I wasn’t feeling well today. I officially have a cold. So instead of going to the soccer field with the team, I stay in bed and Blom took me to get medicine at the local pharmacy. I don’t even have breakfast today because my throat was sore. However these are the pictures from today’s volunteer outing.
Blom picks me up, I say bye to the team and go to the pharmacy, I get Advil CS, some heavy meds for night time and some cough suppressant stuff and a few other things before going back.
We go to the market to get juice and on the way out there is a lady standing near the exit door with a little portable stove top and two frying pans. Blom tells me she is making is a South African specialty to enjoy when it is winter time. I buy one for about 4 rand or so and she packs it up for me to eat. It is like a pancake with cinnamon on it.
The team arrive later in the afternoon with Fish and Chips. It was good but too much and the fries are soggy. I eat as much as a I could and when I package the rest to throw away I see that the others leftovers are placed on the counter so I leave mine beside it. Later Lisa tells me that she was going to throw it away but the domestic worker (what Americans call Housekeeper or Maid) asked her not to put them in the trash so she can take it all home and eat it with her children. We felt bad because had we known, we could have eaten a little cleaner.
After eating the late lunch we get a short break before going to Seidelberg Winery. We hop in the van and drive for about 30 minutes or so through the Country and end up in a beautiful Winery up on the hill. There is a large landscaped area with tables and music playing. Beautiful! The weather is gorgeous and the scenery is just amazing with all the trees and grass as far as you can see. We grab a big table for our large party and few individuals go off to take pictures.
We start with a few tastes and order a cheese platter. I was never a cheese person before South Africa. Ever since the trip I’ve become a lover of cheese and crave it often. It isn’t the same though.
Everything was great. Eventually the weather gets darker and the wind picks up so we move over to the side where there is a heat lamp and closer to another wall to block some wind. There are dogs running around the grass area and the dogs are HUGE. One is a golden retriever or something and the other one looks like a black long furry something. It was a huge dog. The dogs on all 4 were taller than my hips (maybe not but that is how big I remember them to be).
A couple walks over to our table. The women dressed in a 3 piece gray suit with a obviously fake facial hair and beard and the man wearing a lacy wedding dress type outfit and tells us they are at the winery for their bachelor/bachelorette party. They are trying to sell condoms to raise money: 1 condom = 5 rands, not even one U.S. dollar. A few people from our table give money to help fund their party or whatever they were raising money for.
We make our wine purchases and head off to dinner.
I’m not sure what time it is but it seems around 8pm? We go to an Italian restaurant in North Paarl called Under Oaks. This is probably the most memorable place for me… not sure why. It wasn’t the food, it was the environment, the coziness and this place was just romantic.
Owned by an man named Carlos from Argentina. We again turn into what seems like would be an empty road to the middle of no where but we end up in a parking lot. We get out and head towards a tiny narrow alley to what looks like a huge barn.We walk in and there is music playing and tables all around. The restaurant only has a handful of tables but you wonder how people know to come to a place like this. Seriously seems like it was in the middle of no where. We sit down, order our dinner pizza and salads – everyone had so much cheese and crackers at wine tasting. We order a bottle of wine called ‘Bla Bla Bla’.
The wine wasn’t so great but still nice to have with dinner. I asked for hot sauce and they brought out some real tiny peppers sliced up in some clear liquid maybe vinegar.There were many sorts of peppers. It was SPICY!!!! I was trying really hard to downplay how spicy it was for me but found it challenging.
After dinner, everyone exhausted quietly rode home. When we got back, we debriefed and Jen lead the meeting and split up the boys and girls to do our separate discussions. Tonights meeting was interesting. I sort of sat back and observed during tonight’s meeting. I was excited to get into my warm room and go to bed.
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