Cape Town Capers

Here’s what I learned on my vacation in Cape Town:

• A vacation over-analyzed is no vacation at all. Are we having fun yet? How ‘bout now? Should we be having more fun? Except now change all those “we”s to “I”s. Because “We” is a classic preventative to over-analysis.
• Asking yourself “How pathetic am I being right now?” doesn’t help.
• Having a sense of humor about all of this over-analysis helps a lot.
• Any benefits for parallel-parking gained by renting a small car are negated by manual steering.
• Though I made it okay, it would probably be wise to at least have directions to the hotel the next time I’m in a new city in a foreign country on the opposite side of the road in a manual steering rental car.
• I should have spent more time on the beaches, driving through the countryside, hanging out in the small towns. Maybe next time I’ll stay in a small town on the beach, instead of in the city, especially if I’m by myself.
• Everything is closed on Sundays, even the coffee shops. This was a disappointment, because being from Seattle, this is what you do on Sundays. That IS rest.
• South Africans are quite friendly to strangers/customers.
• I like planetariums.
• I think South Africa mass-produces its tourist items on a national scale, because I’ve seen the same things in 3 different places across the country, and it’s next to impossible to find a T-shirt without game animals on it, even in Cape Town.
• Cape Town is quite a bit chillier than Guija. I wore my warmest outfit 5 days in a row.
• The next time I need to take a picture of myself, I should crash a tourist group (I encountered a Chinese-French business group, but didn’t have enough guts to pull this off)—after a longsuffering member has snapped every other individual with his own camera in front of whatever point of interest, I should just hand him my camera too, and smile shamelessly.I might make more of an effort next time to have a travel companion, but on the other hand, it really wasn’t so bad. The Cape was definitely worth it, and after being back a few days I liked my vacation more.