Ode the Cape, great friends and late 70’s fashion comebacks.

Recently it was once again brought to my attention that Cape Townians suffer from an almost constant state of appreciative amnesia. Often we forget just how fortunate we are to live in this astonishingly beautiful cityscape, set against the backdrop of mount “who needs a GPS”, surrounded by vineyards, oceans, other equally beautiful mountains and a hipster subculture that was cool before it was cool.

The problem is sometimes we forget how fortunate we are. From what I’ve heard a weekend away in Joburg solves the hell out of that problem though. I would like to plead my case through real world observation.

A friend of mine has recently had to relocate to Durban for “medical reasons”. (Read Zuma years) a Fortnight ago we picked him up at a bar in Stellenbosch, fresh from his flight down, and along with four other compatriots we set off on a little reunion/birthday weekend away at another mutual friend’s horse farm.

Horse delivery for mister Ed

As a bachelor, my vehicle was not going to do the job, so I borrowed my sister’s people carrier and in true soccer mom fashion proceeded to stay sober, while the four “kids” in the back polished off the bottle of jack I had procured for the evening.

As we embarked on our 3 hour road trip the vehicle was a flurry of conversations aimed at bringing everyone up to speed as efficiently as humanly possible. Within minutes everyone had gone full circle in terms of nostalgia and proclaimed that the best thing the Cape had to offer had to be conversations of substance. Mind you this was happening in mom’s travelling bar, hurtling down the N1, while everyone barring the exceptionally dedicated driver proceeded in filling up their heads with whiskey. The rest of the weekend passed in a similar fashion, except with less braking.

Arriving at said farm we proceeded with farm appropriate activities, which included a midnight swim in the nearby river which was filled with blooming phytoplankton, which to those unfamiliar is when the water lights up like you’re at a rave in Atlantis.

Yes look at the pretty lights!

This of course led me to pretend I was the green lantern and I subsequently buggered up my arm, scaling the small mooring dock, on the bank. Much lamenting was heard about this for the remainder of the weekend.

Touché Jack Daniels enhanced bioluminescence, touché.

The rest of the weekend flew by in predictable pattern of awesome which included a shooting competition, drunken singing competition (which I won, although I may have been the only one competing), boating, sunburn, reading about 100 x 8^th grade essays an attending teacher had brought along to mark (mercilessly mocking them) and the demise of many chops over the open coals. Also a tremendous amount of dishes happened (at least 6 plates per person there) for reasons I am still unclear on.

Some bastard was plating bites individually.

The week prior to this was spent aboard one of Cape Town’s double decker tourist busses for another friend’s birthday. This tour strategically chosen for its large wine tasting leg, quickly became spectacular when we found out that the audio tour available to listen to onboard had a “kids” channel narrated by a animal cast including a seagull, baboon and squirrel. This did nothing to promote the public image of these animals in fact I now distrust squirrels more than ever.

I've come for your soul!

Then this past weekend I spent most of my time on picnic blankets, Saturday celebrating a great friend’s birthday party where we desperately attempted to dodge Jello Shots, that somehow seemed to multiply like we were in Bethsaida and the bartender was dividing by Zero, followed by a Lark concert down the road. Needless to say merriment and also joy, followed by glee with a dash of jollity.

Rated best bartender since 28 AC

Sunday we watched the Cape Philharmonic orchestra’s performance in Kirstenbosch with my entire family. Where the culture was so thickly assembled, the audience unwittingly constructed the world’s largest picnic blanket.

6000+ fans, poshing it up with summer wines and champagne (barring my father who remarked that “you do not need wine to enjoy events of this nature, but it sure helps.”) All this in glorious summer weather that makes me long for a job as a park ranger or swimming pool inspector, anything sans desk and ceiling.

Headsup. This is my new preferred uniform.

Barring these awesome events, there were several equally awesome events, with other awesome people that I could not attend, because there are just too few hours in a weekend. I would not blame you if you may be thinking this is a blog entry to solidify the fact that I have lots of friends and am super cool. You would be wrong. All prescribed reading material in high school, after 1990 should have covered these facts. If not it means that my time travel machine has malfunctioned and I am probably fighting a t-rex with a machete tied to a broom handle as you read this.

No this is an entry about how cool it is to be in my fortunate position, to live in this great city, surrounded by great people. This entry is about reminding myself and those reading that life has its ups and downs but every time we fail to see the extraordinary all around us we are failing miserably at living.

Now after subsequently discussing all things booze, partying and summer weather related we come to the reason I wrote this entry, the only thing hipsters brought back that’s worth mentioning and the way I will establish that this blog entry is not about how cool I am.

On behalf of all men out there we would like to thank the creator of the daisy dukes and those of the fairer sex who can pull-off a pair and do so as often as possible. We salute you. We salute you with our pants. It’s a pants salute is what I’m saying. Bam! Uncooled.