Hermanus

Great, relaxing weekend.  Lots of driving, but the Garden Route is very nice.  The drive was about 7 hours, but we rented a nice car and it didn’t seem so bad - shorter than a trip to school.  We got to Hermanus at around 4:00.  We checked into our hostel and walked into town.  There were a good amount of people there.  Hermanus is just a small town, about 1.5 hours from Cape Town.  It's situated right on the Atlantic Ocean and it actually has quite a dramatic landscape.  The edge of the city is just these cliffs that plunge down to the water.  It's here that the festival really takes place.  People stand all along the edge of the cliffs to watch for the whales that come to mate here each year - hence the Whale Festival.  We didn't see any major action, but did see a female and her calf frolicking a bit.  Southern Right Whale I was told. 

From here we walked around a bit.  We got some boerevors with carmelized onions and sweet chili sauce - soooo good!  We then looked at the markets (some pretty jewelry, but I didn't buy anything) before heading to the big tent.  There was all sorts of food for sale, but what we were looking for was the booth of the sponsor.  The main sponsor of the event was Two Oceans wine.  We got a bottle of red, white, and rose and sat down outside to drink.  The weather was a little dreary, but the atmosphere was fittingly festive and there was a band playing on stage.

This band was incredible.  They were singing a mix of covers and their original music (not super awesome) and the big screen behind them was playing both scenes of them getting mobbed my paparazzi and fans and concert scenes - just so those in the crowd got that they were famous (still questionable to me).  To top this off the guy (it was one guy and one girl - no band) was wearing a black t-shirt with a white tie, one fingerless glove, and sweatband, and played the key-tar for ONE song only.  He quickly stole Jess's heart.

3 bottles of wine later it was around 6:30 so we went to a restaurant that was supposed to have live music.  Just my luck, it was a SPANISH TAPAS RESTAURANT!  I, needless to say, got really giddy.  I had jamon serrano, paella, some cheese...so good.

While eating, this guy from the DRC was on stage playing the guitar and singing (sometimes in French - missed Eric) and one guy accompanying him on the djembe.  They were really enjoyable and quite good.  However, when their set finished we decided it was time to move on.  We walked down the street a bit and found a bar a lot of young people were going into so we decided to follow.  The bouncers were actually looking at IDs and got a kick out of ours.

The bar was nice and filled with a lot of people - I was severely underdressed in my sweater and flannel from being out in the cold all day.  We met some  people and had a drink and watched some soccer on the TV.  The people we met though, eish, not as cool as PE people.  In PE, everyone I meet I almost immediately love.  They're cool, laid back, fun...the people we met in this bar were serious Afrikaaner racists.  For some reason people like to talk to us, the Americans, about race relations.  This one guy though...I have no idea what was going on.  I feel like as he talked to us he knew we were disapproving of what he was saying, so he kept trying to qualify himself and explain himself and it just got worse. 

Our conversation started off about language  and continued a little something like this:

Us (Jess and I): We want to learn Xhosa.

Him: Why would you ever want to learn Xhosa?

Us: Well, we work with a lot of people who speak it and it would make work easier.

Him: So you work with a lot of blacks?

Us: Yeah

Him: Where I come from Blacks work on the farms that Whites own.

Us: ok….

Him: I mean, that's just the way I grew up.  I'm from a small town, but Blacks and Whites don't really mix.

Us: uhhhhh

Him: I mean, I don't hate black people, our cultures are just so different.

Us: (blank face)

Him: I really don't hate black people, I just don't agree with their culture.  We are too different.

I just walked away.  I kept thinking about that though - and I still think about it.  I wish I would have said something.  In the moment I was just annoyed, but as time goes on I get more and more mad about it.  It's sad.  However, it makes me happy to have found the friends that I have.

After this, Jess and I called it a night and went home to sleep...we DID have to wake up early in the morning!