Friday night we had reservations at South China Dim Sum Bar
on Long Street. We were meeting Ash –
Leila’s parent’s friend’s son who was in town from Australia to see Groote
Schuur Hospital. He is a medical student
and came to check out the area as a potential place for him to move to. We ordered a bunch of plates to share, but
the shrimp just never came. We had to
ask over 5 times until finally, 2 hours after we ordered it, it arrived. It was very tasty, but definitely should not
have taken so long to get there. It was
a good thing we had wine to keep us occupied in the meantime. Later on we went out to a couple bars I had
never been to including Jo’burg and the Shack. My favorite game is when people
ask me where I am from. I try to reply
with the States. When they ask which
one, I say the Free State, because that is one of the nine provinces in South
Africa. They get so confused at first
unsure of what I mean, before I clarify and say I am from Nebraska. That usually doesn’t help too much because they
have not heard of Nebraska.
Saturday was the winter wine festival in Franschhoek. It was held at the Franschhoek Motor Museum
at the L’Ormarins Estate. The area was gorgeous
and down in this valley surrounded by mountains. There were over 20 locally made wines to
choose from, and my ticket let me try every single one of them if I wanted. There
were plenty of wine connoisseurs there, using the spittoon and judging the
character of the wine. Our group on the
other hand was simply drinking all of the wine.
Winter wines are all red, which is sad because I like white wine
better. Now, after spending an entire
afternoon drinking it, I think I like some red wines better. I tried around 18 of the wines there, not
having enough time to make it to the rest of them. I remember liking the Haute Cabriere a lot.
It was a sparkling wine, more commonly known as champagne, but since it is not
from France they can’t use that term.
Most of them were pretty good and by the end of course I thought all of
them were good.
Throughout our tasting we went into the four different
stables that housed the motor museum.
They portray the evolution of the automobile with over 80 cars on
display at all times. They show antique,
veteran, vintage, post-vintage, post-45, and post-60 cars including a 2003
Ferrari Enzo supercar. Some of them were
really old and cute with bright teal paint and long fronts. Then there were the really nice low to ground
cars with the wing doors that open upward.
We weren’t allowed to touch or go near any of the cars, but forced to
stay far away on the other side of a rope.
The entire afternoon we kept refilling our wine, wandering
through the museums, and sitting outside on wrought iron chairs listening to
live jazz play while the mountains and vineyards surrounded us. It was a relaxing time and allowed me to get
to know some of the new interns that just arrived earlier in the week. We got to keep our wine glasses as a souvenir of the event. I tried to watch a movie that evening, but I kept
dozing off, worn out by my day of wine tasting.
Sunday I really wanted to go hike Lion’s Head, but the fog
and clouds came in, and with it the cold.
Sunday was one of the coldest days we have had in a while. Instead I went to a local market on Long Street,
which was actually terrible. Most things
aren’t open on Sunday and this market is the poor exception to that rule. We rented some movies and spent the rest of
the day lounging around inside. It was
lots of fun watching movies with everyone because we are all from different
countries. The 5 of us were from Sweden,
South Africa, Philippines, Singapore, and the United States. It is educational talking with them about
their universities and their home towns to compare the way education is in
other parts of the world.
Emma’s flight got in from Jo’burg at 2 am so I had to wake
up and let her into the apartment at 3 in the morning. She is now on a flight back to the USA so all
of my original roommates have left South Africa. Where did the summer (and by
summer I mean winter) go?
These are stolen pictures off of the internet.
1) Two of the motor museum sheds, with the one closest to us where the wine tasting was.
2) Inside one of the sheds.
3) The wine glass filled with delicious wine.
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