So I am officially in love with Stellenbosch, South Africa. We went on a wine tasting today and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. I love the city area of Cape Town, but I think I am a country girl at heart and the entire area of Stellenbosch is much more spread out. Lots of valleys filled with vineyards surrounded by mountains. We took the train in super early this morning and the train kind of felt like it was a stick shift or something, it was that jerky. And it made crazy screeching noises. Once the train route gets into the country, there are zebras and ostrich just grazing with the rest of the cattle. But we got there in one piece and walked to the Stumble Inn (sounds very promising eh?), which was where our tour started. We ended up driving to four different vineyards, getting a cellar tour, four wine tastings, a cheese tasting, and lunch. I tried an African dish for lunch and it was a stew made out of springbok meat (a deer-ish animal that is all over South Africa and kind of a trademark here). It was pretty good, but I am definitely not used to eating red meat, but I figured I should try it while I'm here. We also stopped for ice cream after lunch and I had the best mint chocolate chip ice cream I have ever had. And I even learned a little about wine! My knowledge probably jumped from 2 to 200 (the two initial points coming from knowing the color of the label on the bottle that Becky told me I shouldn't buy anymore). And I actually liked some of the wines! We tasted at least 25 different ones throughout the course of the day, and my favorite one was a red wine that tasted like Christmas. It was a mouraverdre, or something like that, if anyone knows/cares what that is :) I have a crazy picture of us all sitting around a table with our 7 wine glasses a piece. And really good wine here isn't even that expensive. Only about 80-90 rand for the best bottles the vineyards sell, which is about 13 U.S. dollars. I had no idea that wine could taste like different fruits and spices and such. And that you could use words like "structured," "feminine," and "boyfriends old socks" (as our tour guide put it...he was pretty dorky...he easily could have been Eugene the internet guy's brother. but he did cut open a bottle of champpagne with a sword, so that was pretty sweet) to describe wine. I am by no means knowledgeble on the subject, but I guess I've got a bit of a start now.