October 5 2010 / Franschhoek, South Africa

Upon waking up a little on the earlier side, I went outside the ship to finagle my way into going on the cycling through the vineyards tour that Brian had been telling me about the day before.  I tried to see if I could get in for free, as in a lot of cases people put their tickets in donation boxes when they decide sporadically they want to do something else, but there were just about ten thousand tickets for the Table Mountain hike that Julie and Jared were going on.  So I bought the ticket and hopped aboard the shuttle with Brian.  There were only about 20 people in the shuttle, and most of them were lifelong learners—wine tasting must not be as hardcore as students like.  The guide said right off that no one could buy wine to bring back to the boat, including faculty and lifelong learners.  Right away, this life-long learner (the Debbie Downer from the Morocco trip, if you remember her) said “Why aren’t the adults allowed to bring back wine?”  to which I said, extremely loudly, “I think we’re all adults here, thanks.”  She amended her statement by saying “non-students,” and it was probably a little rude on my part, but to be honest I am just so fed up with the fact that just because I am a student, it means that I’m some binge-drinking idiot who doesn’t know how to control myself.  Did I tell my wine-glass story?  Several weeks ago I noticed that students were being served wine in little plastic cups, which is clearly ridiculous because you can’t drink wine properly if it’s in a plastic cup.  So I went up and said “Excuse me, can I have a glass of wine in a wine glass?” and the lady said “No, they’re for adults only.”  The alcohol policies here just make me so angry.  It’s just so condescending the way they do everything.  I am 20 years old, which means I have been able to drink alcohol on international waters for 2 years, which means that I think I am adult enough to handle a glass wine glass.

Anyway.

We drove out through Cape Town through countryside.  We drove through tin-can townships that got progressively more dodgy into finally heavily wooded areas.  The townships are appalling.  The colored township was the closest to Cape Town, and the black township was even further away and was even more run down.  In town they have these art pieces that are mixed media of the townships, but with pieces of soda cans and metal making up the buildings—it’s because that’s what they actually look like.  It was pretty horrifying, that kinds of conditions that blacks and colored (colored means half black, half while) people are living in, even fourteen years after apartheid.

On the way out we learned a lot from our guide about wine—what a wine estate was, that wines can be less than 10% “other” and not have to mention it on the bottle, that there’s only 1% of taste in a wine grape which means that wine makers have to do a lot to bring out the flavor... also some interesting stuff about the color, like if a white is goldish it was stored in an oak barrel but if it was clear than it was probably in a steel tank.  Making wine, basically, sounds ridiculously complicated. 

So anyway, as we started passing between these beautiful blue mountain ranges, vinyards started getting more and more common.  We were entering what was called the “French Quarter,” Franschhoek, where Frenchmen being persecuted for religion fled.  The governor of the area thought they were convicts being sent to Cape Town, so he made them go far outside the city—which ended up being fine, because it had some of the best areas for growing grapes for wine.  We got into the town, which is a sleepy little place not unlike San Anselmo at home—it looks, in fact, very much the same, aside from the fact that it is surrounded by mountains and fields of grapes.  Brian and I walked through it together, and all around were art galleries, bistros, and wineries.  I bought some postcards and a little loaf of bread, which I ate under a tree next to the Huguenot Monument, which I know nothing about except that that’s where we were meeting to begin our bike ride.  Our objective was to ride bikes back the way we came to the Solms Delta vineyard, about 13 or 14 miles away.  The road was a gently sloping road between two mountain ranges, with vineyards and farms on either side.  Because everyone had different fitness levels, I rode somewhere in the middle of everyone.  Sometimes I couldn’t even see anyone ahead of me or behind me on this straight road through the countryside.  A little girl on a swing and a boy under an oak tree waved at me, and at one point there was a great big field of brown horses where foals were still nursing.  It was kind of the most adorable thing ever.  The bike ride took about an hour, and hour and a half maybe, and when we got to the estate we rode town a little dirt road until we got to the restaurant, which was nestled in between fields. 

We sat outside at a nice table, and we had a meal in which there were six wine pairings—mussels cooked in white wine, garlic, and cream with a white wine; smoked snoek and salmon pate with another white; springbok (a kind of antelope) served in braised sauce with a red; a beef frikkadelle (meatball) with a rosey wine; some cheese and crackers with a honey white; and a boeber pudding with a red.  It was  all SO DELICIOUS.  I was sitting at the end of the table with the driver, and we got to talking about his experiences during the end of apartheid and Desmond Tutu (he’s met Desmond Tutu before at a café, randomly).  It was a really nice time and I totally loved just hanging out and chatting.  I bought a couple of bottles of wine to send home to my family, the first white wine and the third wine, which was the first red wine.  Apparently it’s already gotten there because it shipped from Alabama or something.  But they’re really delicious so I can’t wait to try it again come Christmas time.  :)

 After a while we hopped back in the shuttle and drove through Stellenbosch, where we got out to look around for a while.  I bought some stamps and Brian and I hit up an outdoor market, where I finally found a FIFA World Cup hat that I liked, as well as a present for my dad.  The best part about this was a little girl who was shouting “Hello!” at us over and over again, and the men were saying “tell them to come and look around!”  I told them that she were teaching her to be quite the business woman.  Another man was just like “So you shaved your head like a man?!” and thought it was really awesome when I explained about the equator ceremonies. 

We lay out in the middle of central field after looking around, and driving back Brian and I talked about creative pursuits—I want to start a book club when I get back to school, anyone interested?  We also talked about webcomics—we have a lot of them in common, haha.  He wants me to start reading Questionable Content, so I suppose I will have to do that after all, as I know James likes it too. 

Dinner back on the ship was okay—I decided not to go out and instead spent the night packing and getting ready for my safari tomorrow!  I got a letter from the Burrow (aka where I will be living next year), which always makes me smile, as well as a package from mom and dad filled with pictures that are now all up on my wall, as well as some letters and some malaria pills, thank goodness.  Thanks for sending me mail, guys—it really makes me so happy to come home to letters on my door.  :)

I also sent out a couple of JPEG pics of me as a baldie, and that seemed to go through okay—now that I know how easy that goes through, I’ll have to do it more.