Once jet lag wore off, I was able to settle into a relatively routine existence here (with the fulcrum of my day being work). It's amazing now much easier travel is these days thanks to what I'll call "smart electronics". It's those universal power adapters that are either built in to, or come with, all of the "new" necessities of life (computers, cell phones, etc.). They easily handle the range of world voltage from 110v - 230v and require just a simple and cheap plug configuration adapter to make them work. No more bulky power converters with fluctuating capabilities. Just devices that behave abroad how they behave at home. Why did this take so long?
Since it's late Summer here in South Africa, and one is always trying to beat the heat, on a recent car trip for a location scout one of my "handlers" kindly picked up refreshing beverages and snacks for all of us at a gas station convenience mart. One of the disparate items that was thrust into my hand was a sickly-sweet Strawberry and Vanilla "Drumstick™" like ice cream cone that had a dense chocolate coating and sticky Strawberry syrup on it. Trying to be gracious I consumed it, but realize why I hadn't had a snack of this ilk for nearly 20 years. Besides the diabetic-like spike in blood sugar level in my body, my hands were pretty much rendered useless thanks to the melting syrup. The only thing that I could grab to make the sugary taste go away was a bag of Nacho Cheese & Hot Wings flavored Dorito's™ chips. I tell you, the culinary combinations here in SA pretty much avoid any kind of subtlety and refinement.
The region certainly doesn't seem to be lacking coffee. It's not great, but it could certainly be worse. It's generally "filter coffee" (often French Press) or "Americanos" (espresso shots w/ hot water to make it the consistency of US coffee). People here generally take coffee with both sugar and cream, and usually in small quantities (and almost always in cups - and I don't mean paper). I unfortunately have a caffeine habit to maintain, so I have to make a nuisance of myself to get the proper dosage. But I found this little gem just outside the back alley of my hotel. It's called Deluxe Coffeeworks, and it's a tiny roastery/ coffee counter run by 2 friendly 30-ish New Zealanders. They have quite the business going on. I threw them for a loop the first time I went in as I ordered "off the menu" with a triple Macchiato to "take away", but they have the routine down now. Here's another little blurb on them.
Though English is the primary language spoken here, a good portion of the population quickly slip in and out of Afrikaans, a unique hybrid of Dutch, Malay, Portuguese, French and Bantu. "Ja" (pronounced "yah") means "Yes", as opposed to the accented English version (pronounced "Yayez". One other grammatical observation that amused me was the often heard use of the term "you must". I'm thinking "No, I really don't HAVE to do that. WTF?!? Though it is stated directly and with conviction, it actually means "you might want to" or "you're probably going to have to", rather than being a definitive edict.
Among the plethora of trees throughout the Cape Town region, there is a common one called the "Dingle". And yes, it does have berries.
5am call times on location, 15 hour days in the edit suite and shoddy internet connections are cramping my Linkey stylings, but I'm doing what I can.
Cheers!
Linkey-Loo Robot -
AJC
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