Island Life

...Well, not in that sense.

While the rest of the house is at the Woodstock-wannabe-music-festival, "Rockin' the Daisies," Dave and I decided to save our money and stick around Cape Town for the weekend.

 

Naturally, we still wanted to be productive, and today we did just that with a trip to visit the infamous apartheid-era prison on Robben Island, followed by a visit to the Old Biscuit Mill for lunch.

"Maximum Security Prison," eek.

Although I'm glad I went to Robben Island, the three-and-a-half hour trip consisted of maybe an hour of guided touring. The rest was lost to waiting in line, ferrying, and waiting for others to catch up (probably 150 people came over on the 9am tour from Cape Town).

Before it was a prison, Robben Island boasted a small population of residents - here is a church on the island

Robben Island Primary School (for current residents' children - they currently enroll 23 students and two teachers)

They don't mess around.

Dormitory-style prisoners' quarters in the medium-security prison (I think about forty sets of bunk beds fit in here?)

Nelson Mandela's cell in the maximum security prison

Maximum Security building

View of Cape Town from the island

They tried to sell us this picture, but I stole a snapshot of the glory anyway

Weekend Updates

Springtime is here!

Last weekend, Ian, Dave, and I had lunch with Ida Cooper, the wonderful woman who organized our housing for us. 

Ian was excited, I promise.

On a tractor

Saturday, we went to the District 6 Museum, a memorial space for those evicted from downtown Cape Town during apartheid. Although it was a good experience, the museum was somewhat disorganized and not entirely cohesive in its expression of District 6.

Street signs from the demolished District 6

Sunday night, we headed out to Camps Bay, one of the pretty ritzy suburbs of Cape Town. At a rooftop pizzeria, we watched the sun set, and then sat on the beach until our taxi arrived around 10pm. Tough day...

Camps Bay

The Bay Hotel

Completely unrelated, but I stole some of Dave's pictures, and I'm absolutely obsessed with this one that he took on a hike up Devil's Peak. Very artsy!