Well, today is the last day of the 12^th year of the 2000^th year after Christ was born. I remember how at summer camp in 2011, there were people predicting about how the world was going to be overcome by zombies and end in 2012. So far, that hasn’t happened yet, and I doubt it will.

Today the plumber was supposed to come, he was also supposed to come yesterday but didn’t. Today, however, he did come, but more of that will come later. All of us went putt-putt-ing today and we went on the blue course…again! The reason that we had to go on the blue course was because the orange course is closed for renovations in the morning. Sadly, we didn’t know that sooner, as we probably would have waited the ½ hour to play on my (and Eryn’s probably, too) favorite course, the orange one. However, as we didn’t wait, we did the blue one, for the third time for me and Eryn, and the second time for my parents. After playing that round, we went back to our apartment and waited for the plumbers to arrive. Eventually, they did, and a little bit before they left, we left for dinner at Yindee’s. Now, we have hot water, and my mother is using that water to wash almost every bit of clothing that we have.

That’s all for now, Folks!

If you want to take an interesting and scenic driving test, you should go on the aforementioned drive. According to their website:

Chapman’s Peak Drive winds it way between Noordhoek and Hout Bay on the Atlantic Coast on the south-western tip of South Africa. Chapman’s Peak Drive is one of the most spectacular marine drives in the world.

The 9km route, with its 114 curves, skirts the rocky coastline of Chapman’s Peak (593m), which is the southerly extension of Constantiaberg and is a great hike for the energetically inclined.

Chapman’sPeakDrive is affectionately known as “Chappies” and is a must for anyone who is passionate about the majestic Cape Town scenery, with sheer drops to the sea below and towering mountains rising above you. The twists and curves in the road seem endless and it is a photographers dream. It is a paradise for motorists, sightseers, picnickers, runners, hikers and bikers (both the motorised and the manual varieties).

The drive offers stunning 180° views with many areas along the route where you can stop and take in the exquisite scenery or sit down for a relaxing picnic.

Today we went there. We went on the drive for the scenery, and it was fun…well, as fun as a drive can be. We drove from Hout Bay (Wood Bay) to Noordhoek (North Corner, interestingly south of Cape Town) along this drive to discover and experience the ‘must do.’ There were a lot of pull outs and we stopped at several to admire the view over Hout Bay and out over the Atlantic Ocean.

That’s all for now, Folks!

The gelato at Gelato Mania may not be a maniac type, but I played with the name to form my title to try to catch the eyes of the viewer. That is usually how I do my titles; I take something from my post and twist it to catch the eye of whoever is on the website. If you are reading this, there are two reasons: one; you periodically check, and two; the title caught your eye. Most of the time the answer is the first option, but I like to think that there are some people that read my posts because of the title.

There was some sort of carnival in Green Point Park today, but we didn’t go to it. We went right by it, however, on our quest to go to Gelato Mania, a gelateria that has a store in the V&A and out on the Green Point side of Sea Point. On the way to the establishment, we went right by the place where the carnival was taking place and a waterwheel. At the gelato place, we each got one or two scoops of delicious gelato before heading back to the apartment.

At the apartment, we found a problem; the hot water tank had hot water running down the side, and we didn’t know where it came from. We got a plumber and another man to come to the apartment, and they fiddled around with all the valves and switches and whatnot. Then they figured out the problem; the heater had burst, and what they were going to do about it; send someone in the morning.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today we went to the mall and, while the womanfolk went off to the hair salon to get their hair styled, my father and I renewed the quest to get boxes. Yesterday, we had gone to the mall, and, after looking all over the place, we couldn’t find any boxes of a big enough size. My father had, overnight it seems, decided to get two or three smaller boxes like the kind that they sold in the post office. We went there and were almost the first customers. Sadly, though, they were out of the largest boxes, the one we wanted, but told us that in CAN, we could find boxes that they had used for shipping.

At CAN, we went in, and, just like the clerk at the post office told us, there were boxes that had been delivered to CNA that we could use. What was even better was that those boxes were very durable and thick. After a round of mochas, we came back to our apartment and packed up two of the three of those boxes, using the third box as the one that we got in the post from the US. At the post office in Sea Point, not in the V&A, we wrote down all the details on a slip of paper and sent the packages off to the US.

That’s all for now, Folks!

My father has commented, on several occasions, that I am very bookish. That may be true, and is proved by the fact that today, the main things that I did consisted of reading one of the books that I got for Christmas and going to the library.

The library nearby has a lot of books, as do most libraries. I also noted that there were a lot of non-fiction and not as many fiction books. During the day, however, I was reading the book called Ivory, Apes, and Peacocks by Alan Root about his experiences filming and photographing animals in Africa. His experiences include getting such a big bite from a hippo that he can pass a Coke bottle through the hole, having a finger amputated from a puff adder bite and lots more, all just to get good movies and films.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Me Paragliding with my Pilot, Grant, with Lions Head in the background

Today was a very nice day; there were almost no clouds, the sun was out, and most of all, I got to go paragliding. Yesterday, in a small present, I got promised a paragliding ride by whoever would take me, and finally, we agreed on Hi-5. Hi-5 is a paragliding company where you have to high-five your pilot at the end of the tandem paraglide.

We went up to Signal Hill, but the winds changed so we actually had to go to Lions Head. At Lions Head, I met my pilot, Grant, and we walked up the trail up to the first take-off point. Take-off was relatively easy, all I had to do is lift my feet up after the para-sail billowed out in the wind. On the ride, we went up, and then spiraled down slowly with a view of Camps Bay. At the end, we finished, and we got an SD card with photos and a video of the flight. I think it was really fun. There were a lot of other people flying, and the sails were very colorful. The one that I was using was red, white, and blue.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Well, every time someone asks us when we are leaving, we say ‘January 2’ and then they say ‘Oh, so you’re staying for Christmas’ and then we reply ‘Yes, we are having Christmas in Cape Town.’ I think that there is also a song called ‘Christmas in Cape Town’ but I have never listened to it. Today, we had Christmas in Cape Town.

After waking up, I opened my stocking, which had candy and several pens. After my shower and breakfast, we took the normal and mandatory pictures, before going and opening the presents under the tree. My mother could have gotten table runners, joggers, and walkers, but my father just got table runners for her.  She also got chocolate, a wire basket, and two necklaces. My father got a buffalo skin drawing, chocolate, a tie, and a book. Eryn got hair things, chocolate, a book, and some other things. I got a ball that bounces on water, a book on chameleons, a book about Africa, a book on the ‘Best Wrong Test Answers,’ and chocolate. During the rest of the day, we vegged out and went for a walk. On the walk, we learned that a little girl had drowned a couple of meters down the promenade and that divers were searching for her body.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today is just that: Christmas Eve. This is my 11^th one that I have been present on, and I plan to give you, my gracious audience, an account of one of the more interesting particles of information that happened today while we were awake. However, before we get too far in this business, I will let you know that I can cook a little, and I helped with some of what follows:

Most of the day today was spent cooking in the kitchen. Eryn cooked up a storm of annoyance at me because I was always wanting to help her on the chocolate cake that she was making. I finally got to help my mother make the bread that she makes at home. We mixed all the ingredients together before braiding the dough to make good bread. When everything was finished and completed, we sat down to eat our Christmas Eve dinner. The dinner consisted of potato soup with grated cheddar cheese on the top, a salad made out of cranberry sauce, raspberry jello, and sour cream, last, but not least, we had peartizer to drink. It is kind of like Appletizer but with pears. If you don’t know what Appletizer is, it is 100% Sparkling Apple Juice. Anyway, back to the story: for dessert we had the chocolate cake that Eryn made earlier smothered in chocolate sauce. It was good.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Eryn might have mentioned in her post for today that I keep saying what I have put in the title of this post, so I will try not to repeat it too much. The time being what it is, I will probably not have the ability or time to make this post a long one, for I cannot type fast on the keyboard that we have. Also, the time is running short, so I will probably have to-soon- go on to doing what these posts are supposed to do: tell what happened in the day so that you (the reader) can understand what is happening on this trip that is happening. Now, I think, would be a good time to continue on, but before I do, I will tell you that our Christmas tree looks the same as it did in one of the previous posts, disregarding the fact that there are now 16 presents under the tree. My father thinks that that is too many.

The days seem to grow longer, but that may be because I (and probably some other members in my family) am getting a bit anxious about Christmas. Today, though, it seemed long because, partly, it was long, and partly (the other part) it was because Eryn and I had to sit around at home waiting for the parents to come home from a shopping expedition. When they finally arrived at home, we were back in business, however, so there was a remedy to that longness. Earlier in the day, before the shopping expedition, we all went up on to Table Mountain, using our year-long valid tickets that we can use any time until the 17^th of December in 2013. Where was I? Oh yeah, at the end of the shopping: When they came back, everything was remedied, and when we had putsed around or a while, I made a reservation for dinner at Posticino, a restaurant in Sea Point, where we ordered stuff in likeness to when we were last there several days ago.

That’s all for now, Folks!

We have exploited many ice cream and gelato places in the area surrounding our apartment. There is one down the street from our house called Gelatos at Newport, and the other one that is nearby is one up the street of whose name is escaping my mind right now. There are also several at the mall, and one of the we have gone to twice: it is called Gelato Mania.

Today we went to the one nearby whose name has escaped my mind up the street. We went there after going to church and, as Father calls it, putsing. The gelato place at Newport is one that we have used twice already. The scoop in the not-so-round type of scoop, so when they have chocolate, I have confided with my family that it looks like baboon poop. On the bright side, it doesn’t taste like baboon poop.

That’s all for now, Folks! (TAFNF!)

As I am writing this, I am hearing a sound at regular intervals. That sound is the sound of the foghorn, and it is blowing because there is fog out over the harbor and some of Cape Town. Today, we went to several places, but I am going to mainly focus on the part where we went to Signal Hill for a picnic dinner.

We were going to go up Table Mountain for dinner, but the line was way too long, so we went back down and over to Signal Hill. On Signal Hill, there were a lot of people, and we were lucky to get a table to sit at. Looking down on Cape Town and all the suburbs, we couldn’t see any water at all. The reason being that there was so much cloud cover that all of the water was covered. Now, the foghorn is going because there is no way that a ship can see a lighthouse until it is too late.

That’s all for now, Folks!

A quick biology lesson for all of those out there: a regular lion has both a head and a rump. Most lion carvings have both as well. The question is if a large mass of rock called Lion’s Head has a rump. As a matter of fact, it does. Signal Hill has another name, and that name is Lion’s Rump. This useless blabber about rumps of lions is annoying, though, and is probably wasting your time.

Today we climbed/hiked/walked up Lion’s Head, also known as Leeukop, which means Lion’s head in Afrikaans. It was a lot of fun in parts, especially when the climber had to climb up a vertical rock faces. There was a point in time where there was a fork in the trail, one way going straight up and the other going to the side and up slowly. Eryn and I went up the vertical part using attached chains and pegs, while Mother and Father went the slow route. At the top of the vertical part, Eryn and I found a tree to rest under, and we did that for ten minutes until the parents finally came. From there we continued to the top of the mountain. From the top, we could see for a long ways in every direction. We could see Robben Island out in the ocean, and Table Mountain and the Twelve Apostles in the opposite direction. We could also see city center and the castle. From there, we went back down the way we came up, and when we got to the bottom, we hopped in our hot car and went back to our apartment.

That’s all for now, Folks!

I am not sure about you, but I do not believe that cobras can talk. So the title that I aforementioned is not a true one, but, in theory, I should get partial credit, because the people that ride on the Cobra roller coaster curse while they wait for the ride to drop out of the sky and spiral around and around and upside down before finally going back to the starting point.

Wait, wait, wait…you probably don’t even know what the Cobra roller coaster is, let alone Ratango Junction. I will tell you, then, so that I know that you know what I am talking about. Ratango Junction is a theme park in Cape Town near the Canal Walk shopping center. It has lots of rides that you can get wet on or stay dry on. The one that I am going to be focusing on today is the Cobra, the one that the rest of my family was too afraid to go on.  At the beginning of the queue, there were several real live cobras in cages, and then there were a lot of people waiting in line. After waiting for an hour, the rider goes forward onto the platform and gets onto the seat and buckles up. Then the ride winches you up, up, up, and then plummets down. Then there are a lot of twists and turns and upside downs, before finally arriving back at the starting point.

That’s all for now, Folks!

That is what happened when Christaan Barnard and his team of professionals transplanted a heart into Louis Washkansky on the third of December in 1967. The donor of the heart, Denise Darvall, had been killed in an accident, and after five months of waiting, Barnard’s team was ready to operate.

The first thing that had to be done in the procedure was to have the kidney taken out and sent across Cape Town to another hospital where there was a ten year old boy who needed a kidney transplant. Then, they cut out the heart. They put it into a bowl of liquid that was ten degrees celsius and got it over to where Dr. Barnard was waiting with his patient, and there sewed the heart into place with silk thread, before wiring up his sternum and stitching his chest up.

In the pictures on the museum wall, there was a picture of a German Shepard that had the head of a miniature poodle grafted on to the top. That mix lived for nine days, while Louis Washkansky lived for eighteen days, surpassing the expectations of Mr. Barnard. By the way, Washkansky was ill before he got the surgery, so he probably would not have lived very long.

That’s all for now, Folks!

We made up a new word. It is tele-pathetic. Eryn was trying to say telepathic when everything got mixed up and she ended up saying tele-pathetic. I am thinking that it means something along the lines of communicating pathetic-ness. Anyway, I should probably go on to what we did today.

We went up the first cablecar early in the morning, and then we went towards Maclaers Beacon, the tallest point on the whole of the mountain. At that point, we ate some snacks and looked out as the fog, or ‘table cloth’ started covering the mountain. Right before the tablecloth came up, though, I saw a klipspringer on the rocks below and ran to tell my father, who immediately went and took pictures. Then the tablecloth came. We went hunkered down to stay away from the wind and Eryn and I read from our books while my father rested. Then we walked back to the cablecar station and went down.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today we went to another prison. After about three months of being free, we got forced back into the confinement of being a prisoner. Luckily, our time as prisoners was very short, for we were on a tour. What is interesting is that the tours are given by political prisoners that used to live in the Robben Island National Maximum Security Prison. That is the prison on Robben Island that is in the middle of Table Bay.

In WWII, the island was used for large guns that could shoot 50 kilometers at ships, and in sinking all enemy ships, protected the city of Cape Town and the surrounding suburbs. After that, part of it was used as a Maximum Security Prison for anit-apartheid black and colored men. The women, white, and colored people were kept on the mainland, at least 8 kilometers away. Nelson Mandela was kept in the prison, and he has been a president of South Africa since his release.

We first arrived on the island by boat, and then were quickly herded to several buses, which we promptly had to get in to, and then went off for a tour around the island. When we finished with the ride, we went inside the prison and met our guide, who spoke loudly. We first went into a large-ish cell that housed sixty people. Then we moved on and saw the courtyard, where the likes of Nelson Mandela turned big rocks into little rocks, and finally we got to see the cell where Nelson Mandela  was kept.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today we went out to the Plumstead Seventh-day Adventist Church for the service. It was a ways away, but that was fine. The church was fairly large, and had a mixed congregation. We got to sit in the second-to-front row because there were no other seats available for four people. It practically became the front row when all the people in the row ahead of us left.

Across the street and meadows from our apartment building, there is a promenade, backed with a wall that is right in front of the ocean. The evenings are a very nice time to be there as the sunsets are magnificent. Today we went on two walks along the promenade, one to get gelato from a local gelateria, and the other one to admire the sunset and the ocean. It is a very pretty ocean, and at sunset it is very nice.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today we all got to hold live candles at a Christmas concert at the V&A Waterfront. We went there because my mother wanted to listen to some Christmas music near Christmas. We are also going to go to another concert at a church in downtown Cape Town. I think that, in the next concert, there won’t be candles for people to hold.

When we first got to the amphitheater, it was packed. We finally found seating, and sat and read for a while, waiting for the program to start. At the start, there was a pop guy that I knew nothing about, but that is not saying much, because I know nothing about pop music. During his music, they passed out candles, and when he was done, we lit them. The wax ran down the side, and if you weren’t careful, you’re fingers got burnt. After several more songs by a choir, we left.

Earlier in the day, we had gone to the Castle of Good Hope. It once stood on the edge of the ocean, but now, it is a long ways inland, due to people carting in rock and soil to make the city of Cape Town bigger. We had decided to do the 11 o’clock tour. When we got there, it was free, which was nice, and when we got inside, we waited for our guide. Our guide arrived, and split the group into two parts: Afrikaans and English. Sadly, the English side was a lot bigger, and I again regretted not having learned Afrikaans when I had the chance. Our guide took us through an arch on a pathway made from bricks made of wood and showed us a cross that South Africans made for lost comrades.

He then took us to a pool that was green and said how the first governor chose the pool to be only for his family to swim in. Now, however, I doubt many people would want to swim in it. We then went on to see the torture chambers, where our guide told us about how the chamber was used: for holding people in awkward positions and then flogging them with a cat-o-nine tails. We then went on to see the ramparts, where there were a lot of cannon, and finally looked at the prison. Some of the doors had names of fake hotels written on them by bored prisoners being sarcastic about their miserable living conditions.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today we went to the Two Oceans Aquarium in the V&A Waterfront Mall. I had been there before so I remembered some of it, but I didn’t remember all of it. That was proven true when there were things that surprised me about the aquarium, like the penguins and the jellyfish.

We started out this morning after a standard-fare breakfast: toast, cereal, and fruit. We drove in our little gray car to the mall, parked, and went on in to the aquarium. There were whale rib bones at the first exhibit, talking about whaling, and from then on, there were large tanks of fish. There were giant crabs, which freaked my mother out, small sharks, jellyfish, rockfish, etc. We saw a lot of fish swimming around. Eryn and I wondered what we would do if the entire tank on each and every tank collapsed simultaneously. We both agreed that we would go to the nearest stairs or go outside. That was proved to be a good idea later when we saw the predator exhibit, which had turtles, sharks, rays, and other colorful fish. Later, we watched the fish in the predator exhibit get fed, and African Penguins get fed. In all, it was a pretty successful day.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today was the first day that the Hobbit movie came out, and we watched it in cinemas in 3D. The sad thing about the movie is that the directors put the movie into three parts, and we only got to see the first one. The second one comes out next Christmas. It is a long time to wait. Still, however, to help use up a small fraction of that time, I will tell you what we did today.

Today we woke up, had breakfast, and jumped into our car to go to the mall. We were going to go there to find an internet café that had mochas and upload some pictures, but we couldn’t find any and gave up on that. Then we all went off by ourselves to find gifts for other people for Christmas. We did that for a long while and then rendezvoused at the cinemas at the pre-arranged time to watch the Hobbit in 3D. It was really good. When the movie finished, we got some ice cream and groceries and then went back to our apartment and had dinner.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Those were the things that we did today; we did the Rhodes Memorial, the Kirstenbosch Gardens, had ice cream, and ate dinner. I will list them out in an orderly fashion, so that it is easier for you to read what I am about to say.

Memorial: The Rhodes Memorial is a memorial for Cecil Rhodes, the founder of Rhodesia. It has a lot of lions in it, and you can climb all over them. The problem is that they are made of metal and hold the heat, so it is hard to climb on them comfortably.

Garden: The Kirstenbosch Gardens have a lot of biodiversity and different species. There are snakes (one of which we saw) and gardens and lawns. There are, luckily, trees in the spacious and large lawns, so one can sit in the shade and take a nap, or talk with friends.

Ice Cream: There is an gelato place right down the street that actually has a flavor of gelato that they have in Italy-besides chocolate, that is-straciatella. I had it and chocolate fudge and they were very good. There was a restaurant next door, and it had a bakery and lots of tables.

Dinner: For dinner, we went to the place right next to the gelato place and had pretty good stuff. They had salads, burgers, wraps, curries, pastas, and lots besides. I myself got a salad, and it was pretty good, for a salad, that is.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today, after waking up and walking around city center for a while, we, as a family in whole, went putt-putting. I have wanted all of us to go mini golfing for some time (2 days) and finally, I convinced my father and sister and mother to come. I said that it wasn’t going to be windy. I was wrong.

That may have helped my score in the end, but it ruined other people’s scores because they didn’t take into account the wind, and therefore missed the holes. We had a lot of fun, though, and this time, unlike the time when my sister, mother, and I went, we did the blue course, not the orange course. This time, it was harder, but that was okay, and expected. Still, however, I think that my personal favorite is the blue coarse, because I got more hole-in-one’s.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Really, who would name a post ‘scratch patch’ besides me?  I guess that shows that I am original and strange, Eryn would agree with that sentiment. However, though Eryn might think it an important topic for me to discuss in my posts, I will not talk about my strangeness and my originality.

Today we woke up, and went to the V&A Mall at around 2pm. We first passed through a place where my father and I went last time we were here and looked at the Scratch Patch where I had gotten some stones in a bag. We then went to a craft center, where we looked around, before heading outdoors by the wharfs and quays. When we emerged from the building, the first thing that we heard was the sound of the Red Bull Flugtug. The point of the Flugtug is fairly simple: build a human propelled aircraft and push it off a 6 meter drop into the ocean. We never got to watch any of it, but I still think that it would have been fun if we did. What we did get to see was a giant rubber duck that was attached to a yacht and floating, I think it would be cool to have one of those.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Well, if you have read some of the previous chapters in my family’s saga, you will know that Helderberg is a college that is above the town of Somerset West, looking out over False Bay. You would also know that we met up with Andre and Rebecca Joubert at the college and chatted with each of them for a while.

We went today to the college of Helderberg on the slopes of the Helderberg mountain today to go to church. We went to church and got really hot and sweaty, because it was crammed with 600 people and the air was still and muggy. Once finished, we got outside, my father  chatted with some old acquaintances before we left. We then went to a Thai restaurant and ate, before come back to our flat, where we vegged for a while, viz. we sat around, sleeping or reading.

We finished the day with a walk towards the library, followed by a small dinner. In all, it was a fairly good day.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Our Christmas Tree, Before and After

My aforementioned title is, for once, the truth. We did putter around, but probably not in the sense that you are thinking of. As I write this, I see that my hand and arm are covered in glitter, and I know how it got there. However, more of that later. Anyway, we were saying…oh, yeah, about puttering.

Now, to answer one of your probably questions, we actually did a lot of things. And though I said my title was true, it may be misleading. The reason for that is because we, as I said before, did many things, but my mother, sister, and myself all went across the street and putt-putt-ed. That was really fun. From a vantage point atop a small hill, it looks like it is an easy putt-putt course, as there aren’t any large things. However, once on the greens, it starts to be harder. There were lots of slopes, pipes, blocks, and drop-offs, all of them trying to make it more difficult for the player. However, we perservered, and finished.

We also bought a Christmas tree today. Not a live one, but a fake one. Eryn and I set it up after dinner. We also got a bunch of ornaments, and a lot of them exude glitter, so that answers why my arm is glittery.

That’s all for now, Folks!

A while back, I figured out why Antarctica is called what it is called. The reason: because it is the opposite of the Arctic. I actually figured that out a long, long time ago, but still, back to topic. So, in two sentences, I have described the title of my post, one actually, because the first one was just fluff. Anyway, the Antarctic is in the title of my post not because we went there, but because we heard about it. In the following paragraph I hope to tell you how we heard. All ye who have ears to hear, live long and remember.

After waking up this morning and going to the Home Office twice to get an extension for our South African visas, we went up to the top of Signal Hill. From there we could see for a long ways. Out in the ocean, there was Robben Island, which housed a prison. Directly opposite of that, there was Table Mountain. When we were looking out to sea, a man next to us on the lookout commented on how the red ship that was steadily moving away from the wharfs was the boat heading for Antarctica, and how it had his son on it. We chatted with him for a while, before leaving the hill and going back to our apartment.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Well, for the first time in all of our lives, we, as a family, are in Cape Town. Now, for those of you who don’t know, Cape Town is not actually a town, even by English standards. That aside, (the English standards, I mean) it is a city because it houses a lot of people. We were pretty lucky in choosing our apartment, as we are right on the beach next to a lighthouse. Last time I was here with my father, we stayed a little bit up the road.

We started out the day in Cape Point, which we had gone to yesterday, and where, last night, Eryn and I built a fort on the beach. We took a walk to a shipwreck and I gathered a few pieces of souvenir shipwreck. That was fun. When we got back, we got in the car, and, not seeing any baboons, we left. We then went to the de Gama Cross and the Dias Cross. If you have read your history book, you will know that Dias was the first person the round the southern tip of the continent of Africa. Vasco de Gama also rounded the tip. We then drove and drove and drove to the north, and finally arrived at the world famous V&A Waterfront Mall.

A surprising fact about the mall is that it is the most popular tourist attraction in all of Africa. What’s interesting is that people don’t know about the mall, but they do know about places such as, say, the pyramids. Anyway, we shopped for a bit and then went to our apartment, checked in, nested, then went back to the mall for dinner.

That’s all for now, Folks!

I am not sure if that is a real thing or not, but it is close to a real thing because it something like what they had at Boulders Beach in Simon’s Town. Boulders Beach is a beach (really?) on the edge of Simon’s Town, which is the home of South Africa’s Navy.  At Boulders Beach, here is a resident population of penguins that nest there and live there. There were a lot of penguins just standing on the beach when we were there, so it wasn’t that interesting. However, they are really interesting to watch when they are swimming, as they seem as though they have rocket propulsion.

On the other side of a chain of rocks is a shallow lagoon where little kids can play. What Eryn and I found to do there was to go through the little paths between the rocks and try to hide from our parents. It worked out great, and when I tried to find out a way to go through that Eryn hadn’t gone on, I ended up really wet. I had accidently misjudged the distance between the rock and the water, so I had to crawl on top of the water, supporting myself with my hands and toes. It was really fun. Sadly though, Eryn was following me, but wimped out and went an easier way.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Content: A long time ago in a galaxy not far away, my father taught at a college on the continent of Africa, in the country of South Africa, in the province of Western Cape, in the city of Somerset West. That narrows down the choice to two options, one, Stellenbosch, and two, Helderberg College. The answer, and some of you out there probably already know it, is Helderberg, and he taught here as a student missionary. His field of teaching was the one of computer science, and he came to where we are now to teach.

We, by the way, are in Somerset West, and are staying at a nice guest house on a hill in the middle of town, looking out over False Bay. The reason that False Bay is called False Bay is because it is too shallow for a big ship, and they would run aground in trying. One of the byproducts of the shallowness is that the water is warm, and also that there are a lot of little boats plying the water.

We went up to the Helderberg College today, and met with several people of my father’s old acquaintance. Two of those people were married, whose names were Mr. and Mrs. Joubert (prounounced yo-beart.) The last time that I was in South Africa, my father and I came and visited with Mr. Joubert, and looked at his massive collection of stuff, including a blue whale rib bone and a lot of pinned insects. He was a really fun guy to be around, still is, as a matter of fact. What was really fun was watching my mother freak out when he produced an old oil container that now houses a very large puff adder. I think that it was really cool. Mrs. Joubert was different, but she had a lot of stuff from when my father was there, including an old staff and student directory, that, as a key to what was in the book, had a person silhouetted and two words underneath, ‘Stupido Staffo.’ It was very interesting.

The Japanese ship, the Meisho Maru, is a ship that ran aground in 1982, and some of it is still there at Cape Agulhas, the Southernmost Point in Africa. Eryn fancies that the name of the ship means mushroom in Japanese, something that I wish to dispute with her. The main part that is still there is the bow of the ship, facing seawards, like it always hoped and still hopes that someday it will be able to return to the seas. If it ever goes out into deeper water, it will promptly sink, as however high the water is, it is also that high in the boat.

We went at low tide, and that was a good thing, because it meant that there are stones that are right beneath the surface of the water at that time that lead to the ship from land. Methinks that someone put them there, but you never know. Anywho, those rocks were very helpful to me because I wanted (and succeeded) to go and climb on the wreck for fun. My father got a lot of photos too. The main of the ship has a 2 inch coating of bird poo and rust, but that was okay, since you have to walk in the ocean to get to and from the wreck. The wreck even had a tower on the main deck that I climbed, sadly, though, it wasn’t that high up. If you look in the picture, you will see me climbing the poles on the top deck.

That’s all for now, Folks!

That is where we are now, and where we will be for two nights, including tonight. We arrived here at about 2:30 pm this afternoon, and, after checking in at reception, went to the southernmost point in Africa. It is mainly a cemented pile of stones with a plaque on it, saying that that was the southernmost point in Africa. Also, at the bottom, there was a blue sign that said, on one side, Indian Ocean, and on the other side of a line in the center, Pacific Ocean, marking the boundary between the two oceans. There is also a big lighthouse that you can climb and I think we are going to climb to the top of it tomorrow.

However, since you probably don’t know what happened before we arrived at our chalet, I will tell you what we did in the morning, skipping over most of the driving parts. We started out the day waking up in Knysna, but not to stay. We packed up and were ready to go by 9 o’clock and when we said goodbye to our hostess, we left. Our first stop was for fuel in the car, and then for a little bit of food. Those were probably the interesting things that happened during our drive.

That’s all for now, Folks!