I finally bought a camera so I had to go somewhere scenic last weekend! I took the train into Simonstown, which is a town on the peninsula with beautiful views. We had lunch right on the ocean. There are a lot of little book stores and art galleries that we browsed around and we tried to go down to the penguin beach, but didn't realize how far of a walk it was from the train station. We never quite made it, but the long hot walk made us desperate for ice cream (actually, we probably would have been craving it regardless). We could not find an ice cream place anywhere though, and eventually we got desperate and found some at a gas station in one of those cooler things. I still think Kalk Bay is the best cute oceanside town with lots of little stores, but Simonstown was still worth exploring.

I also had to take the camera up Table Mountain! You can take a cable car up to the top, which I've heard is really nice, but it only takes about 4 minutes for the cable car to get to the top, so we decided it would be more enjoyable to take the long way and climb. We started from the base of the cable car and pretty much followed the trail that goes right underneath the cable car pathway, which turns out to be incredibly steep. It took us 4 and a half hours to get to the top and a lot of it involved rock climbing much more than hiking, but there were a lot of great views. At the top, you can see all the way down the peninsula to Cape Point on one side and the city on the other. It was actually very helpful for orienting myself to be able to see all sides of the mountain because you always have to go around it and sometimes you forget what side you are on. Because of the cable car, though, there are a ton of tourists at the top and even a restaurant, souvenir shop, and bathrooms, so the final destination kind of clashes with the rough route we took up, and we didn't quite fit in because we were so sweaty and dirty, but oh well. Needless to say, we took a different much faster path back down.

We have a long weekend coming up with this Friday and the following Tuesday off, but I think most people (or at least the study abroad students) are taking Monday off as well. I don't have any definite plans yet, but we're thinking of going back to Stellenbosch for a few days.