Reset, and Au Revoir

Sunday morning. Breakfast was fruit and toast and coffee. The plan for the day? Walk the promenade, get a replacement for Jessica’s stolen phone, go out for one last supper with Jessica. (Spoiler alert: Mission accomplished.)

Sunny and a wee bit on the cool side this morning as we headed out for a long walk along Sea Point. But we soon warmed up, along with hundreds of other walkers, joggers, cyclists, families, and a surprising number of unleashed dogs. We walked from our house, through Green Point park, to the lighthouse and down all the way to the big public pool. Then we turned around and walked back all the way to the V&A shopping centre. We went to about half a dozen phone stores, comparing prices and checking out what was available. Jessica’s stolen phone was an older Samsung S3 — her next phone could be a cheaper (but newer) phone that is supposed to last her for the next 4 months, until she gets back to Canada. She ultimately decided on a Huawei basic smartphone for around a hundred bucks. The salesman did his best to try to get her settings and apps set up like they were on the old phone, and mostly succeeded. It was after one o’clock by the time that was done, and we headed back to the apartment for lunch.

We were home until around 6:30, Jessica exploring her new phone (and having a short nap), Sue reading and scrabbling on her iPad, and I worked on a website. After a quick happy hour we went back out to the mall — this time to see if the CellC cell service people could replace Jessica’s SIM card and get her ‘WhatsApp’ to work on her old (Canadian) phone number. He tried, but no success there. So we walked back to our part of town and looked for a restaurant. We ended up at Cafe Extrablatt, about a block and a half from our corner. Seafood platter for Jessica, chicken fingers for me, pizza for Sue. All we needed was a ice cream for dessert — and we found that at a little gelato shop on our way home.

Back at the apartment we sat down and started watching one of my movie downloads, “Straight Outta Compton”.  But we were too tired to finish it; Jessica had to pack — she needs to be up and ready to head to the airport by shortly after 4am tomorrow morning. She’ll try to get an Uber taxi — and if that doesn’t work, I’ll take her to the airport myself.

And so ends our time with Jessica. It’s too bad her time in Cape Town was spoiled by that mugging yesterday; the fright, the expense, and the inconvenience! (We spent much of today shopping for a new phone and getting it set up.) But she’s handled it all so well, and that’s been very impressive. It’s been great getting to know Jessica a bit better. I think she has the best qualities of both Paul and Kathy, and that’s saying a lot! Farewell, and SAFE travels!