When Jared proposed writing a blog so that our friends and family could keep abreast of our adventures while abroad, I have to admit that I wasn't totally gung-ho about the idea. Bloggers, in my mind, were weird little people that spent all day at the computer over-analyzing political/sports/fashion minutia or self-absorbed types that thought that everyone was really interested in what they were up to today. Obviously, at some point I came around to the idea. Despite the fact that we both have facebook, skype, gmail chat, and send regular emails, there still seemed to be a bit of a gap, which we hope this blog will fill….
So to help you get an image of this foreign African city that we live in, I'll offer this simple description:"The town and the surrounding area are SO pretty. Tons of palm trees, a massive blue ocean and big, funny shaped mountains in the background"
….but we'll tack on a nice aerial tutorial photo just for kicks:
Our new city:
Driving Lessons – Three 2-hour sessions with our quiet and not so assertive driving instructor Sam. The first of which we didn't learn of until 9:00 AM (1 hour before the start) after having gone out for a celebratory sushi/sake dinner into shots and beers with some new friends of ours (who happen to be from Dallas…can't get outside the bubble if you try). Happy to report zero incidents, but it was quite a painful time. Ultimately we did so well that they gave us an upgrade on our company car.
Our New Ride:
Mouille Point (pronounced Moo-lee) – This is the lucky segment of the never-ending Cape Town coast that will be our home base until March. It has an old iconic red/white striped lighthouse (for you historical landmark fans), a putt-putt golf course (no Peter Pan Mini-Golf…doesn't even have a T-Rex), a creepy hedge maze, and a jogging path that features Cape Towns fittest coeds. It isn't really a beach, rather more of a rocky, ocean plant repository, which isn't too disappointing because the Atlantic coast is insanely cold. For beaches, we just need to make a scenic 15 minute drive to Camps Bay where all the rich and well-to-do like to reside. For good reason too. So other than the ocean, we have once again managed to find a place that has construction going on next door (4th year in a row). This project is a bit more interesting though, cause it is a new golf course surrounding the new World Cup stadium. Plus the construction workers here wear cool matching uniforms: teal pants with fluorescent yellow vests, red pants with yellow vest (a.k.a. the ketchup & mustard) or my favorite, the all-orange jumpsuit.
Our Apartment Views:
Chevron – so in case you guys really just don't listen very well, this is why we are here. My job is going well so far. Nothing of great appeal to discuss, but I will say that even working in a predominately English-speaking work environment can be confusing. Just because my co-workers speak English doesn't mean they want to. Most would rather chat in Afrikaans (Dutch-originated, sounds rough at times like German), Xhosa (a tribal language for an African subset that features the stereotyped 'pops' and 'clicks', and grab-bag (could be anything, bottomline is I don't understand it). Another challenge for me has been remembering and understanding names. With the two aforementioned groups and a large Indian/Malay cultures here, your Johns, Mikes, and Daves aren't as common. Other than that, I am just working on digesting how my hugely complex company operates and enjoying it thusfar.
Lindsay's Boot Camp – Basically she works out in paradise so please don't feel too sorry for her. My office building is not quite this nice. I don't even have a window, actually I don't even have an office to have a window in.
Lindsay's Gym in Camp's Bay:
Food – They have it all. Seafood is the easy standout, being near the ocean and everything. But, they also churn out mean hamburgers, pizzas, bread (kind of random, but they make fresh loaves everywhere and they are really good), and most interesting of all: the game meat. So lets talk highlights: Namibian oysters (huge and crazy delicious), Kudu biltong (the most complex and multi-flavor-dimensional jerky I've ever encountered), Royale Cheeseburger (top 3 all-time burger despite Euro ketchup), Pinotage wine (cheap South African red wine that never disappoints).
What is a Kudu you ask?:
Heritage Day – So week two of work I learn that Thursday is a national holiday, which was an awesome surprise. Combined with the fact that I had four days off my first week and I have every other Friday off work as part of the local Nine Day Fortnight policy, this allowed me to keep my streak of not yet working a full 5-day work week alive. It appears that the streak will end though during Week 5, but I am still holding out for another surprise. So what did we do on Heritage day you ask? Well if you noticed Mexican food wasn't really on the list of food highlights above, so we decided to celebrate our Texican heritage by whipping up some breakfast tacos and homemade salsa while jamming out to Buena Vista Social Club (do yourself a favor and pick up their greatest hits….the album is uber choice). Overall big success. So well in fact that we are going to self-cater our Texas/OU party in a couple weeks. We just need to find some margarita mix and good tequila.
Wine Country – For our first weekend jaunt out of town we drove to Franschoek to do a little bit of rigorous R&D on behalf of our upcoming visitors. As for location it is about an hour west of Cape Town and maybe 15 minutes southeast of the better-known Stellenbosch. It's a smaller more quaint town with a fewer number of wineries, but this makes it easier to maximize your wine intake. It was quite cloudy and rainy when we were there which allowed us to focus more intently on examining the wine. All together we sampled 27 wines, and left with 10 bottles as to run further tests on.
Research Team:
Whale Country – On the way back from Franschoek we decided to go through a town called Somerset West and visit Monkey Town (a megaplex of monkey madness from what I hear), but due to some horribly placed construction, we couldn't figure out how to actually enter Monkey Town so we called an audible and drove an extra hour in the opposite direction of Cape Town to catch the end of Whale Fest in Hermanas. Again, David Finfrock's nemisis was against us as we arrived in a cloudy downpour. There was lots of traffic and it was really hectic getting into town so with that and the rain we just ran into the first hotel/restaurant we saw, which happened to be this over priced white table cloth place. As much as we weren't in the mood for a fancy meal, we decided to just wait out the rain and traffic there, knowing that lunch would take three hours. Luckily, the hotel totally redeemed itself when we learned that Brad Pitt had stayed there a few years ago. Moreso, it redeemed itself because it had huge windows looking down on to the ocean and we could see whales from there!! We saw a mom feeding a baby (or what someone told us was a mom feeding a baby because we could only see the fins and backs rolling around next to each other), and about 5 or 6 other active types that were flipping their tails around for us. It was pretty crazy….they must have known it was whale fest. To make things even better, on the drive home we were able to see a troop of Baboons running down the highway effectively filling that monkey void created from the Monkey Town tease. All together it was a pretty solid weekend.
Hermanus, a.k.a. Whale Territory:
Football – So I know that the suspense has been building the whole time you have been reading, asking "when is he going to address the fact that despite the scenic backdrops, exotic food, and all around badassness, that they are missing out on an entire NFL and NCAA season?" Well here it comes. So thanks to the miracle workers that invented the Slingbox (slingmedia.com … look it up) and African DVR technology I am proud to report that we have missed zero Cowboys games and only 2 Texas games (only because they weren't on DirectTV in Dallas). Yeah so we know that Romo is playing like a chump right now, Wade's man boobs are looking good, Jason Garrett is not a hot commodity anymore (sweet double quick fades on the 1 yard line), and everything is good so far with the Horns.
Animal Watch – So being in Africa it wouldn't be right if we didn't keep a running tally on the animals that we have seen while we are out and about. So far here is what we got so far:
- Whales – No big deal, just a couple mom/child Southern Right Whale combos
- Mongoose – quite a tail on those little guys (no pix, dude was way too quick)
- Cape Hyrax – Evil looking fella, kind of like a fat groundhog
- Baboons – these guys are like a creepier, roided-out Chimpanzee
Cape Hyrax:
Baboon:
