Cape Town

This week was all about Cape Town, South Africa. (Hello, business trip!)

January south of the Equator means summer, and the weather has been fantastic all week. Sunny, hot, but not too-hot-to-think hot, with a nice breeze off the coast. Think San Diego.

The tour we did of the wine country on Wednesday afternoon was great. That area felt like Napa or Sonoma. The first winery we visited - Fairview - had the "Goats do Roam" label, which I had seen at the Whole Foods in Seattle, and had a full set of choices of wines and goat cheeses to sample. The Kanonkop winery had only four wines for sampling but three of the four were first-class.

Pinotage is a varietal created in South Africa and is the result of a cross between the Pinot Noir and Cinsault varieties. Several different people here in South Africa told me that it is now being grown in Virginia. That's not enough to repatriate me to Virginia. However, if you are curious about the varietal and have an opportunity to drink it, go for it - it's a nice red wine.

Low point of the week was food poisoning. I ended up in the emergency room red like a beet, all the blood rushed to the surface of my skin, and thus my blood pressure was 83 / 31. More information about what happened here. Hint to the brave of heart: search for "not affected by heat" (as in, the toxin was ...) to understand how one little piece of fish can ruin your day.

Once that was out of the way - and took two more days to be fully out of the way intestinally - the rest of the stay was fantastic. The people are very friendly and the accent is every bit as entertaining as what you would find in Edinburgh.