South Africa: Touch Down in Cape Town

So this is my first blog. Keep checking back every week or two for updates on what I am doing. After 2 days of being rerouted by Delta, I finally made it down to the awesome city of Cape Town. My bags came a day later, which is nice because knows where they really went while apart from me. It has taken a bit of time to adjust to the time difference, overall its 7hr ahead of the US and I have been really busy since being here so not much down time. My house is really cool, it is a boarding house type set up with 8 rooms which are rented out privately and we all share a common living room, kitchen, bathroom area. My housemates have been here a while and are awesome though. There is 1 guy from Boston, 1 Dutch girl from Amsterdam, 1 girl from Zimbabwe, and 1 from Tanzania. Because its such a small house we make a nice little family. From what I gather people come and go all the time though.

I am going through a program called Volunteer Adventure Corps, which currently has about 15 people coming to intern from all over the world (mostly Americans), some UK, a latvian, few dutch. It is quite a melting pot of people. The program offers trips, hikes, and activities each weekend all over South Africa and Africa. Tomorrow there is a group of us headed down to Cape Point (Cape of Good Hope) the south-western most point of the African Continent. It is suppose to be awesome hike, and of course pictures will come. I just joined the soccer team and a local gym so I can get more exercise in as well.

Generally everyone is super nice here, but some areas can be a little dodgy and you have to be careful walking around at night. Luckily the area I am staying in is awesome. It is a suburb called Observatory which is filled with a younger generation and mostly students from the University of Cape Town. Lots of great bars and restaurants 1min from my house which is super nice.

Yesterday I took a very cool double-decker bus tour of Cape Town to get an idea of the city. It was cool they had buses running all day, which stopped at over 17 stops so you could get on and off whenever you want. We took a cable-car to the top of the beautiful Table Mountain, which in my mind should be considered one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. At the top is roughly 4,000ft above sea-level, you have a fantastic view of the Atlantic Ocean, surrounding Cape Town, suburbs, and rocky Table Mountain which extends into the horizon. I have posted some pictures below. Went from Table Mountain to the beach. The water is freezing, roughly 45-50 degrees, because it comes up from Antarctica. But on a hot day it is very refreshing. Apparently there is a hole in the ozone here, which makes the sun extra hot. I got super sun burned which is never fun.

Today I had my first day of work. I am working at the winery Steenberg Vineyards. It is a really impressive estate. It has a winery, 5 star hotel, golf course, spa, and 2 restaurants. I basically just got a tour of the estate and met everyone who works there. More to come on what exactly I will be doing, but I will mostly be giving wine tastings and cellar tours. I was told that when they harvest the grapes, I get to drive the massive tractor which is cool. I will snag some pictures over the next few weeks so check back for those.

This place is awesome. I anyone who wants to come visit me and find out of themselves. I am here for 3 months but who knows maybe longer. Check out some of the pictures below. I hope all is well back in the Motherland, and I miss you all.

Cheers