Monday, June 2, 2014

SA day 4: goats, goat cheese, and steak

This morning we slept in until 10AM – glorious vacation!  We even skipped breakfast o that we could be extra hungry for lunch.  We headed out on our drive to Fair View, a vineyard with cheese tasting and a restaurant, basically heaven.  On the way we discovered that our radio was not working but that we had an aux in cable!  Hooray for all of the music we have on our phones!  Oh wait... everything is in the cloud... And we have no data.  So, we were stuck listening to my marathon playlist.  We now know all the words (sounds?) to Gangham Style and also most Pitbull songs.  #forthewin. Aaaaaanyway, Fair View is famous for their goats (and goat cheese! Yum!), and when you drive up to park your car, you are next to the goat enclosure.  And like every good goat enclosure there is a goat tower with a goat ladder.  Obviously. 


(If I were a goat, I would live in this tower, or maybe France - it's a toss up)


I'm actually seriously impressed at their ability to climb their little goat stairs.  But I guess if there are two hay filled goat apartments at stake, I would brave the ladder even if my feet were cloven. And sometimes when life gives you the opportunity, you need to take a selfie with goats in a tower.


Our party did a tasting of 6 wines and 6 cheeses for a grand total of $2.50/person.  Did I mention we are never coming home?  


Our tasting coordinator even let us taste a 2001 Shiraz that is quite famous throughout the country and not on the menu.  It turns out there was only ONE BOTTLE left, and we snapped it right up.  Their next vintage is the 2012, so we feel pretty much like we won the wine lotto.  It’ll be quite enjoyable post baby.  I also think Eric is particularly enjoying this trip, as he ends up handling my share of the tasting due to the fact that I am takin’ care of our little boy. Good thing vineyards are pretty!

After tasting some wine, we headed over to the other side of the room to taste their CHEESE. We even got to taste this…


I declined. I'm not sure who Donald is, but his poor goats...

They did have a France-worthy bread selection...


Cheese, bread, and wine, my three favorite food groups!

After a delightful lunch (pasta in a cream sauce with zucchini and chunks of salami – Mmmmm!), we took a nice drive to the university town of Stellenbosch.  Such a nice little town and great for walking.  We had a bit of gelato, and I realized that I ALWAYS order coffee flavored gelato, and when I don’t I am always disappointed.  And inevitably Eric and I will order the same thing unless we confer beforehand.  Awwwwww! (Ok, you can go vomit now). 

(We asked the lady behind the counter how to say the name of the flavor in the front left of this picture.  She shrugged and said, "I don't know, do I look Italian to you?"  Um, well, not exactly...)

My gelato: Espresso and Biscotti flavored!



While we were walking around we saw this sign...


Apparently Stellenbosch is for steak lovers, alert Ron Burgundy. Also I feel awkward about eating the steak from the national animal.  Poor springboks.

Some beautiful flowers for sale. 



Selling for $0.75/each.  I LOVE South Africa.

And as we drove home, I snapped this shot of our neighborhood – check out those mountains!



After putting our friend’s toddler down for the night, the adults headed out to Bosa restaurant in Sommerset West (the town where we are staying), and ordered dinner.  It was difficult for me to conceive of a Bosa that does not serve exclusively doughnuts, but I did order a delicious pizza that had avocado on top.  And let me just say that the avocados I buy at Fry’s are superior to any I’ve seen here.  Arizona and Mexican food for the win (at least today). Eric also got a delicious treat in the form of a very cheap glass of what is normally outrageously expensive Scotch.  The verdict is that although he loved it, we are still too cheap to buy a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. 

Tune in tomorrow to hear about laundry (Yay! I won’t really tell you about the laundry I did, but it did eat up a significant chunk of my morning.  Womp womp.), decorating the house (yay for real), the windiest tea I’ve ever had, and how we barbequed.  Indoors.

Goodnight for now!

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