I have to mention this.
After Stellenbosch, we carried on through to Worcester, where some friends of ours have a wine farm, where we stayed for dinner.
I picked my own supper! When we got there, Edmund was just popping down to the river to check the water level, so he gave us a bowl each and led us down to the fields where we grabbed some tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, etc etc, as well as all the grapes we could eat. And with the supper we had wine made by him, with cheese and olives, grown on his own farm! It was awesome. And this is not some crappy plonk wine, this is awesome export quality stuff. Even better than Tassies.
And here's the thing. After supper, he showed us his brandy still. He makes brandy, see. And he showed us where he distills the wine, and where it goes, and how it works. Then he took us through to the back room, where the brandy is casked. These are huge wooden casks, like you see in movies and suchlike - they can hold 600 litres each. And there were 140 of them in the room! Some of them were almost ten years old, I believe. And the brandy was amazing, too, not your Klipdrift that you drink with your Kola. The final thing was that when the brandy is made, it comes out at 70% alcohol. They have to water it down about half-half before they can sell it. So, I was standing in a room with 140 barrels of 600 litres of 70% brandy. That comes to 168000 litres of sellable brandy, or 224000 bottles of brandy, that I was looking at.
On Monday, I went down to Stellenbosch. I popped in at Adept and saw Gideon and Jac. They didn't have the contract ready yet, so no signage has been done, but I did get to speak to them about This and That. My thesis is due in on the 15th of February, but they want me there on the 1st of February. Obviously I am trying my damnedest to get it done as soon as possible, but I'm a bit worried that I won't have it done by the time they want me there. I'm going to keep them updated on my progress, however, and we'll see how things go. I really don't want to rush the last part of the thesis, though. That would suck.
Better news, however: I have found a place to live in Stellenbosch. We had a look at a few flats and suchlike, and I realised that I am most definitely Not A Flat Person. Don't like 'em. Horrible bare clinical prison-type items. Sies. Anyway, I've found a room in a house. It's just under 2km from where Adept are now (although they're moving, although they're not sure where to), so easily walkable, and the walk is straight through the pretty part of campus, anyway. I'm living with a lady and her son and his four friends, who are in second year at Stellenbosch University. So, at least I'm living with people. They're male people, admittedly, but better than nothing. It's a very nice house - large room, got a swimming pool and a braai and a TV with DSTV and all that. It's also much cheaper than the flats were, and includes lights and water in the rent, bo. The only drawback (apart from the unknown factor of the digsmates) is that there is no laundry in the house, so I'll have to find a laundromat or something.
My New Years was... different. I was going to spend it with Claire and Adeline, but the former was sick and the latter was working, and it didn't pan out, so Kalen and I went with his girlfriend Meg to one of her workmates houses for cocktails, and then to Stones for a few drinks, and then to a party in Camps Bay.
Now, this Camps Bay party was on 53 Victoria Drive, but none of us had ever been there. We were going to meet Adele, another friend of Meg's. We finally found the road, and found number 53, and found parking closish, and went and rang the bell on the door. The door opened, we went in, got introduced to everybody, shown where the drinks were, and so on. It was a great party. After about a while, however, we realised that we didn't know a single soul there, and that Adele wasn't there either. After some enquiry, we discovered that we were at 53 Bantry Bay, and that our party was some little way down the road. So eventually, we left, and went to the real party, where Kalen got drunk and tried to tell his toast joke.
I still think the first party was better.
I returned from Capetown yesterday, flying with Kulula once more. I tell you, they have different jokes every single time.
Capetown was okay. It wasn't bad. It wasn't fantastic, but I enjoyed myself there. It was nice to see my family again, as well as various Capetown friends. And I even managed to get a good chunk of writeup done. Gaby kept me entertained with SMSes, and Knoppix was my saviour as far as software was concerned. Fatboy Slim was essential.
I climbed Lion's Head last week, and Table Mountain this week, with Viktoria, and I can still feel the throbbing heat of sunburn on the back of my neck. But I got all the way to the top, right across, and all the way down. That makes me officially Hardcore (tm). Viktoria didn't even break a sweat or lose her breath, damn her.
Update: There are now photos.
Christmas was okay. I got two coffee filters.
And now it's just thesis thesis thesis.