Monthaversary Two: Getting our feet wet.

     In the last month, I have gone to the gym 20 times, gone hiking once, and probably averaged two small bags of Cheese Naks a week (see previous post here). We went to Hout Bay, Kalk Bay, Muizenburg beach, we went to the tip of Cape of Good Hope, drove on Chapman's Peak Drive, and we hiked Lions Head mountain. We went to two different wine estates, Lourensford and Spier, learned how to ride Segways, and enjoyed tasting eleven wines with fine cheeses. We are finally comfortable driving on the left side of the road and navigate the tiny lanes and pedestrians with ease. I drove by myself to a place I had never been in town and did not get lost.
     We have watched the first seasons of Rome, Six Feet Under, and seasons one and two of The Wire. We have watched three movies in the theater and rented 10 movies. Still have not watched any television except while at the gym (they offer CNN, Sky News, VH1, cartoons, sports, sports, and more sports). I have written eight blog posts and received ten comments. I finally got to 555 blog views today! I attempted to use Photoshop and after much frustration, realized how hard it is! I met up with someone from an NGO and will start free counseling at an underprivileged primary school in the next two weeks. We looked at three homes, and drove past others, and decided to pass on them all as either too far, too dangerous, or too small.
     We did not have many social engagements this month, I guess our newness has rubbed off! However, we are becoming more adventurous on our own and are getting our feet wet!


Here are some pictures I took when we were at Muizenburg Beach:

Muizenburg Beach is known for its colorful dressing huts.

P.S.- Don't forget to check out my hubby's blog at http://pedroinafrica.blogspot.com!

Song of the Month: When the Fire is Low   by Freshlyground. It is a song by a South African and it’s on the radio a lot and I dance to it in Zumba.

A Taste of Wine Country.

Yesterday, in the morning, we looked at a duplex 3-bedroom cottage for rent in Observatory, near the train. The front yard was nice, with an electric gate, trees (a frangipani!), grass, and a garage; but when we walked in, I could smell cigarettes and incense. My nose is so sensitive; I’d probably be smelling it for months after we moved in. It was unfurnished and no appliances (boo!), and most concerningly (new word), no alarm system (although it did have window bars). They gave us the Observatory neighborhood paper, the ObsLife, which said that out of the 4 neighborhoods that the local police station policed, it was not longer number one in crime! Scary. We left feeling wishy-washy about it and I think we’ve decided to pass but it was very helpful to see a home and what we might expect to get. I think we will keep looking. Luckily, we are not desperate yet, but finding a “pet friendly” home with a yard will be hard…

After regrouping, we went to the Western Cape Getaway Show and met up with a family from Tucson. There was a Groupon for it (its called either Twangoo or MyCityDeal here), but we didn’t decide in time to buy the coupon. It was in Somerset West, in the wine country. It was so beautiful! As we were driving I took a picture of the rows of grapevines – at the end of the rows, there was a plant with alternating red or white flowers. I wish I had more pictures, but somebody forgot to charge the camera.

Beautiful!

Fake bull, fake saguaro, real kid.

We stood in line for at least half an hour to get a beef burger (could have had chicken or ostrich), which was surprisingly good and made up for the wait. We sat on a slope of grass eating and talking, then went to find some libations. I tasted two beers, but rejected both (P got an Ale), so I decided to get wine from the estate we were on, Lourensford Wine Estate. I had to buy the whole bottle of rosé (oh darn!) and rented a glass for a deposit of R20 (which I got back later). We walked around and looked at different companies’ offerings (camping, travel trailers, etc.) and watched the Isuzu off-road demonstrations. There were a lot of kid-friendly stuff, like a fake bull ride with blow-up saguaros! There was also a mini-bungee-like thing where they were attached with rubber straps at the hips and they bounced on a trampoline very high in the air, a kid’s rock climbing wall, and a thing where kids went inside a clear plastic blow-up ball and then floated/ran in a pool of water, trying to bump into other kids. It looked fun. Someone described the kids coming out of it as as “loopy” because the only air they had to breathe was in the ball! Then we tried some honey liqueur in mini chocolate cups- very alcoholly (another new word) but yummy; I think I could only take it in small doses though.

We drove home and watched Date Night (better than we thought it would be) and Bad Company (not as bad as you would think for having Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins). We finished off the rosé and cooked a chicken pasta for dinner.

All in all it was a great day.

Song of the day: Sunshine on My Shoulders by John Denver,