What a Weekend!

Earlier this week I mentioned to Emmi that the ballet was performing this weekend in Cape Town and that I'd like to go see them. She then brought up hiking Table Mountain since we have a long weekend without VCE. Our plan was to go to Cape Town Friday to see the ballet and then maybe stay the night in a backpackers and hike the next morning then come home. Then, Molly told us she and a few others were planning on going up Saturday to the Green Market. The three of us and Maura went to breakfast and talked about plans, thinking there were at least 5 spots left in one of the backpackers on Long Street. Then we realized it was game weekend for rugby: SA Springboks v. Australian Wallabies. We got home around noon with the intention of catching the next train, but then Emmi looked online and saw there were no spots left like we thought. She searched backpackers after backpackers and there were no rooms left, so I decided just to look for hotels, couldn't hurt. Turns out, there were a few rooms left at Circa on the Square, in the city center. Next thing I know I've booked an executive suite with king bed for only $85!! 

We caught the train at 3p and were off to a great weekend. Emmi saw her first zebras on the train, and we got pictures of some other beautiful scenery as well. We arrived in Cape Town around 4:15p and went straight to the hotel to check in. At first the woman at the front desk said she had no record of our reservation, but this was because it had literally been booked a few hours before. She sorted things out and we took the elevator up to our room. It was amazing! There was more room than we had expected and the kitchen was fully stocked. We were most excited about the TV and couch because we don't have them at Concordia. A few of our guy friends were already in the city because they had to get tickets for Rocking the Daisies next weekend, so we invited them over and made dinner. 

The next morning we decided to book the hotel for a second night, so we wouldn't have to rush out, then walked over to the Artscape Theater to check times for the ballet. This theater is so awesome! The architecture is really cool, so of course I took tons of pictures. The ticket sales office said to come back at 1:30 so we went out for groceries for later. At 1:30, we went back to the theater and it was packed, mostly with older women with white hair dressed like they were going to a fancy brunch. We were told tickets were sold out and to have a seat and wait to see if anyone comes to sell theirs. We got three tickets for R130 each. Since it was just a receipt that we were handed, we couldn't figure out the seats. We thought for sure they were in the back, but the usher took the receipt and told us they were the 2nd row from the stage! We were really excited, but then another woman sat next to Molly and said she had the ticket for seat 5, where Molly was. We asked the usher and she said it was a mix up with the box office since we had just gotten our tickets that day. So, our new seats were in the back, but we really didn't mind because we could see more that way. The ballet was really fun; there were a few numbers that were too slow but others that were amazing. 

After the ballet we decided to eat lunch at South Africa's only Burger King, which is right next to our hotel. The game was on at 5p so we watched it in our room. We were all pretty tired so we watched a movie and felt like falling asleep but finally decided to go look around town around 10. We found a restaurant called Mama Africa. There was an African music band playing with drums and xylophones and a cowbell and whistle. They were a lot of fun and we actually knew one of the songs they played because the isiXhosa teacher taught us during orientation. Long Street was pretty crazy when we left, so by the time we got home we knew it was time to crash. 

Burger King! 

Sunday morning the weather was amazing but we knew it would be too much of a hassle to try to get to Table Mountain and hike with all of our stuff. So we headed to the waterfront and had breakfast at TriBakery. Afterwards, we wanted to go on the ferris wheel, and Emmi decided she'd face her fear of heights. She started to relax after the first loop and did really well. The views from the wheel were amazing, with the mountains behind us and the ocean in front. When we got off the ferris wheel we still had 2 hours before we had to leave for the train so we went to the aquarium and got gelato. We decided we'd try the 4 o'clock train so we could relax and eat. We went to Hildebrand, the Italian resaurant we ate at last time. Finally around 3p we were ready to go to the train station. We thought the next train would be at 4:40, but when we arrived at 3:15 we saw the next one was actually 3:35. Perfect timing! The train ride home was nice and sunny and breezy and we all fell asleep.

We had an amazing weekend, especially considering we didn't plan any of it! :)