Week 10 – “Holding both of her shoes in her hand, said she likes to feel the sand beneath her feet…”

Thursday, 4 November 2010

(This post is late due to some technical difficulties… which will be further explained in next week’s blog)

It’s been another exciting week here in Cape Town! Last Friday, Ansoc UCT & CPUT and I went over to Bishopscourt, the home and offices of Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, archbishop of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (check out his blog on the list of those I follow on my blogger profile). We had a lovely afternoon talking with him, planting flowers together, and exploring the garden before Archbishop Thabo offered a prayer for the students as they begin their end of semester exams (remember those reversed seasons!). It was a fun way to begin the weekend!

Saturday, Amanda and I went on a (touristy) adventure down to Boulder Beach and Simons Town and saw PENGUINS. We wandered the boardwalk paths and saw the cute little guys hanging out en masse on the shore or in little clusters under bushes and trees. PENGUINS! Penguins hanging out in their natural habitat. It made me think about how I’m waaay closer to Antartica then I’ve ever been before – not that I’m actually close to Antartica at all… but I’m closer.

After we’d checked out the cute wildlife, Amanda and I headed to the beach and climbed up on one of the beach’s boulders to back in the out-of-control gorgeousness that is Boulder Beach. Seriously. Unbelievable. It was one of those scenes that was just so completely beautiful that you keep taking pictures of it, hoping you’ll take a picture that captures the way that this place can take your breath away. With the exception of a few passersby and a seagull who couldn’t stay away (he tried leaving twice but came back), we enjoyed the peace and solitude of the rock for over an hour. It was well worth the sunburn!

Once we got hungry enough to break our bliss, we wandered over to the Boulder Beach Restaurant for a delicious lunch. Here, we saw the coolest sign:

I’m glad it pointed out the Moon; that one can be tricky!

After lunch, we wandered around Simons Town, a cute little town by the sea with lots and lots of boats in the harbor (including some sort of battleship).

Check out more pictures on my Picasa album:

Boulder Beach & Simons Town

Sunday, of course, was Halloween – Jack Skellington, costumes, candy, pumpkins, fall leaves – Wait, it’s SPRING! Last Halloween (also UD Homecoming), involved a Star Trek uniform, my last college football game, friends, horror movies, Britney Spears Three dancing, trees that looked like they were on fire, and other general merriment. I wouldn’t so much say that I missed Halloween so much as it didn’t seem like Halloween.

The neighborhood I’m staying in allocated two hours for trick-or-treating in the late afternoon and a couple dozen kids in various degrees of costumes (sometimes just a wig and a hat to constitute a witch) stopped by. It was a different kind of Halloween. I remember talking to the Ansoc-ers here about it at Bishopscourt; I couldn’t contain my surprise at their indifference. It’s a culture thing. I know. For the first time, I thought about Halloween as not just American, but kinda patriotic in just how distinctly American the celebration of it seems to be… but who knows, maybe I’m out-of-touch with other possible international observations.

On a final note, I noticed yesterday that there are all these people from the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey here in Cape Town right now. Clearly, I should have been paying more attention. Yesterday, they even saw the Boulder Beach penguins. Here’s there blog: http://newjerseyinsouthafrica.blogspot.com/ In next Thursday's post, we'll talk more about them :-)