Six months in! 25% of my contract up. It has absolutely flown by.
I've finally been paid, and so have started this write up at 11:27 in line at the traffic department waiting to register my car. The past few months have absolutely flown by, and it's only by looking back at this blog do I realise how much I've done. I am much more settled now, and can almost call Cape Town 'home', but there's still new activities to partake in and new sights to see.
First up was another first Thursday. By now I think I've explained the concept well enough in previous posts, and for fear of boring you, avid reader, I will skip over it except to point out this painting in one of the galleries. Luckily I saw it before I had been paid thus lacking the funds to purchase it, although it did seem like something I would've commissioned.
The market of choice for this month was down at Hout bay. I have cycled down this way a couple of times, and once more the landscape looks beautiful, although the advantage of a photo is that it conceals the fact there was a howling wind that day.
The day trip peaked when we were offered a free boerewors burger to taste, with a cheeky bit of avocado thrown in there too, which is a vegetable I've not eaten much of before but turns out I absolutely love. Fortunately, as it is everywhere here. Not that that means I can identify a ripe one yet, but my culinary skills aren't lacking so much; I have contrasted the burger with ostrich fillet cooked in a red wine and mushroom sauce (recipe available upon request). It can't have been that bad since I cooked it at the start of the month and I'm still alive.
The following weekend is easy to sum up. 102 km of cycling ending in an absolutely brutal mountain climb. In the coming month of March I will be taking part in the world's largest cycle race, the Cape Town Cycle Tour (colloquially known by its former name of 'Cape Argus'), and so when I saw this race I thought it the perfect opportunity to see if I had it in my legs. I did, especially given that I missed my start time and ended up departing in a group that was only doing the short course, with the consequence being that I essentially had a 100 long and lonely time-trial.
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| For posterity's sake, this was the route. Note the profile in red... |
After leaving the other competitors at the 17 km point, I had nothing in front of me for the next 14. Then I saw my first rider in a while, who had a mechanical issue, and was being assisted by the drivers marking the back of the pack. 2 km later I passed a father and daughter (who can't have been older than 12) on mountain bikes, and from that point on the density increased more and more up until the first refreshment point, where suddenly I was passing packs. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of the race itself, and nor does it seem any good ones afterwards, so here's a mildly amusing sign that some readers will enjoy (and so I will remind them that people put pineapple on pizza and there's nothing you nor your kin can do to stop it)!
Since we were running an experiment for all the weekends this month, I don't think my colleagues found my conversations to be too interesting, since they were focused mostly on my exploits on the bike. The Sunday evening was spent at work, but before that a visit was paid to a professor's (and former director of iThemba) house for his wife's 70th, and the views were stunning. If it looks familiar, then well done again for paying attention! This photo actually encompasses on the shore line my first residence in South Africa.
The terrain didn't get any less interesting or less challenging in the following days. I decided I should finally conquer one of the mountains that I view everyday, and so I hiked up lion's head for the sunset. Well, hiking is used in a very flippant way, since I ran it; from my door to the top of the mountain took one hour...and thirteen seconds. Which of course now means I have to do it again, but right now the calendar is packed full of cycling and rowing races, and between that my training is very specific for those two.
I ventured out for the first real time to wander around Cape Town itself, leaving myself a good afternoon to get down and pick some food up from the Waterfront. There's a lot of very interesting architecture, excellent backdrops from the rugged topology, and of course a few things uniquely South African...the principle* one being the unfinished road. Words can't do it justice, and so I present:
There was an international art festival at the convention centre, but I avoided it since although most art does elicit emotion from me that emotion is anger at how someone can pay vast sums of money for work a three year old could produce. Instead I went down to a street art festival, and was impressed with the skill and work gone into huge murals on what I imagine are very tricky surfaces. It certainly brightened up part of the city (this was down in Salt River).
I also have been attempting to brighten up my balcony by gardening, as I am my mother's son, and have taken much inspiration over the years even if I am generally too lazy to act upon it. This is the current state, and it's very much 'watch this space' for now.
I've also started diving into the South African side of my family from my aunt and uncle's letters from my Grandmother. Nothing of too much note right now, but enough to encourage further endeavours into the national archives which are conveniently located right next to my apartment. Otherwise, the usual; searching for animals around the region, although I am yet to venture too far...photos here are from Rondevlei which is next to Zeekovlei (which confusingly is Afrikaans for hippo lake) where I row. Hippos once roamed freely on the Cape Flats, but then the Dutch found out they were tasty and quickly put a stop to that. However in 1985 they were reintroduced in order to combat invasive grass species, and are hiding somewhere in this nature reserve, unlike a tortoise I found! Keep your hedgehogs Britain. Otherwise, there was of course a wine tasting, in a sense, at a Stellenbosch Soirée, and I found a new pub to watch Man United lift the first trophy of the calendar year!
Highlight of work this month, apart from making sure I get properly acquainted with the experimental setup here, has been working with a local high school on a CERN competition called 'beamline for schools' representing UWC as part of the SA-CERN collaboration. My particle physics is definitely rusty but it's also definitely been engaging, and something completely different to anything I've done before.
I've written much of this text whilst waiting in line, and will add pictures and the addendum later. I still have two people to go, and it's 14:21...South African admin is my least favourite thing here...
OK! SO I had the wrong documents, but to conclude finally, of course, it is pancake day, and since it's been a year since I forgot how messy they are, I made a nice selection for myself and my current guests, who are Polish. Hopefully they return the favour and make me some pierogi...
Overall, 10/10, would definitely do another six months here. Lucky me!
Song of the month: Lone Digger, by Caravan Palace, since I just discovered 'electroswing' and can't stop listening.
*NOT principal! If there's one thesis correction that is guaranteed to stay with me forever...
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