City Lodge Grand West Cape Town

... at night here quite safely (we think).<br>Anyway they only had one serve of Springbok left after a busy lunch and he wouldn't recommend it as he thought it looked like a 'chewy' piece.But we're still keen, so off he goes and gets us a complimentary tasting plate with a green salsa. Cooked medium rare it was still pretty good, much like venison as you might expect, but not as gamey/rich as 'roo. Quite nice.<br>We settled for starters of Kudu (antelope) carpaccio ...

... sleepy...) and had a late lunch in Stellenbosch (are you guys wondering if we are REALLY in S. Africa with these names)?! Felt a bit like Boulder, CO with the college folk and hint of patchoili. Man are we old. Anyway, we are missing the bush like you read about and can't wait to get back tomorrow to see more game. Hoping for the hippos and some leopard (one will do!). Dan is itching to get up to Table Mountain for ...

... able to make some friends in my group. Also, the girl that I tutored on Monday was named Zinzi, and she was sooo sweet and good. She is 14 and in grade 8 and I really enjoyed working with her. I know some of the girls are more difficult (they have all suffered some form of abuse and/or neglect) but overall I got a really good feeling from the place. Some of the girls are older and they all seem to have good spirits and we had fun playing and ...

... more well heeled crowd who had connections with a corporate sponsor. What about the horses? Well, we did bet a few hundred Rand, and sadly Pocket Power won for the third year in a row, narrowly beating out our favorites Dancing Daughter (we shouldn't have listened to the woman with the inside info), Cathmandu, and African Dream. I'll post pictures as soon as I have a good internet connection - you pay an astronomical price for internet in S.A. Apparently ...

... it should be. This upset me even more.<br><br>So I went out with the others with a Very heavy heart just to try to occupy my mind with something, anything, else.<br><br>Alcohol is sometimes helpful but not on that particular evening.<br><br>Mama Africas was. Dancing at a club later on to some nice R&amp;B was even moreso.<br><br>Today we went to the lovely winelands. Stellenbosh is a wine town and it is breathtakingly beautiful! Vineyards on mountains! I was quite tipsy ...

... reasons and partly because many white South Africans are being requested to reapply for their current posts (usually, losing it to a more "suitable" black applicant) under one of the present government's short-sighted policies. The rest of the group was quite varied and consisted of a friendly German guy who was currently learning English in Cape Town, an Aussie, an American and three older ladies; two from the UK and one from Brazil. Hendrik turned out to be a ...

... this. There are about seventy-five students and the lecturer has a long history at UCT, so he should be good. Race, Culture, and Identity in Africa -- This course is supposed to be a graduate seminar, but there are about fifty kids in it, seemingly mostly undergraduates. It will, however, be run (as much as possible) as a grad seminar, so I'm excited about this (at a university known for its huge lectures and inaccessible professors). It covers current issues ...

... sun set on the mountains - very beautiful! Yesterday we went to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was held along with a lot of other political prisoners. It was really interesting to find out more about what they had been through and try to understand more about south Africa's past. On the boat on the way back to the mainland we decided to stand right at the front of the boat - which was bloody terrifying, but hilarious. We were very windswept and wet by the time ...

... time in PE, the coaching was great fun yet hard work at times and I made some excellent friends amongst my fellow volunteers and leaving them on friday night was really quite sad. Even though we will keep in touch and try to get together every now and then, it will be impossible to re-create the atmosphere which existed at Maranatha over the last 10 weeks - but hey ho, life must move on. One of the highlights of the last 2 ...

... and I had a brilliant time. I went to bed at about 2am when the serious drinking games started... Between Christmas and New Year, I only managed one excursion to the Cape of Good Hope which is the most south-western point in Africa - a bit of a tenous claim to fame I think but apparently it is very important if you are sailing round the world. However, the whole day trip went fairly distasterously wrong in a bizarre fiasco involving a sprained ankle ...