Scott, Bruce, Paul and I flew back from Cape Town to Seattle "today." Virtual Today started just after midnight on Saturday in Cape Town. It is now around 11 am Monday (there) and I haven't been back from the airport that long. Long trip!
(Scott posted some pretty neat-o pix of African Penguins on his blog; go check 'em out.)
It was a little tough to come back to Seattle. The weather in Cape Town was amazing. Bruce was the first person in our group of seven to muse wistfully about moving to Cape Town, but I was not far behind, and I would venture a guess that all seven of us felt about the same. I would have liked to have a little more time to explore the city proper. More than half the time was spent in the hotel or within 15 minutes of it. We had some excursions (Table Mountain; the wine country; Cape Point; Boulders Beach for the penguins) and did some shopping, but only on Friday afternoon when work was finally done did we cut out in the city of Cape Town itself.
2006 Nominee for My Favorite Mainstream Beer is definitely Castle Milk Stout. It is delicious and also sponsors a jazz festival. Wish I had a picture of the label; not only is it a 6% beer but it also calls out lactose as an ingredient. And here I thought "milk stout" was just a happy fiction.
Last day was shopping-intensive. Bruce walked away with a very nice chess set. I got some mosaic tiles that are colorful and definitely will remind me of the trip. To some extent I regret being the only person out of seven not to bring a digital camera along, but on the other hand I got to be in more pictures this way and I imagine most of my work friends will share out their photos. Plus it meant I got to focus more on the experiences and less on the "oh, stop, that will make a great picture." (Having just read The Paradox Of Choice on the trip and found a little too much of myself in the description of the Maximizers, anything that reduces my options is probably for the best.)
The less foreseen fringe benefit of the week was getting to know some coworkers better. I hadn't spent much time with anyone other than Scott before this week. It was a fun group, pretty diverse, and everyone had an adventurous spirit and positive attitude. I would repeat the trip in a heartbeat. All in all, a great way to spend a work week.
1 comment:
I am drinking a Widmer Snowplow as I type this and it is a very fine beer.
Almost, but not quite, as tasty as the Castle one though. Clearly you will just have to go to Cape Town to experience it, Tony.
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