Stockholm- A Culture Capital

Stockholm- A Culture Capital
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

Monday, November 23, 2009

Lazy Days and Crazy Days


Due to the very unpredictable weather in Cape Town, our planned trip to go up to cable mountain, just like our Robben Island had to be cancelled due to poor weather. So our next day was spent on the finer things in life--shopping and eating. Although it was a lazy day it was a day of firsts. I had my first Ostrich, an awesome burger from Kauai which had a sweet chilli mayo, and all the fixings. I also had a chai smoothie which made me miss Booster Juice and all of matcha goodness that I can't get here. I also had my first glass of pinotage wine. It is a red wine that is made from grapes only grown in South Africa and was quite lovely, with a bit of spice. Lastly it was my first time getting hit on in Africa. It was by a cashier at a clothing store called Markham.

Out next day was however much busier, we had excellent weather (which has been continuing for the most part) and made our way up table mountain. There are swiss cable cars that hold 45 people and take you up to the top of the mountain. The mountain is so flat on top that you can go for long walks on the summit as if it wasn't thousands of meters above sea level. All of our guide books tell us that there are giant guinea pig-like animals on top of the mountain called dassies. They are said to be quite lazy and often found lying in the sun on the rocks. We did a 45 minutes walk and could not find a single one! We found bundles of agma lizards and birds and plenty of breath taking views, but no dassies.

We then descended the mountain and jetted on over to Robben Island. Our boat ride was about half an hour and allowed us to see dolphins, seals, and loads of jelly fish floating in the water. Once in the harbor we took a bus around the island where we saw the military turrets build for WWII, the rock quarries used to build the court houses in Durban and the Castle of Good Hope, and the small community that lives on the island made up of workers for the historical site. The limestone quarry where the prisoners such as Nelson Mandela had to labor for years and the pile of stones that they left behind as a monument of freedom still lie there as a symbol to all who visit. We then entered the prison and were shown by an ex political prisoner Mandela's cell as well as larger community cells and he shared a bit of his experience there.
We sailed back from the island as hungry as a prisoner so we grabbed grub at Paulener Garten. A German Restaurant serving traditional Bavarian fare. I feasted upon a giant chicken schnitzel with mushroom cream sauce and potatoes with fried onions and bacon, and momma had potato dumplings with goulash. We couldn't wait for our food so we got a fres
h baked pretzel with sweet mustard. We spent the rest of the evening browsing the craft markets at the Waterfront and went home to watch our favorite movie channel.

Much Love!

Mackenzie Putici


1 comment:

  1. We all miss your matcha goodness at booster juice... i can almost have as much matcha as you :P

    ReplyDelete