The End Is Near

As the end of my stay in Cape Town comes to an end, I realize that there are still so many things that I have to knock off my bucket list. Fortunately, my lovely friends and I were able to cross off two of those remaining bucket list items including go to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and walk on the newly constructed treetop canopy, and also go to high tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel in downtown Cape Town.

Sadly we are slowly entering the winter season in Cape Town, so the weather leaves much to be desired. Due to this, we quickly realized that we wouldn’t get many more days to go to Kirstenbosch in somewhat sunny weather, so even though rain was on the radar, we all cabbed it over to the park, in hopes of exploring the canopy before the rain hit. Unfortunately just as we arrived it started to rain, but we didn’t let it spoil our fun. My best friend Jessica who goes to the University of Connecticut and who I have written about before, previously introduced me to one of her friends from the program named Andrew. Andrew had stayed in South Africa, just traveling around, even though the UCONN program had ended a month ago. I found out that Andrew was coming back to Cape Town, and since he is an awesome human being, I invited him to accompany us to the gardens. Basically once we found the canopy we just recruited Andrew to be our photographer and we ended up having a grand photoshoot.

Almost 7foot tall Andrew taking one for the team and kneeling in front.

LeeLee!

The most amazing girls you will ever meet, plus Delise

The always beautiful Atara

After Kirstenbosch was done with, I began to organize going to High Tea at the Mount Vincent hotel in Cape Town. Somehow I kept hearing from numerous locals and foreigners that it really was something that everyone needed to do at least once when coming to Cape Town. As the name suggests, high tea is such an exclusive activity that you have to book it a week in advance. Finally I got a reservation for 4 of us and we were excited to finally see what all the hype was about. On Thursday Elena, Leah and I stumbled into the hotel after taking the free school Jammie shuttle into town, and although the front of the hotel has huge White House-looking pillars in front of it, the rest of the hotel seemed to look run down. I recently saw the movie “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (it was fabulous by the way, everyone who likes weird movies should see it) and in it, the narrator talks about this hotel that used to be really grand,, but over the years has lost its’ elegance and popularity.I think that this may be the case with the Mount Nelson hotel  because although it is still very pretty, I just don’t think it has the same following as it used to.

The new motto

On the Jammie for the last time!

When in doubt, pinkies out!

Selfies in the Ladies Coat Room!

Shameless tourist photo!

Besides that though,the tea and crumpets (just kidding, it wasn’t just crumpets but also millions of finger foods and desserts YUM!) were delicious and because you pay one flat rate to have tea there, you can eat as many platefuls as you like, this was something that we definitely took advantage of. As my friend Atara always says, “I paid for it, so I’m gonna do it!” This expression has basically become the best justification for doing everything in Cape Town. We were fortunate to have two more of our friends join us, and all together we had a wonderful time. However, we may just have happened to be the super LOUD Americans that were annoying everyone else, but in the end I blame this on the tea, and whatever love potion Cape Town has drugged me with, that literally makes me re-fall in love with this place and these people every single day that I am here. I never want to leave this incredible place.

CAN’T LEAVE, WON’T LEAVE!