Rocking the Daisies

Almost forgot to blog about my weekend in Cape Town!  We took Friday off of work and drove down Thursday night to stay with the interns in CT.  We got in late, but Charlie, Durkin, and Rebecca were awake to greet us - only 1 hr late after getting a tad lost. 

We had all Friday to walk around the city and so we did.  We visited the head office and got to see people we missed and meet the faces belonging to the voices we hear on the phone so often.  It was nice, and the office is amazing - very laid-back sheik.  Very GRS I guess...

After this we kinda split up (the boys wanted to drive up Table Mountain, but Jess had the keys - oops).  Jess and I went around Green Market Square and walked up and down Long Street shopping.  I got some bangles and we had lunch at a cafe outside.  It was really nice.  Cape Town feels more like Europe and the Africa I know (PE).  I commented that it was like Chicago and Jim said San Francisco.  Either way - a very different feel than what we are used to.

When we were getting a little bored Jess and I called up the boys and they were down at the waterfront at some brewery.  We headed that way and after finding the Ferris Wheel they were easily able to direct us to their location.  We had some cider and walked the marina before heading back to grocery shop before our departure.

We ended up getting packed and having everyone ready (Us 4, Durkin, Rebecca, Charlie, and Danielle) around 7 I believe.  The drive was supposed to take around 1 hour.  Google Maps however made it a very difficult drive (the location didn't help).  We were trying to find this wine estate somewhere in the Western Cape and ended up turning around many many times, asking random people directions, and finally, after pulling into a gas station, a guy in the same predicament recognized our car and offered to direct us as he had found the appropriate directions at last.  Minutes later we were at the Cloof Wine Estate.  Mountains in the background, and fields abound, we set up our tents in the dark - it was near 11 - and had a quick drink before heading over to the stages. 

There was some live music playing, but we were more interested in the DJ at this point for some reason.  We danced and met people and Trevor and Lauren arrived from Kimberly!  It was here the night really started.  Bedtime around 4 am, we woke up hours later with the sun and readied ourselves for a long day.  The days activities were followed with near 100 degree weather.  The boys went swimming in the "dam" and I wondered between stages (took a nap in the short-film festival tent) had some vors, and hung out with everyone.  We spent a good portion of the afternoon sitting under our canopy (fell over real fast) passing around cheap wine and sharing stories about our time in Africa so far.  This was such a nice way to reunite with these people I barely know, yet love already.

Our one hiccup was our braai.  We brought sausage to make for a meal, but we were instructed to NOT use our charcoal braai.  Luckily, we found neighbors with a gas braai and they let us use it.  They also donated some sausage to us so we ate well (despite Charlie trying to ruin dinner by spilling all the sausage on the ground!).  At night we went to the main stage to watch some acts.  The heat however really tired us out and some people (myself included) didn't make it too far into the night.

Early morning everyone woke up and we headed back to the main stage.  7:00 am, bright and early, the Springbok were playing Australia in the quarter finals of the world cup.  I am positive this drew the largest crowd of the festival.  So many people were heartbroken at end time.  The game JUST slipped through the Bokke fingers.  So sad.  The upside for an exhausted person like myself was that the mood fell so much that people all started heading home.  We got an early start on the road and arrived home at a decent time.  The weekend stayed with me though and I had a couple days of sickness.  blurg.  Fun weekend though and I am excited to see other interns again soon.

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