Camps Bay

What a gorgeous drive we took this morning. Travelled north-west to downtown, took a wrong turn and headed up the mountainside…pictures posted. Then went back and drove along the western coast (atlantic side) and down towards the beaches. The kids managed to completely soak their pants. I had to fill up gas after our frigid walk into the water and found out unfortunately the gas station didn’t take credit cards and I hadn’t brought any cash along. Fine you say, take your bank card and visit the local ATM to get cash. Well there were cash machines all over the place, and I did have my bank card…but you’d think I’d remember my pin code on my new account? You’re right if you say no. SO…I tried my credit cards too, still no luck…went to an American Express depot, but they wouldn’t/couldn’t help either. I finally gave up, had the gas station attendant call the manager and he said that they would ring it up inside the convenience store…whew! This saved me from doing party tricks naked on the beach for money.

The beaches were incredible, tons of people out, and the apartments/condos/houses on the coast were luxurious. Maybe we can visit there for a weekend at some point. From there we drove down and inland a little to Hout Bay. Here they advertised Bird World and tours of the townships. We’d like to tour one at some point, but perhaps with a larger group. We’ve seen some great birds as well, my favourite being the red-winged starling. We’ve also seen ibises (ibii?). Hout Bay is famous for seafood as well, but we didn’t stop since we were on our way (scenic route) to visit Marion and Ricardo who used to attend FGMF. They just moved to Cape Town this year as well and she is working at University of Cape Town. We drove to their place through Constantia, the vinyards that are very close to the city…amazing to see, the grapes are almost ready for harvest.

Marion and Ricardo just had a baby boy, they have a delightful apartment in Newlands, quite close to us. Ricardo is still learning English, but he enjoys joking nonetheless. Marion showed us the proper way to cut a mango. The mangoes are fantastic, all the fruit is great, and cheap too. I’m not sure how we’ll adjust to the expensive, tasteless fruit when we get back to Winnipeg.

Carla is now equipped with a little cell phone. I’ve activated mine. Numbers available on request. I think SMS’s will be economical.

Tomorrow we will attempt a church visit in the morning, and are hoping to make our first visit to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. This is one place we’ll get a year-long membership and bring all our visitors.

From 2007-01-13 Ca...

2007-01-11 Car

Ostrich anyone?

Not a hugely eventful day, but I did prepare Ostrich into a nice casserole for this evening's meal. Couldn't tell it wasn't beef. I want to get going with some biltong, Daryl will like this, tons of different jerky style meat. It's available all over the place and I'm sure to bring some back. Henry, Harry and I went down to Baxter Theater in Rondebosch to see a local production of Pinocchio. It was ok, not the Disney version and we saw the biggest amount of white people since we arrived.

Tomorrow we pick up the car. That'll give us more leeway in what we see and do since the trains and buses only go to certain spots and our legs need a rest from all the walking. We hope to pick up a cricket bat to practice with since we have a nice courtyard here at Forest Hill Flats to play on.

Food!

Boerewors

The kids gave a thumbs up to the local sausage here….along with baby potatoes, green beans and onions it was great. We have been managing quite well with the grocery shopping, even finding sour cream for the spuds. We have a Pick and Pay as well as a Shoprite quite close and we walk there to get our groceries. The fruit and vegetables are very fresh and the supply is immense. Plums, peaches, nectarines, pineapples, grapes (of course), bananas are all abundant and quite inexpensive. I think that we're paying about 2/3 the cost of similar products here. Even milk is cheaper, but it seems to spoil after a few days. We try to buy a 2 liter every day and a half or so to keep it fresh. Also 2% is the low fat, no 1% and skim is available, but more money. The grocery stores all have a bakery with fresh bread, buns, and sweet things as well as a ready-made foods section. This is good for meat pies, samoosas, and salads. The background seems to be Dutch servants that were brought over from Malaysia and Indonesia back when Holland had colonized that area. They brought their unique style of cooking over with them and it stayed ever since. Katy chose a snack at Simon's Town of chutney flavoured chips…they were very good, so we bought a bottle of chutney and used it as the base of the stir fry we had on Sunday night. Last night we headed over to Spur's Restaurant near the Groote Schuur hospital (where Carla has an office to share) and had the burger special. This is a Native American themed food establishment but specializes in western fare such as steaks, ribs and burgers. The special was a burger, fries, and onion fries for 16.95 Rand…about $2.80 Canadian. The kid's meals cost more. But there was a play land which gave Carla and me some time alone.

Carla's office is about a ten minute walk from here and her colleagues appear quite friendly. Actually all the people really appear quite amicable. Especially when Harry is along, people will stop and give high fives. We live in a mostly black area, and it always seems to me, it is friendlier than we meet up with the Afrikaans people. We met an Irish man in the train. He was inebriated, but very friendly, he burst into song for us, and U2 In the name of Love won't ever sound the same to me! The entire train car was laughing with us.

Happy birthday to Luke today! He turns 4 in Winkler…we had a short chat with him this evening. It was also nice to talk with mom and dad (both sets).

Oh by the way the car is almost ready for us, we've bought a Honda Ballade (like a Civic). It is a 94, but decent shape with automatic transmission, AC, and 210K. It'll do for the year I think. I'll post pictures when we get to bring it home.

Penguins at large

Simon's Town

Saturday, January 06, 2007

We took the train to Simon's Town this morning, again missing the train by a few minutes having to wait thirty minutes for the next one to arrive. It was an hour or so ride, but quite interesting travelling through the southern suburbs toward the East coast of the Cape, the Indian Ocean. When we got to the False Bay stop we could see the ocean, big waves and the kids began to get excited. Too bad it was a cooler day, around 22C so it wasn't great for swimming. The train tracks were so close to the water at times it felt we were on the beach and we found out later that we were. Simon's Town is the port for the South African navy so we saw some fairly large frigates docked. The quest for the journey was the penguins. Since it began to drizzle when we got off the train, we walked quickly into town and found a spot for a light lunch, at least it was supposed to be light. We found a café and the kids had French Toast, Carla had a nice quiche and I had an English breakfast…the bacon here is so much better than Canadian bacon…along with a nice brewed coffee. To all the Timmie's crew - I've been getting by with instant coffee here which isn't great at all. This was a nice change. Our café overlooked the harbour. We had a nice chat with a local couple who offered to take us up on some hikes…we are excited about these great contacts. We exchanged numbers. We also met with a family who had kids going to the exact same schools that ours will be in. Good to have some familiarity beforehand.

We then proceeded to walk to see the jackass or African penguins as they are now called. Basically they sat on the beach while we walked on the board walk to view them at Boulder's Beach. The kids enjoyed playing on the big rocks. The water was nice, not terribly warm, but quite comfortable.

Yesterday we walked to Claremont to pick up some of Henry's uniform from Woolworth's at "the mall". He looks quite smart all done up in a sports coat and shorts! We'll post pictures on this one for sure. It was quite a walk, and so we took the train back to Mowbray. The train we were waiting for went right by without stopping. This was a surprise for everyone on the platform (and probably for those that were in the train wanting to get off). We decided to pick up some samoosas (most of the train stops have a little convenience store) and snack before we got home for some homemade pizza.

 

Pictures at the picture site…

http://picasaweb.google.com/steveyens

<div style="text-align:center;width:194px;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:83%"><div style="height:194px;background:url(http://picasaweb.google.com/f/img/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left"><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/steveyens/20070106SimonsTown"><img src="http://lh3.google.com/image/steveyens/RaD6N8XgpXE/AAAAAAAAALc/Cme9f6Kuasw/s160-c/20070106SimonsTown.jpg" width="160" height="160" style="border:none;padding:0px;margin-top:16px;"></a></div><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/steveyens/20070106SimonsTown"><div style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;">2007-01-06 Simons Town</div></a><div style="color:#808080"></div></div>