Charles Apple

A week ago, my consulting colleague and I enjoyed all the little coastal towns along False Bay as we drove down to Cape Point. Sunday, two of my students took me up to Table Mountain.

Now, my colleague has left for home and my students have flown away as well. I’m on my own today and tomorrow to enjoy this beautiful city.

My plan: Today, I’m signing up for a bus tour. What they call “topless busses” — I know, I know, but it only means they’re open-air on the top level — roam along two routes around Cape Town. They make a number of stops and reappear every 20 minutes or so.

On this Google map, my hotel is the red marker. The green markers represent things I’ve seen or photographed. The purple markers are things on my to-do list.

View Cape Town, South Africa in a larger map

Like any Google map, you can zoom in or out, move around and click on the individual markers to find out what each one is.

Currently, the temperature here is 55 degrees, but a high today of 69 is forecast. I think I’ll not bother with a coat. That’s plenty warm for me.

It was a little cloudy atop Signal Hill this morning, the first day I’ve allowed myself to sleep in all the way until 7 a.m. local time (1 a.m. EDT):

…but already the fog has lifted and the sun is bright in downtown Cape Town. Today will be glorious.

Sunday morning, I’ve signed up for a boat trip out to Robben Island, the infamous political prison island where Nelson Mandela was kept for nearly two decades. This will allow me to see one of the country’s most important national shrines and I’ll get to see Cape Town from the water, as well.

Originally, there had been rain in the Sunday forecast, but the latest tells me I’ll have a slightly colder but mostly sunny day then, as well.

I’ll make an effort to take my meals out at the waterfront or in other restaurants. I’ve already eaten quite frequently here in the hotel and I suspect I’ll be dining downstairs quite often next week as well. Each night, I expect to be preparing the next day’s lecture. So I’ll probably eat dinner and have a beer or two as I straighten out my slide show, customizing it for an advertising audience.

Which reminds me: I e-mailed a number of folks last week, asking — no, begging — for examples of clever, attractive, effective or unusual newspaper or magazine advertisements or promotions. I’ve received a number of them and I’m very grateful.

However, I’ve been told I’ll be teaching five days of advertising classes instead of the two I had expected. They already expect to see a lot of editorial samples as I make my various points, and they’re OK with that. But I’d sure like to show them more ad examples. Especially stuff that shows immaculate use of color or typography or stuff that represents an odd or unusual concept.

If you happen to have something like this, I’d be honored to share it with my class. Just send it to me via e-mail: chuckapple [at] cox.net

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EXPEDITION TO SOUTH AFRICA

You’re reading chapter 17 of my journey to Cape Town, South Africa. Previous installments:

• 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
• CHAPTER 5: Day one in Cape Town
  
• CHAPTER 6: Day two; No effects at all from jet lag
• CHAPTER 7: A tour of the Westin Grand
• CHAPTER 8: Dealing with little things like money and electricity
• CHAPTER 9: Thursday night on the Cape Town waterfront
• CHAPTER 10: Ending the work week on a high note
• CHAPTER 11: A Saturday trip to the Cape of Good Hope
• CHAPTER 12: A Sunday visit to Cape Town’s Table Mountain
• CHAPTER 13: The blustery ‘Cape Doctor’ winds arrive
• CHAPTER 14: Making some real progress in our class work
• CHAPTER 15: Giant infographics and a night on the town
• CHAPTER 16: Our last day of infographics class in Cape Town

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 5th, 2009 at 2:19 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.