Archives for posts with tag: alcohol

Cape Town Shenanigans

June 20, 2011 //

We did a lot of awesome things while we were in Cape Town, but a lot of it was just the regular chill type of stuff that you do when you go back home. I know when I go back to Tucson, I chill with all my BFF’s and eat at my favorite restaurants and drink at my favorite bars, specifically The Meet Rack. DELIGHTFUL.

We had many a braai with friends of Feller, people who love him and went out of their way to have us over to their homes. Good conversation, alcohol, excessive amounts of Savannah Cider (and Strongbow in the UK), fun people, nerding out, role playing, laughing, missing out on cultural references since since all my pop cultural comes from the US. Oh, there was many a time in South Africa AND the UK where I didn’t get a joke because it was unique to the location. And I kept joking that I had no idea Feller knew so many people who liked him so much; I mean, people FLEW IN from out of town to see him!, but he’s wonderful, so I’m not actually surprised. Plus I got to spend some time with a friend and her knitting group, which was a lovely way to spend an afternoon, and I bought some really lovely sock yarn that I can’t wait to work with

This trip really was FASCINATING because I’ve never spent so much time in foreign countries, and the fact that they were fairly close to what I’m used to seeing in the US made the differences that much more glaring. You know what the weirdest, most random difference was for me? All the toilet flusher handles are on the wrong side of the tank. Think about it! When you go to flush a toilet, you reach for the left side, but in both SA and the UK, the handles are on the right, if they’re not in the center of the tank. Either way, WEIRD.

Anyways, we spent a lot of time hanging out with some awesome people and Feller’s parents (who were also awesome). His mom took us to Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden, and it was beautiful.

Mum’s a tour guide there, so we got a wonderful (free!) tour of the gardens, with history and plant information. It was a beautiful day and so pleasant to spend that time getting to know Mum a little bit more.

We really hoped to go back again while we were there; they had an AMAZING sculpture exhibit that we wanted to see more of, but ALAS, life and vacation and SLEEP got in the way of our plans, and we never made it back.

We also took the cable car to the top of Table Mountain and had dinner at Waterfront and drank excessively and watched TV with the Parents and went to Cederberg for a long weekend and some light hiking.

Overall, this vacation was exactly what we were hoping for when we left. It was beautiful and relaxing and GLORIOUS. I’m TOTES looking forward to going back and spending more time with some awesome people.

(More pictures at Flickr, obviously. Click any of the pics to check the rest out.)

Tags alcohol, Braai, Cape Town, Epic Vacation, friends, good times, Kirstenbosch, South Africa, the feller

Categories Traveling

Wino Forever!

June 10, 2011 //

Apparently, South Africa is WINE COUNTRY. WHO KNEW?! One of the first stops Feller and I made was at Groot Constantia wine farm, which is just a few minutes from Parents’ place.

We went on an awesome cellar tour and learned a lot about the production of wine, which was super interesting, and actually handy information to have for all the many wine tastings we went on later. Like, did you know that red wine is only red because it’s fermented with the grape skins? So red wine could ACTUALLY be made out of green grapes with some red grape skins on top! How cool is that?

After the tour we had a tasting, which was quite pleasant, but I will admit that this was our least favorite of all the tastings we did.

Parents took us out one Sunday to Stellenbosch, which is the home of 150 wine farms, or something ridiculous like that. We stopped at three: Neethlingshof (which was our FAVE), Morgenhof (I still have a bottle of their cheap Pinotage Rose in the fridge!), and … one that starts with W that I can’t remember, and we didn’t like that much.

It was a fun day, and we tasted quite a lot of delicious wine. Feller bought a BUNCH at Neethlingshof and is storing most of it at Parents’. The taste guide at Neethlingshof was this great young guy who provided us with a ton of information about the wines and the area and stuff to do. He really knew his shit.

Parents also took us up to Hillcrest Berry Orchard for delicious jam and the most amazing scones I’ve ever tasted. We brought home two jars of jam and worried every step of the way that they’d get smashed or confiscated, but thankfully, they made it safe and sound and will serve as my wine glasses once they’re both empty.

We also went tasting at Spier, after we pet some cheetahs. They have a GREAT Method Cap Classique (Champagne, but you can’t call it Champagne outside of Champagne, France; Cap Classique is South Africa’s version, made exactly as they do in Champagne), but I refrained from buying any (I may try to pick some up online). Our last day, we stopped at Steenberg in Constantia for a quick tasting before we headed to the airport. They had some REALLY delicious wines that we would have bought had we not been leaving in two hours and already at our wine limit, though we did pick up a couple bottles as a thank you for Parents’ hospitality. We’ll DEFINITELY be going back here.

We had so much fun doing wine tastings all over Cape Town, and it’s really given me a new appreciation for wines. We live so (“so”, relatively speaking) close to wine country up here, and I would really like to make the effort to get out and do tastings more often. It’d be such a great weekend trip if we needed to get away for a coupe of days, or even just a fun long day trip. Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joe’s just isn’t the same, delicious though it may be.