i had a wonderful weekend! i started at volunteering friday finally. i went to the orphanage after all my classes and we played with the toddlers and helped them color and sing some songs. it was also the birthday of the woman in charge (rosie) so there was a big party with lots of singing and cake. Probably the only time you will see 30 toddlers sit still is when they all have a bowl full of cake. also, i had mexican food again! i keep winding up hanging out with a different group of people that has yet to try the fat cactus. since we had no reservations we wound up waiting for 2 hours before we got a table. oh well, we still managed to make it fun. then we decided to go out and try some new bars that we had never been to. we went to a pool hall and i played pool with the norwegians that i met not long ago. i also finally met a kid that is friends from home with a girl in my sorority (kate, for the adpis that read this). i had seen him on facebook (because i'm a stalker) and so i saw him at the bar and walked up to him and said "are you ed? i'm kerry, kate's friend. i know who you are because i saw you on facebook." i think it's a good sign for our friendship that he was not horrified by that statement. so we hung and i met some of his friends. i'm really glad that people here are so friendly so when i'm out it's easy to meet new people.
saturday ciee took us to a winery in stellenbosch to go wine tasting. stellenbosch is the epicenter of south africa's wine industry. we went to the neethlinghof estate. my group did our tasting first and then had a tour. The guy leading us was 18 and kind of a punky kid who didn't like to follow the rules. So he drank with us at the tasting and he let my friend meg pour a lot of the glasses. needless to say some members of our group went a little overboard for 11 am. not me though. you have to pace yourself when wine tasting. Then we went to a place called Spier, which is like the disneyland of wineries. it has a cheetah reserve, eagles, ponds, a huge deli, 2 restaurants, a craft market, people doing henna, a hotel, etc, etc. after having a nice picnic lunch and hanging out for awhile a bunch of us headed into the actual town of stellenbosch to spend the night at a hostel. the hostel was called the Stumblin' Inn. which is just amazing. it was really big with lots of leather chairs and couches, a pool table, a small bar, a pool. the 10 of us in our group were all in a private room so that was nice. although we had some drama actually acquiring the room because even though we had booked it we walked in and there were 2 skeezy old men in there who refused to leave. apparently what happened was that a huge group of annoying rich kids from mauritius had brought 10 people when they only had 8 beds, but they took 10 beds and kicked the old guys out of their room. it was a big mess for josh, the guy in charge, to sort out but he was on our side and hated the kids from mauritius.
for dinner we decided to try some more authentic south african food and we went to this fancy afrikaans place close to our hostel. I had the "cape country trio" which was chicken pie, bobotie (mince meat in spices covered in custard) and wasserblommetjies, which are a local water lily plant. it was pretty good. i wasn't a big fan of the water lilies though.
on the way home from dinner i had one of the most horrifying experiences of my entire life and i am not exaggerating. we were walking along and all of a sudden adee goes "eww cockroach!" because she saw one on the ground, but then i felt something on my leg and i realized a roach more than an inch long had jumped INSIDE of my jeans and gotten all the way to the back of my thigh! i screamed and i grabbed that area of my pants as quickly as i could so the roach didn't make it any farther up my leg. i tried to squish it, but once i had isolated the roach i was just standing there frozen. my friends were so freaked out that they mostly run away. I had to hobble into our hostel while still holding the roach in place because i had no idea if it was alive or not. the bathroom was occupied so i climbed into the shower. keep in mind that i am still screaming and shaking and most of my wimpy friends had ditched me. somehow i managed to get my pants off, they were tight and i have no idea how that roach even got up there. i shook them up, the roach was thankfully dead and landed in a few pieces on the ground. but the roach guts were all over my jeans (my expensive new citizens of humanity jeans!!) and there was a huge wet spot. i had to yell at my friends to find me a napkin and i just scooped the guts off the pants and had no choice but to put them back on. so i went out all night in roach stained jeans with the constant feeling that there was a prehistoric bug crawling around my leg.
after that ordeal we went on a pub crawl that the hostel was sponsoring. we figured that was a good way to meet a lot of people and end up at good places. it was really fun and rowdy. One thing i love about stellenbosch is that it's really safe. you're completely fine to walk around at night, you can bring a purse, your camera. it's amazing. we also noticed that it's all white, afrikaaner farmers. anyways we met tons of people out that night. i actually hung out with the two guys from the hostel who were sort of running the show. one of them told me i looked australian. frankly i wasn't aware that australians had a look, but hey, he said it was exotic and that that was a good thing, so i'll take that compliment no matter how obscure. actually i get a lot of compliments here. the guys are very friendly and very complimentary. and not just to us because we're american, but to each other as well. so anyways, a late night was had by all.
in the morning we all woke up in our hostel and decided to have a loungy morning and have a calm breakfast at this place we had seen while walking around town. then we took a train home. the train is really pretty dodgy. but josh from the hostel assured us that since we were a group of over 20 and we would be in first class it would be just fine. it was, but it was a long ride. the train takes twice as long as driving out there. but finally we got home and crashed out of exhaustion.
saturday ciee took us to a winery in stellenbosch to go wine tasting. stellenbosch is the epicenter of south africa's wine industry. we went to the neethlinghof estate. my group did our tasting first and then had a tour. The guy leading us was 18 and kind of a punky kid who didn't like to follow the rules. So he drank with us at the tasting and he let my friend meg pour a lot of the glasses. needless to say some members of our group went a little overboard for 11 am. not me though. you have to pace yourself when wine tasting. Then we went to a place called Spier, which is like the disneyland of wineries. it has a cheetah reserve, eagles, ponds, a huge deli, 2 restaurants, a craft market, people doing henna, a hotel, etc, etc. after having a nice picnic lunch and hanging out for awhile a bunch of us headed into the actual town of stellenbosch to spend the night at a hostel. the hostel was called the Stumblin' Inn. which is just amazing. it was really big with lots of leather chairs and couches, a pool table, a small bar, a pool. the 10 of us in our group were all in a private room so that was nice. although we had some drama actually acquiring the room because even though we had booked it we walked in and there were 2 skeezy old men in there who refused to leave. apparently what happened was that a huge group of annoying rich kids from mauritius had brought 10 people when they only had 8 beds, but they took 10 beds and kicked the old guys out of their room. it was a big mess for josh, the guy in charge, to sort out but he was on our side and hated the kids from mauritius.
for dinner we decided to try some more authentic south african food and we went to this fancy afrikaans place close to our hostel. I had the "cape country trio" which was chicken pie, bobotie (mince meat in spices covered in custard) and wasserblommetjies, which are a local water lily plant. it was pretty good. i wasn't a big fan of the water lilies though.
on the way home from dinner i had one of the most horrifying experiences of my entire life and i am not exaggerating. we were walking along and all of a sudden adee goes "eww cockroach!" because she saw one on the ground, but then i felt something on my leg and i realized a roach more than an inch long had jumped INSIDE of my jeans and gotten all the way to the back of my thigh! i screamed and i grabbed that area of my pants as quickly as i could so the roach didn't make it any farther up my leg. i tried to squish it, but once i had isolated the roach i was just standing there frozen. my friends were so freaked out that they mostly run away. I had to hobble into our hostel while still holding the roach in place because i had no idea if it was alive or not. the bathroom was occupied so i climbed into the shower. keep in mind that i am still screaming and shaking and most of my wimpy friends had ditched me. somehow i managed to get my pants off, they were tight and i have no idea how that roach even got up there. i shook them up, the roach was thankfully dead and landed in a few pieces on the ground. but the roach guts were all over my jeans (my expensive new citizens of humanity jeans!!) and there was a huge wet spot. i had to yell at my friends to find me a napkin and i just scooped the guts off the pants and had no choice but to put them back on. so i went out all night in roach stained jeans with the constant feeling that there was a prehistoric bug crawling around my leg.
after that ordeal we went on a pub crawl that the hostel was sponsoring. we figured that was a good way to meet a lot of people and end up at good places. it was really fun and rowdy. One thing i love about stellenbosch is that it's really safe. you're completely fine to walk around at night, you can bring a purse, your camera. it's amazing. we also noticed that it's all white, afrikaaner farmers. anyways we met tons of people out that night. i actually hung out with the two guys from the hostel who were sort of running the show. one of them told me i looked australian. frankly i wasn't aware that australians had a look, but hey, he said it was exotic and that that was a good thing, so i'll take that compliment no matter how obscure. actually i get a lot of compliments here. the guys are very friendly and very complimentary. and not just to us because we're american, but to each other as well. so anyways, a late night was had by all.
in the morning we all woke up in our hostel and decided to have a loungy morning and have a calm breakfast at this place we had seen while walking around town. then we took a train home. the train is really pretty dodgy. but josh from the hostel assured us that since we were a group of over 20 and we would be in first class it would be just fine. it was, but it was a long ride. the train takes twice as long as driving out there. but finally we got home and crashed out of exhaustion.
posted by kerry at 9:19 AM
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