The Eagle has landed...

We've arrived in Graham's Town after spending one great day in Cape Town. We got in to Cape Town on Friday and stayed for bargain basement prices at the Ritz. I know, I know, as one of my colleagues here said, "You stayed at the freakin' Ritz?!" Well, no it's not the "Freakin' Ritz" here, it's just the Ritz. And it's undergoing renovations, which means we had some spotty power problems which really didn't affect us. Other than that, the place is very good. It's located in Sea Point and has a great view of the water.

Dean and I spent our only day exploring Capetown to the best of our ability. We found that cabbing it to the city center and then walking around was a bit better than spending two hours on a tour bus, but we may have missed out on some good info. We had to skip the mandatory Robbin Island and Table Mountain trips for now, due to time, but we might make them up when we come back. We walked around the craft market/flea market in Greenmarket - which, while quaint, is pretty much like every European street market, full of people hocking handbags and mass produced "original" paintings (warning Tim Backus!!!), and then walked up to the Cathedral of St. George, which was making a loud statement by being noticeably closed on Saturday.

It was at this point that we began to realize that there were very few people around on an absolutely gorgeous Saturday, with temps in the 70's. We spent the balance of the afternoon walking around town and stopped into a couple of pubs.

At the Dubliner Irish Bar on Long Street, we found a terrific football (soccer) match beginning between Man United and the Kaizer Chiefs (Jo'berg's biggest team). The crowd (Dean, myself, and the one other guy in the place, named Nicholas) went wild as Kaizer scored a goal in the first half to go up on Man United for the first time ever. We left at half time, but Man United eventually equalized - I'm pretty sure they're evil like the Yankees.

We eventually made our way down towards the Waterfront, and got some advice on where to eat some good seafood from some locals. We ended up at Quay 4 (pronounced Key 4), which proclaimed itself a brasserie, but in reality is little more than a seafood sports bar, with a fabulous deck. The food was okay but nothing to write home about (and yet I am writing home about it anyway) - my Myanmar friends will note that they had some fantastic hot peppers, so I was quite happy.

The Waterfront, by the way, is phenomenal, it makes the wharf in San Francisco look like a small flea market. There is every store under the sun and uncountable pubs and restaurants. And it's truly interesting because giant fishing boats and cargo ships are sitting side by side with million dollar yachts.

We called it an early night at the oil burning hour of 8pm and cashed in our tired chips.
We had an 8:10 AM flight to Port Elizabeth the next morning.

-Gates