Views from the Ritz

The sky opens up

Green Point and Mouille Point

Green Point (and the World Cup Stadium construction site)

Green Point and Signal Hill

Sea Point

Thick porridge and fried eggs

This was written on the 3rd of July:

Well, we’re here and settled in at our hotel, the Ritz (though called “Ritz”, it’s probably a 2 to 3 star – good enough though!). As a couple of people have figured out, it’s on Main Road if you’re looking at a map. We enjoy the complimentary breakfast very much, and load up on fruit (covered in yogurt), fried eggs, thick porridge, and whole milk.

To keep off the pounds that all these items may bring, we took a jog this morning along the Atlantic as the sun rose. It was lovely. It was the only clear part of an otherwise stormy day, and we enjoyed the moment of good weather as any good Alaskan would.

Chatting at the Ritz

This video was recorded on the evening of July 2nd.

29 hours, 6 bags and XX mini bottles of wine

This was written on July 2nd:

We have arrived! We left Anchorage, Alaska, USA on June 30th at 6 AM and stepped off the plane in Cape Town on July 1st, at 9 PM. Our trip took 29 hours. We stopped in Seattle and Amsterdam on the way, but neither place for over 3 hours. We tried to sleep on those long flights, in between movies and our inflight vegetarian meals. We toasted Chris’ birthday mid-flight with complimentary wine, and promptly went back to sleep.

We checked 7 bags, and all but one made it with us. Of course the one that didn’t make it was our computer in its specially designed sturdy carrying box (thank you Dave!). Filling out paperwork made our check out from the airport a little longer than comfortable, but our shuttle was there to take us to the Ritz Hotel in Sea Point, Cape Town. It was a little damp when we arrived, like it had just rained. Very different than the dry heat we felt when we were here in January. We snuggled in the back of the shuttle van, happy to be on land.

The Ritz Hotel is a shiny glass tower, straight out of 1975. There is a rotating restaurant on top, from which the view of the ocean and the coastline is outstanding. We didn’t look around much though on July 1st. We got our room, crawled into bed, and fell asleep in South Africa.