Author: Rudy

When Sue woke up this morning at 6 she was expecting to hear the pitter patter of raindrops on our window. That’s what the weather forecast was. That would mean we would likely cancel our morning golf game at the Metropolitan.

That would be wrong. As the morning sky began to brighten it was clear there would be no rain today. Just another perfect day in paradise. Rudy, get up. We’ve got a 7:30 tee time.

After coffee and fruit we walked across the road to the golf course. Other than a few rows of porta-potties, there was little evidence of yesterday’s massive cycling event. This may be Africa, but the cleanliness and efficiency of city workers put OUR big cities to shame. Roads and sidewalks are clean and in great shape. The parks are green, clean, maintained.

We were a bit early for our golf game, but the starter told us to just go — so we golfed, just the two of us, for the first nine holes. That’s not happened for us at this course before. By the time we got to the 10th tee there were some groups ahead, so we had to wait. We decided to pair up with another couple once it was our turn. Marty is a South African who’d lived in Vegas for 25 years before moving back her in 2001. Mara was his ‘office wife’, an Italian woman who was in Cape Town to study and improve her English. And to golf. Kabaam! That woman could drive the ball off the tee! Out-drove the guys every time. Anyway, we had a good time golfing today. Sue played one of her better games, while my game was not-so-good. But, as I say when the game’s not so good, “I had fun.”

We walked back to our apartment and had lunch. Then we sat around for a bit. Sue tried (and failed) to have a nap. Alex and Max skyped. At around 6 we left for a long walk to the Ocean Basket restaurant down in Sea Point. By the time we got there we were hungry. Fish and chips and prawns and sushi. All good.

We took the MyCiti bus back to our place at around 8:30. Back in our room, we watched a bit of TV. I was tired (all that walking out in the sunshine! how can the weather-man get it so wrong?) and couldn’t keep my eyes open. At 10:30 we went to bed.

When we got up this morning the first of about 35,000 cyclists were at the start line in downtown Cape Town. It was a perfect morning — sunny, little wind, not too hot, not too cold. With that number of cyclists, it would take until just before noon when the FINAL group would be setting off for this 109km race around the cape. All morning, from just after dawn until after we’d had our bacon and eggs and headed out to the stadium, we saw thousands of cyclists, all dressed in cycling gear riding towards the city centre (start line).

We went across the road at around 9:30 and the area around the finish line, near the stadium, was already packed with cyclists who had completed the race. These were the ‘fast’ riders — who rode the loop in just over 2-and-a-half hours! The fastest woman in the race finished in 2:51. Many racers were part of a team, and those teams were now enjoying refreshments at their sponsor’s tents which were set up along the route in Green Point Park and along the road in Sea Point. And fans stood on either side of the road and cheered as the cyclists were finishing their last kilometre.

While it is the largest timed race in the world, not all 35,000 participants were ‘racers’. No, we saw lots of mountain bikes, even some fat-tire bikes, and quite a few tandems. It was a great day for a race. There were lots of friends and families and fans supporting the cyclists. It was a remarkable undertaking, well organized and well run. It’s incredible that a city like Cape Town will shut down major routes leading into and through the city for the better part of a weekend in order to make an event like this possible.

We had lunch at home, spent the afternoon reading and computing. We went to Hudson’s and had hamburgers for supper. We FaceTimed with the kids when we got home. Then we watched a bit of Netflix and went to bed at just before 1:00am. We have an early tee time tomorrow morning, but right now the wind is blowing pretty good and Sue says the forecast is for rain tomorrow; but we’ll see about that in the morning.

We got up early and had coffee. It was foggy outside but I could see hundreds of cyclists riding along Main Road just outside our balcony. They’re getting ready for the big Cape Town Bike Race tomorrow.

We ‘made a plan’ to be in Woodstock, an area on the east side of Cape Town, in time for a nine o’clock breakfast. Sue had read about a great breakfast dish served on Saturdays near the Old Biscuit Mill. According to their website, the Old Biscuit Mill is now “a vibrant, warm-hearted little village in the heart of Woodstock where talented people come together to share, collaborate and … show off the heart-felt passion.”

We checked Google maps to estimate what time we’d need to leave from our house in order to get to the mill by 9 — and were on the first bus by 8 o’clock. We ended up waiting for quite a long time before finally getting on the second bus. That bus took us for quite a long ride before we got off just a block away from the mill. It was nine o’clock when we walked through the gates into the shopping arcade.

A woman offered to take a photo of the two of us in front of the Old Biscuit Mill which is at the heart of the shopping area. When Sue asked her where we might find breakfast she immediately directed us to a small booth where a team of cooks were whipping up ‘Rostis’. Well if it isn’t exactly what Sue had read about! So I got some coffees while Sue stood in line waiting to get 2 ‘rostis’.

According to the Old Mill site, “a Rosti is a dose of heaven served on a paper plate, complete with a potato and coriander base, tender bacon, freshly grated Parmesan cheese, a poached egg and the best hollandaise sauce you will ever taste. Throw some chives, salt and pepper on top, and you have yourself the best breakfast of your life.”

After breakfast we wandered around the “Neighbourgoods Market”, enjoying samples at many of the food stalls. I went to look for the ‘Woo Themes’ shop, a company that makes themes and plugins for WordPress, some of which I’ve used — but the shop was closed on Saturday. We also looked in on the famous restaurant, The Test Kitchen.

It was starting to drizzle a bit so we headed back to the bus stop and took the bus back to town. We decided NOT to take the second leg of the trip by bus, opting to walk back to our place from the Civic Centre, a 30-minute walk.

Sue read and I sat at my computer for most of the rest of the afternoon. We had our little ‘happy hour’ out on the balcony in the late afternoon — there have been literally THOUSANDS of cyclists riding their road bikes out here since early this morning. I hope they have a great morning tomorrow.

At around 7pm I lit the barbecue. Sue made a salad and we had that with our pork tenderloin. It was delicious. After supper we watched a couple of documentaries on Netflix. It was just before midnight when we went to bed.

As busy as it was just outside our apartment all day today, the opposite was true INSIDE our apartment. Not a lot of activity here. Sue did a load of laundry and finished reading her Nelson Mandela book. So she started her next book. I spent all morning looking online at things to do in Cape Town (maybe we’ll actually DO them sometime!) and the afternoon working on web stuff. For a while it looked like we might take the bus out to the Old Biscuit Mill for lunch, but when lunch time had come and gone so did that notion.

There was action on the street below, and even in the garage below our place: I guess a few of the apartments here are available for short-term rentals, AirBnB, and so there were cars with trailers full of bikes unloading and groups of cyclists moving into apartments for this weekend above and beside us.

We finally DID leave the apartment at around 7:30, but only went as far as Mario’s, the Italian restaurant just around the corner from our place. Friday night, and with 35,000 cyclists and their friends and families here for the weekend, EVERY table in EVERY restaurant was busy tonight! Mario’s is an old ‘family’ restaurant, not as ‘hip’ as most of the places around here, and whenever we walk by it it looks ‘quiet’. But tonight it too was packed. We were lucky to get a table. We had a big bowl of mussels as a starter and a wood-fired pizza to share.

And that’s it for today! When we got home I sat out on the balcony and breathed in that cool evening air and listened to the talk and laughter coming from other balconies around our place for a while. And then I went to bed.

All day there was more action than usual down on the street. Something is going on — traffic is backed up all the way up past our apartment, the Main Road down at the corner has constant traffic, the sidewalks are full of people. And it’s only Thursday.

We sat around inside most of the day today. Sue did another load of laundry and made some serious headway on the book she’s reading — she says if she has another good day like this tomorrow she’ll have finished “Long Walk to Freedom”, the Nelson Mandela story she’s been reading for the past week. Speaking of reading, I haven’t been. And that was one of my ‘to-do’ things for this trip! Well, so was drinking red wine, and learning how to tell a shiraz from a merlot — but that hasn’t happened either. At least Sue is getting more informed every day, but me? Like my mother emailed today, ‘what a sad life! all I do is drink beer and watch soap operas.’ I’d like to say that’s not true, so today I didn’t watch any soap operas. So she’s only half right.

So instead of watching more soaps, after another nice skype with Alex and Max late this afternoon, Sue and I headed out to Sea Point for a long walk. LOTS of people out and about. Families, kids, moms, joggers, dogs and their walkers. And folks enjoying sundowners as the sun melted into the ocean. That’s what it does here on the west coast. Every night. And tonight we saw that the preparations are well on the way for a MAJOR sporting event that will take place right here in our neighbourhood this weekend: The Cape Town Cycle Tour – The World’s Largest Timed Cycle Race, when on the morning of Sunday, 6 March, 35 000 cyclists will line up to ride the 109km route through some of the world’s most spectacular scenery that includes the iconic Table Mountain as a backdrop. We will not be riding, but we certainly will be watching from our front-row seats! (more about the race here)

And so we walked a couple of miles down along the coast, turned around and walked all the way back. And more! We continued along the coast all the way back to the V&A. Sue had taken along 2 coupons (still from that discount book that our new friend Helene gave us back in January) for 2-for-1 main courses at a couple of fancy restaurants on the wharf. And tonight we ended up at the Karibou, a restaurant specializing in South African cuisine.

We had a very nice calamari appetizer, followed by Kingclip fish of the day for Sue and a stuffed chicken breast for me. A fancy-shmantsy ice-cream and sticky doughnut thingy dessert for us to share. I won’t mention the wine and beer. And when that cloudy ‘table-cloth’ finally slipped down off the top of Table Mountain we got to see a(nother) spectacular sunset and the colorful lights of the many restaurants that ring the harbour here. We walked back to the apartment under streetlights. It was 8:30.

The patio doors were open. No screens. The ceiling fan was on medium. The noise from the traffic outside had subsided. Linda Ronstadt, Laura Smith, Levon Helm, and Warren Zevon were taking turns singing old favorites on the Sony stereo where my iPod is plugged into. It’s calm, for now. But not for long! Cape Town is getting ready for LOTS of visitors — it will be an exciting weekend here.

It was late in the evening on Super Tuesday in the United States of America when we woke up. It was the dawn of Super Wednesday here in South Africa. We are far away from the noise that is America. We are in a different time zone, in a different hemisphere, in a different world. We do not have the daily reminders about all the nonsense in the world (we don’t have any ‘real’ TV channels in our apartment, and the daily paper I buy from Benjamin down on the street occasionally is mostly about what’s happening in the local rugby and cricket leagues). So while ISIS tries to drag the world back into the Middle Ages and Donald Trump drags America back to the adolescent ages, Rudy and Sue eat their peaches and bananas and peanut butter toast and then drag their clubs across the road and enjoy a round of golf on the manicured greens and lush fairways of Cape Town’s Metropolitan Golf Course. Quiet. Beautiful. Peaceful.

We golfed with a South African (Durban) couple today. Peter and Lynn. Lovely people. Good golfers. After our most relaxed (and quickest — we never waited for the group ahead) round here yet, they invited us to join them upstairs at the clubhouse for a drink. A bottle of white Ernie Els for the ladies, big drafts of craft beers for the gentlemen. Before lunch. Civilized.

We walked home and had lunch at around 2:30. After lunch we checked our email and the news. The silliness of the American primaries just keeps getting more bizarre (and discouraging). Where are all the ‘normal’, educated, decent, thinking, caring, civilized people? Why are they allowing this?

We skyped with the kids. We watched “Labyrinth of Lies”, a German movie (subtitles) — still from my collection of Oscar-nominated foreign films. Very good. Sue made (another) delicious supper. We skyped with Ed and Val, who are enjoying the Arizona heat for the month of March. We watched the first hour of an old movie, Romeo + Juliet, starring a very young Leonardo DiCaprio and Clair Danes. Then we switched to the CBC National before heading off to bed at 10:30.

Just like Bilbo Baggins in “The Hobbit”, today I enjoyed TWO breakfasts! The first one was our usual breakfast, fruit and toast and coffee. Then, after a couple of hours of wasting time reading the news (nothing ‘new’!) I went out for a second breakfast. I was already hungry at 10 o’clock, and knowing that our lunch today would only come at 2 o’clock and I probably wouldn’t last until then, I went out for a muffin and another coffee. I went to a new little cafe just down the street. That was probably a mistake! I ordered a coffee and a blueberry muffin from the menu. A couple of minutes later I noticed my waitress going out the front and down the street. Then she came back. She brought my coffee and informed me that they don’t have any blueberry muffins — would it be alright if I had a cappuccino muffin instead? Sure. Out she went again, returning 5 minutes later with a paper bag. Hmmm.. I guess she went out to buy a muffin for me. But it was at least another ten minutes before she brought me my muffin, (on a plate with a square of butter, a little dish of red jam, and a fork). Ah, I see what she was doing. She “added value” to the muffin she picked up next door. By now I had noticed the sandwich board standing on the sidewalk in front of the neighbouring coffee shop, advertising coffee and a cappuccino muffin for 30 Rand! I should have just gone to THAT restaurant! Oh well, the muffin was good even if I only ate it long after I’d finished my coffee. When I finally got the bill it was 43.50 Rand. “Value added!”

Sue and I headed out at around 1 o’clock. Walked down the main road, back into the city. Along the way we stopped at a car rental shop to see about renting a car. We got to our restaurant, Societi Bistro, right at 2 o’clock. I’d called there yesterday to book it for lunch today. I had come across the (unfortunately named) Labia Theatre, an old small movie house that was showing current movies at discount prices. Movie tickets were only 45 Rand, which is $3.87 Canadian. Not only that, on certain days they offered ‘deals’. The Tuesday deal was you could go to the Societi Bistro restaurant just down the street from the theatre and get 2 pasta main courses PLUS 2 movie tickets for 90 Rand. We were pleasantly surprised at how nice the Societi Restaurant was! and the pasta dishes we ordered were “f-f-FAB-ulous”! So we sat outside in the courtyard, eating our pasta and drinking our wine and enjoying the lovely afternoon and the great view of Table Mountain.

Around 3:30 we wandered down the street to the movie theatre. We ordered a big cappuccino and sat at a small table until our 4 o’clock movie began. (What a life, eh?) We traded in our restaurant receipt for 2 tickets to see the new Coen Brothers movie, “Hail, Caesar!”. We entered Screen 1 (the cinema was showing 4 different movies on 4 screens) and found our seats. We decided to sit one row AHEAD of the other couple that were already seated and awaiting the start of the movie; that left 172 seats still available in case anyone else would show up! For a cheap theatre this one had a pretty big screen. And the seats were relatively new and fairly comfortable. Maybe a bit TOO comfortable for Sue, who promptly slept through a good chunk of the movie! I guess it might have been that carafe of wine, although Sue was adamant that the movie was at fault — NO story, NO plot, NO romance — the WORST Coen Brothers movie yet, etc, etc. Okay, okay — but at least it had a great soundtrack and quite a few funny bits.

We were out at 6 o’clock and slowly walked the 3.5 kms back to our place. Although we both were not really hungry due to that late lunch we’d had, we nevertheless ate a hearty supper — no point in messing up our ‘routine’! And speaking of routine, after supper we got into our positions on the couch and watched the last 2 episodes of Homeland, followed by (yesterday’s) CBC National News before once again heading off to bed.

We woke up at 6. Our tee time at the golf course was for 7:35. While I made coffee I checked the news online, thinking I would find out who won what at the Oscars. BUT THEY WERE STILL GOING ON! Our 6am is 10pm at home, and only 8pm in California. Well, we didn’t have time to sit around and wait for all the winners to be announced — we had some golfing to do.

We were paired with the O’Reillys from London. John and Irene were very good golf partners. John retired from a career in mining and that had given him opportunities to live in many interesting parts of the world. (He was even stationed in Lynn Lake in the early 60s!) They had lived in several African countries, as well as Australia, India, Papau New Guinea, Oman, and Iran. They still have a second home in Oman. They’re here in Cape Town for another week, before flying back home to London.

We finished 18 holes and were home for lunch at around 12:30. Now I could see the complete list of winners and losers at the Oscars. Sue and I have had a good time watching as many of the Oscar-nominated films as we’ve been able to. There have been quite a few very good films, lots of ‘okay’ films, and a couple of “meh!” or “huh?” films. We hadn’t really picked our own ‘play-at-home’ winners, so we weren’t really cheering for any particular movie or actor. Still, finding out that “Mad Max” won 6 Oscars, although not surprising based on some of the predictions we’d read, made us scratch our heads a bit. I SERIOUSLY tried watching that movie three times. The third time was on the plane ride here — lots of time, nothing better to do, I’d seen the beginning half hour twice before (before turning it off in utter boredom), so I was determined to watch at least the ‘middle section’. After all, Charlize Theron was nominated for best actress, and she’s a good-looking woman — surely I can watch the movie just for that! But no, I’m sure I didn’t make it through the first hour. Oh well, like I said, we had fun watching lots of movies, and if after all that we still don’t recognize a ‘great’ film when we see it, so be it.

After lunch I had a bit of a ‘meddach-schlaup’. I worked on some web stuff again, had happy hour, then went out for supper at around 7:30. We had Thai food at the ‘Simply Asia’ tonight — very good. We picked up a new container of ice cream from Woolies and came home to eat it while we watched 2 more episodes of Homeland. (only 2 left). After watching (yesterday’s) CBC National news it was time for bed.

Scrambled eggs for breakfast. I worked on another website on my computer while Sue read her Nelson Mandela book. Another gorgeous day here at Green Point — lots of people here this morning. The annual Sunfoil Cape Town Big Walk was happening today and the route followed the Sea Point promenade. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people in red t-shirts were doing the walk. We could see them from our balcony, and smell the barbecues and hear the marching bands all morning.

What should WE do today? How about we take the Cape Town city bus down as far south as it will go, all the way to Hout Bay? We have the bus ‘cards’, it’s really very cheap to ride it, and it would be a great day to visit the beach towns along the way. We could have lunch in one of those towns.

We left our apartment at around 11:30. Caught the bus just down the road from here. The Sunday traffic along the one road that goes down along the beach slowed things down a bit, but we were in no hurry. Sue had a 2-for-1 coupon for a restaurant in Camps Bay, so we decided to get off the bus there and have lunch.

The Blue Restaurant opened at 12 noon, and we were there not long after that. It quickly filled up. The restaurant was on the second floor, right on the main beach road, and we got a table outside on the balcony overlooking the beach. The food was very good.

After lunch we wandered back to the bus stop and waited for the next bus to come along. The distance from our place to the beach at Hout Bay was just over 20 kms. It was the last stop on this bus run so when we got to the final stop we got off the bus. We walked down to the beach. There was a busy restaurant overlooking the beach. We went upstairs to the bar and sat down and ordered G&Ts. They were large! And the place was hopping here too. We spent about an hour there, enjoying the warm afternoon sunshine and looking out at the big surf rolling in on the white sand of the beach.

The ride home was a little more complicated! First we found out that the bus station where we got off the bus was NOT the place to catch it going back to Cape Town. We ended up walking about a kilometre to another bus stop on the main road. We sat there for about 5 minutes until the bus showed up. We got on, and took the back seats. As we made our way (slowly) up the coastline the bus gradually filled up. By the time we got to Camps Bay, about halfway, the bus was packed and continuing to pick up more people! And it was moving very slowly — traffic now was just barely crawling. And the late afternoon sun was reflecting off the ocean and heating up Sue’s side of the bus pretty good. No air conditioning here! By the time we got CLOSE to the stadium in Green Point Sue had had enough. We’re getting off. We’ll WALK an extra stop or two just to get out of that hot bus!

We got home and showered. Whew! Then we watched a bit of the Sunday morning American talk shows. It didn’t take long until we were tired of that. Sue made supper. After supper we started watching a German movie I’d downloaded — but we both had trouble keeping our eyes open (and we needed to have our eyes open so we could read the subtitles!). We switched to a couple of episodes of Homeland and managed to stay awake with the help of a dish of ice cream and some chocolate.

By ten o’clock we were ready to call it a day. We have to get up early tomorrow for our weekly Monday morning golf game across the road — and the forecast is for a warmer day again tomorrow.

Woke up at around 6. Made coffee. We checked devices. Then Sue made bacon and eggs for breakfast. It was a beautiful sunny day — the forecast was for about 23 degrees, but it looked like it might get hotter. Out on the street I could see masses of people of all ages running on the sidewalk beside Main Road — another ‘Family Run’ day here in Cape Town. Sue was itching to go for a long walk.

But first I had some computer work that I wanted to finish. So Sue sat there patiently, reading until I was done. And then we hurried out — had to get this done before the midday heat. We headed out past the stadium to Mouille Point where the lighthouse is. Lots of people out today — families, couples, kids, cyclists. There were a lot of parasailors coming down from Signal Hill, landing in the Green Point Park. We ended up walking to Sea Point and back, about 12 kms. When we got back to the lighthouse we stopped in at one of the many beachside cafes for lunch.

On the way home, as we walked through Green Point Park, we saw a mass of people coming INTO the park from the other side. As we got closer we realized that we were walking into a giant GAY PRIDE parade! Yikes! We hurried through the first part of the parade and got across the street. As we walked by the Spar grocery store, we stopped in to pick up some bread. I bought a big fat weekend newspaper from Benjamin, the guy who works our street, selling papers to cars while they wait for the traffic light to change.

I had a snooze in the afternoon. Sue read. After happy hour we had a Facetime call with our kids, so we had a chance to see how their home renovations are progressing.

We watched 2 ‘Best Documentary Feature’ films: “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” and “What Happened, Miss Simone?”.

Sue made a great chicken salad for supper. We watched a few TED talks and went to bed at about eleven.