Ok, now... to take a break from all this city living, and working, and driving (and not to mention from being completely sick and miserable until about 16 or 17 weeks into this pregnancy) Dan and I went to CapeTown, South Africa for a week at the beginning of August. We had a wonderful time exploring a bit of the town itself, and we rented a car so that we could also explore a few other areas of the Western Cape. And of course, Dan did some wine tasting in the Stellenbosch and Franshoek Valleys. Here's a quick rundown of our trip: We took the funicular (sp?) to the top of Table Mountain and walked all the way around the top of the plateau to see the view in all directions (Table Mountain was under the Atlantic Ocean originally and was thrust up with plate tectonics + the sea retreated and left a mountain behind), we drove down to the Cape of Good Hope (remember Magellan, anyone?) -- the southwestern corner of the continent of Africa, we saw the penguin colony that swam up from Antarctica and never went back, we went to Cecil Rhodes Farm - which is now a World Heritage Site Botanical Garden, wine tasting, and whale watching along the southern coast. We had great weather for wintertime! It wasn't quite as cold and rainy as we expected, and there were a few warm sunny days actually! I'll try uploading a few pics:

well, alrighty then. that didn't work. I'll have to try again another day... internet changes minute by minute!

what else can i tell you? we did a little shopping, a lot of eating! even went for high tea at the (british of course) Mt. Nelson Hotel where i think i had the most heavenly chocolate mousse and cheesecake. Then of course I felt sick all night afterwards. But it was worth it. and after being so sick in Kampala and not gaining much weight for my first and second trimesters (well, the first half of the second trimester) I figured, why not? I'll never get to do this again :)

CapeTown is unlike any other city I've been in in Africa... there's a lot of segregation, and we didn't meet many local people -- most people had moved there from somewhere else in South Africa, plus everyone out on the streets, at least in the places we went to, where South Africans of the afrikaaner or british descendent persuasion -- but when we stopped freaking out over how "this is so NOT africa" it was a nice little get away from reality, which is what a vacation should be, right?