Stellenbosch

Tuesday afternoon I took the train into Mowbray to meet up with my friend from UCT. After catching up on all the adventures we've had  in Cape Town  we went out to dinner with a bunch of her friends. Eager to break passover, I ordered mass quantities of starch and I ended up eating way to much food. It was a relatively early night as we crashed at around 11 o'clock.

The next day we were scheduled to go into Stellenbosch - the winelands of South Africa. We ended up getting a pretty late start and we only got to Stellenbosch by about 1 o'clock. As I have explained before the weather this week has been far from perfect. Apparently the rainy season consists of spurts of rainstorms followed by sunshine. It is hard to dress appropriately but, on the bright side, we saw a ton of rainbows.

After warming up with some hot chocolate and some shopping we hired a taxi to take us to a few of the vineyards. By the time the taxi arrived, it was almost three o'clock and  90% of the vineyards stop wine tastings at 4 o'clock so we were pretty rushed for the latter part of the day. We went to J.C. Le Roux first- a vineyard that only sells sparkling wine. I had never been to a wine tasting before and I was pretty cool but honestly I have no idea what they were talking about. The three girls I was with had been going to a "wine society club" while at UCT and had just been to Stellenbosch the week before. I, oppositely, was completely clueless. I haven't "developed my pallet" to taste the subtleties of the wine. The wine was good and each wine tasted differently but I couldn't taste butter, or coffee, or cherry or anything but wine. I also didn't get the tannins and acidity stuff. Regardless, I had a good time.

After J C La Roux, we went to a vineyard outside of Stellenbosch that the girls had been to before called Fareview. Unfortunately we missed their last wine tasting time by 5 minutes. They did, however, give us two complementary tastings as well as an assortment of complementary cheeses to try. The cheese was so good, but we had to rush the wine tastings as the vineyard was closing soon.

Not satisfied with the day, we decided to check the guide book and find a vineyard that was open later. Luckily Steinberg, the vineyard right next door to Fareview, was open til 6. This would be our last stop so we decided to go all out and get 12 tastings. Wine tastings are surprisingly cheap. We spent 65 Rand, less than 10 dollar, total at the three vineyards. The wine really good but it was a good thing that we had a taxi because none of us were fit to drive after Steinberg.

Martin, our taxi driver, droves us back to Cape Town (about an hour drive) and I crashed back in Fish Hoek by about 9 o'clock. It was an awesome day. While I don't quite get the subtleties of wine, it was new and infomrative experience.

Britney Elsha Sam Kate

Elsha's Dorm....it looks like a prison

a Few Updates
Will got back from his weekend on Wednesday and we finally have hot water again.

I am scheduled to do shark cage diving with the UCT group on Saturday. Unfortunately the Rugby game that Will bought tickets for is also on Saturday. The game starts at 7 and I might not get back from shark cage diving until around 6:30... (W'er not going to  Seal Island, we're headed to Gaansbaai- about a 2 hour drive outisde of Cape Town) Its a jam packed day, I just hope I make it back in time for the game.

The draft starts at 2 am this morning so Ill be getting very little sleep tonight