What a weekend

At the beginning, the idea with the blog seemed so easy to me. Just sit down every evening and think about what happened during the day. But as it turns out, when you come home in the evening, you don't feel like sitting down at the computer and writing. Finally, yesterday I took the time to make a list of what I have done here every day so far. And there are really only 2 days where I wrote "nothing special". That's really crazy. 😃

Saturday was also a great example of a day when everything just fit. Suddenly it was really warm here again. My phone said it was going to be 31°C, so in the morning I decided that I absolutely wanted to go to the beach and swim in the ocean. At least once, even if the water is still so cold. But first we went on a little bike ride to a winery. A friend had predicted the night before that you could also ride a bike there, and I thought, well that sounds good. As it turned out in the morning, however, the winery is at an altitude of 300m. That means it was 45 minutes uphill, not steep, but still quite a climb, and I had a bike without gears 😃 That was fun. The way was really beautiful...an old closed road, where only we were on the road. And there was also lots of shade. But in between, I really thought I was going to faint in some places. What really helped was the certainty that there would be wine at the top! And that the descent would be awesome. So I just went through with it and finally we all arrived at this posh luxury winery completely sweating. The people looked a little strange...But this morning workout was actually really good. After all, this weekend I didn't go hiking. 

The winery and the wine tasting were really rewarding! There are loads of wineries in the area. And all of them offer very cheap wine tastings. For €5 you get to taste 6 wines. Of course always just a glass full. But the whole atmosphere of sitting back and relaxing, with a gentle warm breeze blowing, sipping your glass, a pianist playing chilled jazz melodies, and just enjoying life. You might think that on Saturday morning at 11am you would sit alone at the wine tasting, but it's different here. For white South Africans, it's a normal family event on the weekend. Even the little children can try a sip or two. And then there is a lot of talking. The service is of course always black. But that's the case everywhere here actually. You have to deal with that pretty early on. But you can totally forget about it, especially when you walk through Stellenbosch, where there are so many white and international students. But maybe I'll write more about that at another place. The important thing is that it's not directly related to skin color, but to the education someone has. And unfortunately, black people often don't have such good opportunities in that area yet. But a lot of work is being done in many areas to change that.

After this refreshing experience with a beautiful view, it was time to go downhill again. Oh, that was awesome!! Total adrenaline rush! And the best part was that no car could come towards us...We had the whole road to ourselves. I might go up and down several times more. But maybe next time with a bike with gears.

Back in Stellenbosch, I actually found a South African who also needed a break from studying and had a car. So we quickly threw our stuff into the car and off we went to the beach. That's the nearest beach here 😉 And it was so amazing! We found a spot where there were fewer people and got into the cool water. And it wasn't even that cold! Especially if you were in the water for a longer time. I then had my first experiences with really big waves and how you can surf them with just your body, starting to swim very fast at a certain moment. It didn't work most of the time, but it was still great. I was already pretty exhausted pretty quickly, but that didn't matter. It was just so much fun. We also watched the sunset from the beach and on the way back...amazing!

Wow, what a great day it was. And in the evening, I was even invited to dinner by friends! Everything just fit perfectly.

On Sunday, I had a lot of time for myself. Probably because it's currently vacation time here. And all South Africans have gone home to their parents and international students are on the Garden Route or somewhere else on vacation. Academia, the huge student housing complex where I live, is completely empty. So I took the opportunity and went to two church services yesterday. In the morning, 9.30am!!, I was at the Baptist Church. I had already met some of them a few weeks ago on a hike. I had already tried to contact the church from Germany, and when I arrived here, they responded. That's how it is with African time. Yesterday morning was no exception. I thought I would be one of the last ones stumbling into the church at 9.25am. But as it turns out, I was one of the first in the pews. 😃 I can definitely live with this understanding of time in the morning. The church service was similar to Germany. A band played, of course only songs in English. Most of them were modern for our standards, but there was also an old one "Then my heart rejoices". Finding the balance between new and old is a topic for us too. There was also a children's part and the announcements, in which they presented something similar to an Easter garden, if I understood correctly. The sermon was also good and afterwards there was coffee and tea. So all in all a really well-rounded thing. Afterwards, I talked to some people...and somehow really everyone asked me, after I introduced myself, where I came from, I have such a funny accent. Oh dear, apparently I can't hide that I'm German. But the people here also have many different funny accents. I fit in well there. It was also funny that they immediately introduced me to another German guy who was visiting Stellenbosch. So that I can finally speak German again. 😃 I also got in touch with someone from the band and he immediately said I should come to the next rehearsal, something will always come up that I can do. AAAh, now I could have used my saxophone here....

In the afternoon, I tried to take a nice walk here in Stellenbosch. But it's not really possible to find small, beautiful paths near the city. You can only walk along the main roads and all the areas where there are trees or just look nice are always secured with high barbed wire fences. There is no way in. While I was wandering around, I had a very funny, short conversation with a man who had called me from a distance and ran towards me from his house full of children. It was only when I stood in front of him and said that I'm from Germany that he realized he had mistaken me for someone else. 😃 But he was very friendly and so we wished each other a nice Sunday. After some time, I ended up in the Botanical Garden, the city park. The only place with well-maintained and green nature, where there is more than just 2 trees next to each other. I think I was there for 3 hours and wrote the list I mentioned earlier and enjoyed the peace and quiet.

And in the evening, at 6.30pm, I went to another church service. This time to the Hillsong Church. A very modern youth church, mainly attended by students. The music here is of course from Hillsong and the four singers on stage jump around a lot. A completely different experience compared to the morning service. The sermon was broadcast from somewhere. Overall, it was good too. Above all, you were addressed right at the beginning and introduced to several other people who study similar things. That was really well organized. It was also funny that I met two people there whom I had already seen in a bar before. Well, now I have to see how it goes with regular church visits here. But yesterday was really nice. A completely relaxed great day, a perfect ending to a great weekend.