Cape Town Take 2

Ug WordPress is disappearing my posts! Anyhow – wow – we’ve been in Cape Town Now for three weeks already! We arrived after our long journey totally wiped out. It was literally 24 hours door-to-door from England to our new apartment in Cape Town.  There’s only a 2 hour time difference between Europe and South Africa, but that flight, oy – it took us a few days to recover (don’t remind me that our trip home will be twice as long!) It’s very sunny here (it’s summer here after all) and the sun sets almost four hours later. When we first arrived, we were like vampires being let out in the light. Let’s just say we’re going through a lot of sunscreen.

I had been to–and fallen in love with–Cape Town in 2013 and was already familiar with our neighborhood. It’s called Gardens, and it’s close to downtown but a bit quieter, yet still has a lot of fun restaurants and local flavor. Everything is walkable, and it seems to be popular with families and young professionals. We found a nice, bright apartment with a patio — a good find given that it’s high season.

What I had forgotten about was how seriously they take security here. At night, I accidentally pressed an emergency button in the bedroom. Hey, it was located right next to the light switch for the bedside lamp! Within 30 seconds, an armed security guard, dressed like a member of the SWAT team, appeared at our door to make sure everything was ok.  I won’t be making that mistake again! But not to worry – our area is safe and we’ve had zero concerns about safety. At night we take Ubers at night and they’re cheap and reliable.

Happily, Rafe and Theo love it here as much as I hoped they would. And we’ve found a great babysitter (I think Theo has his first crush) who’s now coming three half days a week giving us some much-needed to time to focus on work and projects.

I have so much to catch you up on, more to come, but first some photos from our first week or so:

Down at the V & A Waterfront, sort of like Fisherman’s Wharf but better with more things for kids. Everything has been exceedingly kid-friendly here (as it is in much of Europe.) Maybe it’s not that everywhere else is kid-friendly so much as the fact that SF (and the US?) is not!

Rooftop bar in our neighborhood (and no, that view does not get old!)

We found a little train that went around the perimeter of the waterfront. Pure bliss.

The aerial cable car up to Table Mountain. I get vertigo just looking at this photo! And indeed I had vertigo while taking this photo, too.

Our living/dining room area. I love the open layout with the kitchen and would love to have a similar layout in a house one day.

Walking down our block to dinner. A lot of good “foodie” restaurants around here. And as I mentioned above, many places are so kid friendly. As in, they have playgrounds attached! One even had Theo go bake cookies in the kitchen while we ate our dinner. 

This is Richard, an incredible community activist/pastor/rock n’ roll musician who gave me a personal tour of District 6, an inner-city neighborhood (once known as the soul of the city) that was torn apart by the apartheid regime in the sixties and seventies. He grew up in the area and had many crazy stories to share. He also showed me the urban gardens he started that hire homeless people and help them rebuild their lives. Very interesting to see another side of the city. 

Our neighborhood playground. Everything is so colorful here!