On the road again

I woke up in Cape Town on Wednesday morning with a feeling as though I was preparing for an athletic event. I diligently ate a hearty breakfast to ensure some endurance for my daylong excursion. After all, I was being picked up at 9 am to take a tour of South Africa’s winelands until about 5 pm. “Grant” picked me up and I said adieu to my lovely Hout Bay hosts and my beautiful B&B. Luckily we didn’t arrive at the first winery until 10:00 am, so I guess it was a little civilized to be enjoying the spirits at that hour. We were the first to arrive. Our first visit was a winery that boasts a blend called “The Trilogy” that was voted fifth best wine in the world. Unfortunately, they were low in stock and didn’t get to taste their claim to fame, but the rest was good. Grant held off on drinking, seeing as he was driving, and I sole-handedly did my best to pretend like I knew something about wine. After the third glass I realized that the pitcher and spittoon-looking thing were meant for me to rinse out my glass between wines…hahaha oops! The winery’s host had a seriously lazy eye, so I made sure to look at his good while trying to concentrate on what he was saying about the wines. It was a beautiful setting and I enjoyed their wines the best out of all of them. The second place was the oldest privately owned winery in the country. It was absolutely beautiful, set in the rolling foothills of the Drakenburg mountains. At this place, I had red wines, then port, then whites – a HUGE no-no in the ways of wine-tasting connoisseurs, but I held my own and did it my way. :)

At that point, I began finding the entire situation pretty comical. Here I was, at 11 am, feeling a little tipsy with some stranger, driving me around to all these wineries. We had lunch at the next spot thank god and then headed for the airport. It was a beautiful day and I enjoyed the wineries very much, but again, it would’ve been so much more fun to share the experience with someone other than Grant, the enthusiastic fellow with the lazy eye, and the Dutch Goth-girl who scoffed at me for going from red to port to white.

Upon arrival at the airport, I had some more grub and waited to board my plane. Once seated, my plane-pal, “Anders” the German model headed home from a shoot, notified me that our flight was 11 hours. OH MY GOODNESS!!! I knew it was going to be long, but subconsciously made a point not to check out the actual travel time. Flight went well, although it was overnight and I slept for a total of about 25 minutes.

Anders and I parted ways and I learned of the horrific-ness of the Frankfurt airport. No clear signage, a TERRIBLY slow customs woman, and construction, made my hour layover a continuous battle that ended with me sprinting up stairs and bursting into gate A16 for the final boarding call. I managed to get some sleep on the 40 minute flight between Munich and Frankfurt.

I feel as though this blog just got extremely boring, because honestly, who wants to hear about travel dilemmas. We all have them. Let’s just suffice it to say, there was a bit of miscommunication with my family in Germany and I had an eventful morning at the Munich airport which included: making security nervous after checking outside three separate times, begging a 20 year old girl to let me use the internet since it only took coins and I only had a credit card (couldn’t get out cash because Bank of America forgot AGAIN that I’m traveling and wouldn’t let me get money), begging a 40 year old man to let me use the internet (again, no luck), finally remembering my Kenyan shillings and exchanging them for Euros so I could get online, getting online to check email and seeing my cousin on g-chat (while I’m thinking she was going to be at the airport) – that was a funny chat to say the least, then hopping on three trains and arriving in beautiful Garmisch. I would never have made it if it weren’t for Hans, the German cologne seller who was headed in the same direction as myself. Thank you Hans.

Arriving to family after traveling for two months was so incredibly wonderful!! If you know me, you know how close I am with my extended family and I was ecstatic to see my aunt Marianna and cousin Abigail. We spent some time catching up, sharing stories, and reflecting on the insanity of our life paths at the moment. Then we all cleaned up and prepared for the influx of Garmisch women coming over for book club. Not much talk of the book, but it was a great to almost be a fly on the wall in a room full of mothers and have some delicious food. Relaxing today as some serious snow falls on this amazing town. Going up to Munich tomorrow, Easter brunch with friends on Sunday, and skiing next week. THEN HOME SWEET HOME ON WEDNESDAY!!!! I’ll keep you posted if something more exciting than travel stories comes up. ~EKY V.