Sundays in Stellenbosch

First off, let me start by saying what an amazing weekend it has been! A lot of my friends decided to go shark cage diving Saturday, but I didn't want to pay $140 to get seasick so I thought I was going to be stuck home alone. Instead, our other friends invited me to go to Grape Day Out with them. GDO is this huge end-of-winter wine tasting and fashion event held at the Stellenbosch Woodmill. We basically sampled wines and foods and interacted with locals. I hate wine (I always expect it to taste like grape juice), but I found one I like (because it actually tastes like grape juice). We stayed for a few hours then headed home. Instead of going straight to Concordia we decided it was time for dessert, so we headed to 5 Ryneveld- the same place we had been the night before for Emmi's birthday. Luckily our waitress from the night before didn't see us indulging in our guilty pleasure-- chocolate fondant! After dessert I took a nap and woke up when Emmi got home. We showed each other pictures from our day and went out for a late dinner at Juliann's, a really cool restaurant where you can play games at your table.

Now, to the title topic of the day. Morgantown is a very relaxed and easy place to spend a Sunday, but there's never anything special about it. I've always though Bridgeport was a beautiful place for an afternoon stroll. And I never thought anything could compare to a long drive by the river after church service in Philippi. Stellenbosch has topped it all. This morning, my friend Tobias and I met at Stellenbosch Baptist for church. It was a little earlier than I am used to, it started at 9:30am, but everyone was very welcoming. Even though it's a baptist church, there were a lot of differences.  It was set up more like a contemporary church with the 3 sections and 2 aisles. There were people my age who sang and played all the instruments, along with the Pastor who played  the piano. He's very young, maybe mid-30s. All the songs were projected on a screen, no hymnals. And they were contemporary songs like you would hear on the radio, not really hymns. It was a communion Sunday so I got to experience that for the first time in a Baptist church! They passed out wine or juice in little glasses and small pieces of bread, we didn't go up to the alter for it. Then there were holes in the backs of the pews in front of us to place the empty glass. The pastor preached on praying and all the bible verses were on the screen so we didn't flip through them nearly as much as at home. And the biggest difference was that they use the New International Version. It says the same  things but it's translated to better understand it- no thee's or thou's or old language. In the end we finally sang a song I knew, What a friend we have in Jesus, but they adapted it and it didn't sound the same at all. After service we had tea in the lobby and met the pastor's wife.

After church I came home to grab some lunch then Emmi and I decided to explore the town a little and take pictures. We walked through the botanical garden and down the local streets, then into an art shop. We met the carver who made tons of animals out of wood. All of his work is beautiful! Next we decided to go down some streets we hadn't been before, and found a gorgeous building that I later found out is the seminary school. The neighboring streets have a lot of pretty guest houses and I even saw an architect's office but can't remember the name. The streets here are so beautiful. It feels like a small European town but then there's palm trees lining the streets; you can just feel the history and cultural influences. My favorite street, Van Riebeeck, has a bubbling stone-lined stream and foliage and flowers everywhere. It's shaded and breezy, which makes it the perfect area for a walk. There's something about Stellenbosch on Sunday that puts your mind at ease and helps you prepare for the week ahead. Sundays here feel like home.