September 25, 2007

This morning we began the day with a drive to Hermanus to go whale watching. As soon as we pulled into the town we saw a few whales out a bit floating that the surface and occasionally flipping their tail out of the water. We watched for a half hour and then decided to walk around the trail to look for more whales along the coastline. We took a path down to a bridge and we stopped to take a picture of us girls and our shadows off of the bridge (Laura, Katherine, Ashley, Brenna, Carrie, Kasy, and I) and climbed some rocks and just sat and enjoyed the waves crashing and talking about life. There were boys below us swimming in a pool that was protected from the waves, and before we knew it, one of the boys was skinny dipping! We took that as our cue to leave and go find lunch! We ate lunch at the Zebra Crossing where for the first time no one ordered the same meal! It was nice because we all could sample each other’s food! After we finished lunch we made our way to the market where I bought bowls for myself, a giraffe hair bracelet, and a keychain, among other gifts for people. I actually found something for Marcus who I was nervous about finding a gift for as he is always difficult to shop for. I actually am a very good bargainer when it comes to purchasing things in the market! The two bowls that I wanted I got for R150 (about $22) and he originally wanted R150 for both, but I worked it out where two of us bought bowls so he made a bigger profit from both of us (and quite frankly, the story he was telling us was very fishy!) After shopping, we bought an ice cream cone and watched for more whales. On our drive back to Cape Town we planned our free day for tomorrow…it’s a surprise! When we were back in Cape Town we ate a bowl of cereal (cheap and quick dinner) then went back to the Waterfront for more shopping! I bought more gifts for friends as well as the Christmas present for Storelees (so all of my family reading this…I know this is illegal, but I call dibs on Jane for Secret Santa this year!) I also splurged and bought myself a diamond ring! It is not big by any means, but it is really neat because in the band there is two pieces of elephant tail, which makes it unique to South Africa! And as Mom said to me, it’s what I worked for all summer to have money to spend on this trip. We spent a few hours shopping and then it was time to go home and go to bed.