the scenic route

The weekend before Christmas we took the above road - Chapman's Peak Drive - to get to the below beach - Nordhoek.


I can't really explain in words what great rejuvenation I am gaining from being so near to so much ocean.  Due to the (amazing!!) geography of the peninsula, this beach is basically a wind funnel and consequently the sand is powdery soft.


At one point I just sank down in to that velvety sand and zoned out staring at the waves.  I actually achieved a state of calmness that I have only ever approached through guided meditation.  I was so zeroed in to my own consciousness that I was completely unaware of anything or anyone around me except the movement of the waves.

Fortunately, Tim was on the ball enough to keep a close eye on the Boo as they navigated the rocks, the tide pools, and the pounding surf.




Happy day...

Commitment

I've been thinking about you often but haven't had the ability to sit still long enough, nor a consistently reliable internet connection, to get a post up. Now that it's 2010 things will change for the positive.  I'm committing to at least one post a week and may even be able to cajole my fellow blogger to contribute a few items that may be of interest to all.  We'll see... until then to catch you up:

Christmas in Cape Town

We spent the day on the beach at Camps Bay.


It was fun and quite relaxing.  We found the lead up to the Christmas holiday to be pretty low key even though all the stores were decked out with decorations to lure shoppers.  We never felt the frenzy that can hit in the U.S. on those last few days leading up to Christmas and we even spent part of Christmas Eve at the Waterfront which includes a large mall.  There were plenty of people out and about but it wasn't hectic and we bounced from pub to ice cream to pub without tripping over anyone or getting trampled. We came home to find Christmas gifts from our neighbors on the doorstep and learned that quite a bit of visiting and gift-exchanging goes on, at least on-site, on Christmas Eve. Ooops...still learning the ropes, but definitely appreciating our thoughtful neighbors.

On Christmas day itself, several grocery stores were open until 2pm and at Camps Bay about half the restaurants were open and serving customers.  The only glitch in our day was that we didn't anticipate that we wouldn't be able to buy wine at Woolworth's (a more expensive Trader Joe's) on Christmas.  Our wine stash at home had been depleted by various parties we had attended and we were hoping to celebrate the day on the beach with a little clandestine vino drinking (technically no alcohol allowed on the beach...but...)  Here in Cape Town, no wine is sold in grocery stores on Sunday and this seems to extend to certain holidays too.  If we had thought about this we probably could have guessed that we should have stocked up on Christmas Eve, but we weren't planning too hard.  So we were on the beach sans wine...and we had a great time anyways!  We learned our lesson and now keep a regular stash of wine in the house so we don't get caught out in the future ;)  All part of our cross-cultural adaptation (and on the way home from the beach we found an open liquor store, so this no-wine-sales-on-Christmas does not appear to apply to all types of stores).


We came home from the beach and were invited to a potluck dinner and Christmas celebration at the home of our awesome Finnish neighbors.  Most of the families who lived on site were there and there was a hilarious gift exchange (all gifts had to be under R20, approx $2.75).  It's quite fun to see a Russian PhD in Astrophysics wrestle with a 9-year old boy for possession of the hot gift item - a laser keychain.  Little did we know that the competitive gift exchange was just a buildup to musical-chairs-as-contact-sport on New Years Eve...but that's another story for another blog post.

Until then we leave you with a shot of the Boo, rocking out to the musical Christmas card his Nana sent him.  He's singing something to do with a "Hippopotamus Christmas" and wearing Tim's new glasses:



Hope your Christmas was full of good cheer and Happy 2010!

is it really Christmas on Friday?

Well this past week flew by.

On Monday I took the Boo and his buddy to the Waterfront for ice cream and to check out the boats, one of our favorite pastimes. We ended up stumbling into a carnival and I got conned in to taking two munchkins on a very rickety, but fun, roller-coaster. Goofy smiles at their best!

On Tuesday, was the SAAO year end staff picnic at a winery in the Nuy Valley.  Staff came down from the telescope at Sutherland and out from Cape Town and it was a great way to put faces to the names of people I had only heard of. 

We had a really great day.  I ended up playing a hilarious drunken game of Petanque (think Bocce ball with really dense metal balls) with some of the Sutherland staff. One of the resident dogs, who had a fascination with rocks, kept trying to run off with these really heavy balls.  Fortunately I held my own, and developed a dead eye in defensively knocking out our opponents shots, as my teammate was Tim's boss ;)  Wouldn't do to mess up that relationship!

The Boo at play on the winery grounds:  In the first shot the vineyards are just beyond the trees and stretch all the way to the base of the mountains in the background.

There were large concrete tubes on the winery grounds that the Boo had a ton of fun with.



Indications of a successful day:


On Wednesday, South Africa took the day off for Reconciliation Day.  The New York Times had an article on this but it didn't seem to mesh with our experience of the holiday in Cape Town.  The NYTimes article seemed to focus on the meaning of December 16th to the Afrikaaner portion of the white population but I learned of the holiday from the black staff on site who were staying home with their families to recognize "their day."  The history here is thick and recent and we are only just learning our way through it.

Since SAAO was closed, we did enjoy our day off, historically-loaded holiday or not.  I went for breakfast at the Millstone (cafe with the treehouse) with Minna, our favorite Finnish neighbor.  Her youngest daughter was at horse camp all week at the stables at Oude Molen Eco-Village and it was a great opportunity for her and I to steal a little adult time. 

When I got back onsite after a wonderful-as-always breakfast, the Boo and Tim met me at the trampoline just across from Minna's house.


Since it ain't a holiday in Cape Town if you don't go to the beach, we called up Benne and Robin and met up with them at the Dunes in Hout Bay.  This is the same place they took us to our first weekend in Cape Town, the one on the beach with an awesome playground in the sand.  We spent hours at the cafe as the Boo hit it off with a host of different South African kids.  We rounded out the day on the beach and then followed Benne and Robin home to their cool house for homemade lasagna and entertaining conversation.


Thursday and Friday followed suit, with lots of outdoor play and visiting with neighbors and friends.  Now I hear that Christmas is this Friday.  Was I supposed to do something about that?

whooops! we've been busy...

I haven't forgotten you. We've been busy with the arrival of all our stuff and the internet has been darn flaky every time I felt like sharing.

Our big shipment of stuff arrived as well as the five boxes of stuff we shipped from my brother's house in October. Everything is here now and well... I'd happily send half of it back. All this stuff is draining my energy. But then it isn't really about me....while I'm in clutter hell, the Boo is in toy heaven.

As you can see, Diego is as concerned as we are about the current toy takeover of the house.

While the Boo was enjoying school, I avoided our cluttered house (because you need to leave the de-clutter fairies plenty of time to do their work in peace...) by going motorcycle shopping with our favorite Quebecois astronomer, Bruno.  Buying a vehicle, whether two or four wheels, is a great way to see all sorts of different parts of Cape Town and meet a variety of very cool South Africans. I learned a lot about the diverse riding community in Cape Town and Bruno rode off into the sunset on a gorgeous BMW 800GS.  I may just have to work my way up to joining him.


We are now enjoying a gorgeous Cape Town weekend.  Kicked it off this morning with a Cape Crossfit workout on the beach.  Timmy and the Boo got up in time to join me and while they soaked up the sand and the surf, I "worked out."  But really, nothing that fun is really work.   Sorry, no pictures (next time)...but envision yourself getting superfit while frolicking on the sand in Malibu with an excellent cafe right across the street ready to serve you a yummy breakfast post-workout.  Oh, and don't forget the excellent company ;) and gorgeous weather. Well, that's what it was like, only instead of Southern California it was Camp's Bay, South Africa and even better ;)

The only reason we left was because the Boo's social calendar is starting to fill.  We had 2 birthday parties to go to today (in opposite directions from home...).  But we had to do a little social triage and pick one which was a bit of a no-brainer since the princess turning 5 today was none other then the little girl that basically took the Boo by the hand and introduced him to everyone and everything on his first day at his new school.  Plus her party had a slip and slide (the other party had monkeys, but ummm... don't tell the Boo that ;)

Get ready, get set, go:

Slide:

Splash:

Smile:

Repeat:

some days it pays to be slow

So it was Saturday and since I have switched to working out in the mornings, it was time to sleep in.  Consequently, we got a late start to our day.  I know, quite shocking! (for those of you who don't know us well, we are late on a legendary scale...)  First order of business was to get the Boo a haircut.  Once that was accomplished it was time to eat.  We ended up at the Millstone, the cafe with the awesome treehouse we spoke of in a previous post.  It also had this very cool swing and lots of other great outdoor places to play.  Consequently, brunch went on for hours, which suited us just fine.

Since it was a gorgeous day with little to no wind, we thought a sojourn to the beach would work just fine.  By now it's late in the afternoon and the Boo didn't get a ton of sleep the night before.  He passes out in the car as we are trying to figure out which beach to go to.  Since we want him to nap a bit we decide a beach a bit further away would be a good idea giving the Boo plenty of time to sleep in transit, plus we knew our friends Bruno and Antoine were at Boulders Beach checking out the penguins.

When we were at Boulders last weekend we had lamely forgotten to bring our beach gear.  Now we may be slow but we do learn, so we figured we could do Boulders Beach round 2, only this time we were ready to swim and play.  So off we went to Boulders.

And this is why being slow pays off - not only were the crowds on their way home by the time we got there but large parts of the beach were now in shade AND as the people left and the sun dipped, the critters came out.

This curious penguin was just a meter or two from our beach towel and kept on eye on us for quite a while.  Eventually, he decided that things were safe and took a stroll across the beach.  The Boo gave chase though we did explain the difference between "watching" and "harassing" the penguin, and he backed off a bit.

As the penguins kept criss-crossing the beach singly and in pairs, we were visited by a small family of Eqyptian geese, a dassie and a large-spotted genet.

Finally, as sunset neared we thought it best to pack up and find a restaurant to enjoy the last rays of the day.  On our way out of Boulders Beach, we caught a couple of penguins making a break for it.

They hopped down to the asphalt and toddled off up the hill and away from the beach together, two for the road ;)

We headed back up the road a bit to Kalk Bay and our current favorite seaside restaurant the Brass Bell.  Where we enjoyed the sunset and I finally remembered to photograph the yummy, and beautifully presented, Cape Malay Curry (only this time Tim ordered it with chicken instead of the butternut and lentil I had previously.)

Love it when a full day at the beach can start at 4pm!

about those baboons...

So to continue from the penguins...a little later that day, after our lovely lunch...we arrived in the parking area for Cape Point.

We wanted to go the lighthouse atop Cape Point, way up here:

But we have a 4.5 year old who has decided he's not much for walking.  Fortunately for us, we could take the Flying Dutchman funicular to the top.  Woo hoo!  The Boo loves anything related to a railway and the views going up were spectacular:
I was completely captivated by this lovely beach between Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope:


The view from the lighthouse to Cape Point made you feel as if you were at the end of the world.


Eventually, we went back down and headed to the Cape of Good Hope.  On the road we met up with a resident troupe of baboons, who we'll hear more from a bit later.  We also made the acquaintance of a young ostrich.




When we finally made it to the Cape of Good Hope (we were slow not because the distances were far, but because the wildlife was so fascinating...), the Boo loved practicing his rockhopper skills while telling the photographer (aka me) what to do and where to go ;)




We eventually tore ourselves from the view, chased the Boo off the rocks and reluctantly got back in the car to go home.  As we passed the now closed Buffelsfontein Visitor Centre, we met back up with our troupe of baboons.  The alpha male, who is quite intimidating and not to be trifled with (actually, no one should let their guard down around baboons and all of our photos were taken from the car), was no where in sight, but the females and younger baboons were grooming and playing on the grounds of the Centre.


We then got a complete acrobatic show courtesy of the younger members of the troupe.  They took over the deeply slanted roof of one of the out-buildings of the Visitor Centre and played what appeared to be the baboon version of King of the Hill.  As each young'un ascended the roof, the others already there would try to knock him off.  They sometimes succeeded and the newcomer would fall to the ground, bounce (literally!), shake himself off and head back up.  We watched this cycle over and over with a few variations for about 20+ minutes.









Oo-de-lally, Oo-de-lally
Golly, what a day!