Charles Apple

I got up this morning around 5:30 a.m., which is “only” a half-hour before midnight Sunday, back home.

Man, did it feel great to sleep in a real bed. I’m about to go downstairs for some breakfast.

But first, I thought I’d show you my room here at the Westin Grand, which is connected to the Cape Town convention center:

Hey, dig this funky TV chair!

This hotel is, by far, the most Ikea I’ve ever seen…

They told me they were giving me a view of the waterfront — basically, facing north. Which I appreciated when the sun came up a few minutes ago:

Over to the left, you can see Signal Hill on the right and, further behind it, Lion’s Head:

UPDATE: Just got back from breakfast and shot a nice panorama looking out my window. Click for a much, much larger view:

The object surrounded by all the construction cranes — in the third panel — is the big soccer stadium they’re building here to host World Cup games next year. The entire country is all excited about that.

The big white triangular shape at the bottom left is part of the convention center. It’s attached to the hotel. I’m pretty sure the big concrete parking deck across the street is part of the convention center as well.

I’m told I should close the curtains before I leave the room this morning. The afternoon sun pours through this window and heats the room, I’m told. A good thing to remember.

What I can’t see from my side of the hotel is the famous Table Mountain, which looms over the south side of the city. That’s No. 1 on my tourism wish list for this weekend.

However, from the elevator lobby here on the 11th floor, you can see the other end of the bay, with the sun blazing above:

That’s yet more of the convention center, in the lower right.

Turning to our right a bit, we see the skyline of downtown Cape Town, with just a bit of Table Mountain lurking behind:

…and then, turning even more to the right, we see the mountain more clearly:

I’ll try to come back over here later this week and see if I can capture the sun rising over the bay. Also, I need to find a place from which I can shoot without all these reflections.

In the meantime, I’ve discovered my internet connection here in the hotel is very, very slow. I’m having trouble tweeting and pulling up my Facebook news feed page. Although, admittedly, the former has been an intermittent problem for a couple of weeks now. The changes Twitter dropped in after their big denial-of-service attack a few weeks ago doesn’t play well with Firefox, I’m told.

I was able to video conference with Sharon last night with ease, however. So no complaints here.

Although it’s late winter/early spring here, it’ll be nice and warm today. The forecast is for clear skies and a high of 66 degrees. The low tonight will be 48. Typical weather for March or April in Virginia Beach.

And away we go with Day One…

—
EXPEDITION TO SOUTH AFRICA

You’re reading the fifth chapter of my journey to Cape Town, South Africa.

• CHAPTER 1: Preparing for the journey.
  
• CHAPTER 2: I made it as far as the Dulles airport bar
• CHAPTER 3: Getting really bored sitting at Dulles
• CHAPTER 4: Safe and sound in Cape Town.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 12:24 am and is filed under Charles Apple, Travelogue, Trip to South Africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.