove back into Stellenbosch for lunch at another wine estate called Le Pommier. My meal was delicious– mushroom risotto– and the lunch included basically endless champagne and wine. When we finished eating, we got to walk though the vineyards and explore a PETTING ZOO! Does it get better than that?! We may or may not have fed a bird some wine, but it wasn’t our fault… he was grabbing it right out of our hands with his little beak. We saw lots of animals and took way too many pictures in the vineyards, including one with the longest DIY gopro selfie stick you will ever see, made out of a big stick we found.
- Fairview: Our final stop was the Fairview winery in Paarl, where we had our wine and cheese tasting. We tasted 6 wine and cheese pairs that were all delicious. It was super interesting to learn about and taste how the cheeses changed flavors after being paired with the wines. At this point we were all dead tired and ready for a nice long nap in the bus ride home. It was such a great day!
TWENTY FUN!
We woke up AWAKE ALIVE ALERT AND ENERGETIC (a south african preschool-esque cheer) for my birthday! I was so surprised and happy to learn that my big in SDT, Sharon, had created an email account and had all of my friends email notes, pictures, and videos to it for my birthday. She gave me the password to the account, and when I logged on it was full of great pictures and memories from my friends. It made me incredibly happy and brought so much love to me all the way down in South Africa. THANK YOU SHARON AND EVERYONE WHO EMAILED SOMETHING IN!!! When I got back from class, I found that my wonderful flatmates had decorated my room (don’t mind the mess in the pictures)! Then, I got to video chat with the rents and have a relaxing day in Rondesbosch.Then it was time for the sunset cruise!! We had booked a whole catamaran sailboat for the night, which fit 45 of us. We docked out of a quay at the V&A waterfront, and here, I got to meet up with my friend Anna who was on spring break in Cape Town from her semester abroad in Botswana! It was so much fun for all of my friends to meet each other. We brought along the bottles of wine from the wine tour, got some free champagne from the boat company, and rode off into the sunset. It was actually the perfect night with great company and great views of the mountainous Cape Town skyline in the sunset. My birthdays will most certainly be going downhill from here… After the boat, we all went to Shimmy Beach Club for dinner. We were planning on going out on Long St. after dinner, butttt we all went home to go to sleep instead. Much needed.
It was really an incredible birthday, thank you to everyone who made it such a good day!!
WATERFRONT
The next few days included a bunch of sleeping and studying for my Xhosa test that was on Thursday… and finally, we had time for another adventure at the waterfront. My roomie Katie and I headed down there after class to explore a food market, shopping market, and the rest of the V&A area. It’s insane how different Cape Town feels at the waterfront. It’s almost entirely white, and feels like a completely different city. We ate some great paella and got some cute little jewelry from the market, and found a cute coffee shop where Katie got a cappuccino and I got a delicious passion fruit smoothie!Then, Katie left and I met up with some friends for a Galileo Open Air Cinema showing of Zoolander! The Galileo Cinema is a company that brings movies to different open air locations in Cape Town 3 times a week. Pretty sweet, amiright??? They provide chairs and blankets and we brought along a little picnic. The V&A location is on a rooftop park-like area, which was beautiful and so much fun. I will definitely be going to more movies like this one!
MAGNUM
Magnum Ice Cream bars had a pop up shop in Cavendish mall in Claremont that just closed, so we had to jump on the last opportunity to go!! If you’ve never had a magnum bar, go find one at the nearest 7/11 and then come back to read the rest of this post. They are delicious, and I didn’t know they could get any better…until I found the popup shop. At this shop, you choose what kind of chocolate you want your bar dipped in, then which toppings you want, then what kind of chocolate drizzle you want. I chose white chocolate as the dip, peppermint chocolate crunchies, caramel cookie crumbles, and coconut/pistachio/almond shavings as my toppings, and dark chocolate as my drizzle. It was out of this world. FIREJAM
FireJAM was an event hosted at Clifton 2nd beach on Friday night. It was an awesome, yet very chill, fire show where lots of hippies came out with their fire tricks and african drums. We got there early to witness the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life (excuse the insane amount of pictures I’m posting of it), and had a little picnic on the beach before the show started. It was yet another perfect Cape Town night.
PAINTING
On Saturday morning, a bunch of us got up to head to Khayelitsha township to paint the playground at a primary school called Thandabuntu. This means Love People in Xhosa! There is an organization going around this week to choose where to distribute their money for the year, so the school wanted us to come and help make their playground area look bright and nice. I only took this one picture because I was a little covered in red paint the whole time…that’s what happens when you paint the inside of a roof of a playground right above your head, I guess! The paint was oil-based, so soap and water wouldn’t get it off of our skin and clothes, so we had to wash it off with Turpentine… quite the experience. We didn’t get to see any of the kids, but it was a great way to start the weekend.
BOULER’S BEACH
After we painted the primary school, we grabbed much needed mexican food and margs at Fat Cactus in Obs, and decided to meet up with some friends who were in Simon’s Town. We were going to walk home, shower the turpentine off, and then catch the train down, but as we were walking past the train station in Obs we made the spontaneous decision to go straight to Simon’s Town from there!Simon’s town is home to Boulder’s Beach, which is home to WILD AFRICAN PENGUINS!! I hadn’t seen the ‘guins yet, so needless to say, I was PUMPED throughout the entire hour-ish long train ride. We were sweatin up a storm at the beginning of the ride, but as soon as people started getting off the train, we were greeted by the beautiful beaches between Muizenberg and Simon’s Town. The train tracks are JUST off the sand, so when you’re sitting on the benches, all you see is the water– it actually looks like the train is running over the water. Simon’s Town is the last stop, so we were the last ones in the car and we all looked like puppies with our heads out the window.
Bouler’s Beach was absolutely incredible. The ‘guins are some of the cutest and funniest animals I’ve ever seen. There are no barriers at all between you and them, so it’s hysterical to watch their reactions to you as you get up close and personal. We may or may not have confused some with a gopro on a selfie stick, and some of my friends have some awesome footage of them poking at the cameras. The next time I go, I am 100% wearing my bathing suit so I can swim in the crystal clear water with the lil’ guins!
As the sun started to set, we walked up to the main road to go into town– and conveniently got picked up by a dude in a truck. We piled into the back and made our trip into town muchos quicker! Simon’s Town is such a cute, quaint little place, and we had a great meal at Bertha’s Restaurant. We watched the sun set over the harbor (Simon’s Town is a military base with a very active harbor!) and enjoyed some great food and great company after a super long day. I had a delicious ostrich burger!
