Taal Monument and Zurguliet Vinyard

Yesterday was a much lighter day.  We began with breakfast and a reflection of yesterday and comment on things that we have really like so far, which helped sum up what we saw and prepare us for when we dive even deeper in a few weeks.  I really like things like that.  But then we headed out to a city called Paarl to see Taal Monument representing the development of the African language Afrikaans.  Its design was decided from a competition held in which architects submitted their designs reflecting the language by identifying in roots, connecting it to the land, the culture and the people.  The winning design was built.  This monument looks like fingers where each ‘finger’ represents a different influence on the language.  Afrikaans is one of Africa’s official ELLEVEN languages!! While Afrikaans is most popular, most people are only fluent in 2 of the languages.  The monument is located in the most beautiful area high up, surrounded by mountains on all sides.  The view is absolutely breath taking.  We were climbing all over the structure, as high as we could!  Andrew, you would be very proud of all the climbing and ‘off trailing’ I have been doing so far!  J   .  We spent A LOT of time taking pictures here; we couldn’t get enough of it.  On the topic of pictures, I am ABSOLUTLY LOVING my camera!  It is so fun to play with and I’m getting pretty good utilizing it! I’ll be a pro by the end of the trip!  (I already CANT WAIT for meet season lol!!!).  We got so caught up in it all, the view, climbing, taking pictures and being together that we ended up being there way longer than planned!! But that was ok, we completely took in the experience!  Afterwards we went to a French town and has some lunch mountain side.  It was gorgeous!  The sun was out and you can always see the moon and there were mountains surrounding us on all side.  I could never get sick of it, almost too beautiful to describe.  One day I WILL live in the mountains!  On the way back to the car we stopped at a stand where some men were selling hand crafted goods.  There were wooden and stone carving that were really cool.  We all did some pretty good barging, and got some authentic stuff!  That took a while, its hard to barging sometime, kind of intimidating.  We then headed to a wine tasting at Zurgliet Vineyard.  All the wines we tasted were harvested and fermented right on the vineyard we were at.  Pretty cool.  We again took awesome pictures here, the view is just too great everywhere we go, we spend half out time taking picts! I can’t wait to show them to you! Sorry for all the suspense lol.  In fact we spend so much time taking pictures everywhere that we didn’t even make it to the second winery that we were supposed to go to.  We headed to dinner and everyone fell asleep in the car.  We literally fall asleep every time we sit down.  We then went to dinner, which, is one of the biggest cultural differences between the US and South Africa.  Meal time here is a time to socialize and relax.  It is when you talk and enjoy each others company…for like 3 hours.  If you want a fast meal, just stick to fast food.  Upon arriving at a restaurant and ordering it is almost an hour before you get your food.  Then about an hour to eat and then 30 or so more minutes for dessert and the bill.  Its been hard to us to adjust to this, waiting for our food and stuff, but I think its good.  It gives us a first-hand experience of South African culture and we really have been able to get to know each other a lot better.  We have had some pretty good conversations.  America, take note – enjoy one another’s company more, talk to people, learn aout them, its fun J.  Another culture think im taking in is – the food.  I figure, im here, lets do it.  Im really trying to take advantage of the ‘new experiences’.  Last night I had monkey gland with chicken schnitzel.  It looks like salsa and it kind of like a sweeter sauce.  If you like sweet and sour chicken or orange chicken, youd like this.  So because im not really a fanof sweet meat it didn’t quite tickle my fancy, but it wasnt bad.  (if youd like to know that that is, google it yourself, im not 100 percept sure, ill leave it that way).  But on the topic of food….today is THE BIG FISH DAY!! Woo, wish me luck!  We will be walking around the peninsula all day and going out to a nice lunch/dinner so again the picture im sure will be outstanding!  Ok, talk to yall later! Ill let ya know how it goes!