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.