Once Upon A Time In Cape Town...

Well...I'm back in Lesotho, which means my vaca is OVER...sigh...
But GOOD NEWS! It was AMAZING. Here's what happened...
First, I went to the lowlands (Mafeteng) to stay with my friend Melissa on Christmas Eve (which is where I was last year for those of you keeping track). We had a blast getting all excited for CT...highlights of that visit being watching Melissa get her head straight razored...SO funny.
We met Elissa, Jessica, Mike, and Evan at the border and set off for Bloemfontein where we would catch the bus on Christmas Night. Everything was closed at the mall so we obviously had to take advantage of an empty mall to take funny photos with their xmas decorations...Eventually we all split up and saw some movies to kill time (also to splurge because thats what we do). The bus ride was long (12 hours) but not too bad. When we finally got to Cape Town it was awesome. Big buildings, lights, people, sidewalks...We spent the first day walking around. It was technically a national holiday so not that much was open. We did have this SUPER good Mexican food. I feel like this would be a good time to inform you all that food is going to come up ALOT in this post, to put it into context for you, there is VERY LITTLE ethnic food in Lesotho so we get REALLY excited about variety. The next day Jess, Elissa and I want to Stellenbosch.
Stellenbosch is the hub of the SA wine region. Our first day we went on a 6 hour wine tour. Fun times all around. We even created our own 5 star rating system. We also learned some tips to be snobby when drinking wine in public (ex. you don't "smell" or "sniff" wine, you "nose" it). The best part of the day was this one winery with cheese...I can't even describe to you how delicious the cheeses were..in particular was this one goat/cow cream cheese wrapped in garlic and herbs...OMG. Needless to say we all bought some lol. Stellenbosch was a cute little city/town (kind of like Gloucester is a "city" but is much more like a "town").
When I got back to CT I went with the girls to the V&A Waterfront...aka a huge mall by the ocean. Ohhh developement....
One really cool thing to see in CT is the Bo Kaap. The Bo Kaap is a tradtionally Muslim neighborhood built in the 1870s (I think..) and all the buildings/houses are painted different colors. After visiting the museum we realized that there is really no reason for doing so..which is sort of anti-climactic but still a site to see. Ok. So many of you know I was going to Shark Diving...sigh...I did. However, I happened to be on only the second tour that year to see no sharks. Did you just hear my heart break? Because it did. It was still fun though. I learned about sharks and wore a wetsuit and still went into the cage.
One of the biggest attractions in CT is Table Mountain. Unluckily for us, the weather was not really cooperating with visiting the site! Just about every day it was closed because this super cool looking cloud was just sitting on top and also it was quite windy out...hence the closure. But LUCKY for us it opened on our last full day in CT!! It is SOO BEAUTIFUL up there. We took the cable car up, which does this cool floor spin thing that allows you to see 360 degree around. It was the perfect day weather wise and we set off on a little walk/hike. Well of course 5 mins into it my shoe broke...typical lol. Jessica and I turned back..with me walking around, looking like a total freak mind you, with no shoes on (my theory was that it looked less dumb walking around with NO shoes than with just one). Me and Jess still had a good time being silly tourists and making spectacles of ourselves...we may have taken a nap on a big rock...maybe...
There happened to have been many PCVs in CT while we were there. They we're staying too near us but we did manage to hang out. Especially at night. I'll tell you this. CT at night is FUN. We didn't NOT stay out dancing til 4am...
Overall I had a spectacular time with the ladies and have discovered that CT is EPIC. GO THERE IF YOU CAN!!!
It took me 27 hours to get home, which was NOT fun. Also, returning from a sunny paradise to a rainstorm mud pit sucked alot. One funny thing that happened was that Haley (another PCV) and I got a lift from this one man who once finding out we worked for Peace Corps, decided we were really spies. AWESOME. Except I'll tell ya RIGHT NOW there are no pertinent secrets to be found here lol. It was good to be back in my own house again though.
Since being "home" basically 2 things have happened. I became friends with my deaf neighbor who I estimate is roughly 16-18 years old. She has these SA sign language posters that she brings out to teach me...PS American sign language is NOT the same. It has been a really neat experience for me. Challenging though because some stuff she tells me is not on the posters...
The second thing is that my group finally had our Reconnect (a training workshop type thing that happens at your year mark but was REALLY delayed for us). It was great to see my other group mates again and hear about what they've been up too. We only have 5.5 more months!! CRAZY!
Other than that its pretty much been business as usual. Right now we are having a belated birthday dinner party for Parker (who is adorably caring for our neighbors puppy at this very moment).
I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years!