Had a very busy few days since i last wrote, absolutely knackered! Monday was quite a cloudy day so we postponed our table mountain trip and decided to have a day at the Waterfront, a relatively new complex with shops and restaurants etc. We had a good lunch at a jazz cafe (no jazz players alas) and then went to the 2 oceans aquarium and spent about an hour just staring at the penguins cos they're so cute! After that we had a look around the craft market and then came home for a night of card playing.

Next day (tues) was absolutely boiling so for some reason we decided to head up to table mountain! Our plan was to mountain bike but after hearing it was 650R each for around 2hours this was soon forgotten. Vicky and Tom took the easy option and went for a day on the beach, whilst James and I headed up table mountain. We took the route via Plattekip Gorge - supposedly the easiest - and it took us around 1hr 45. It must have been about 30degree heat and 2/3 of the climb is almost vertical rock step (see pictures if i can work out how to upload them), so by the top i was so tired!! We were thinking of walking back down but the cable car was too tempting so we took the easy option. Thinking we were heading back for a nice relaxing evening we arrived at the boys to be told by Tom that he wanted to climb Lions Head to see the sunest - another steep hill - and so off we set. Unfortunately (...) we couldnt make it all the way as we left it too late so we did the easy first section and then found a cool location looking out over the sea and back over cape town to watch the sun set.

Wednesday was my first day at school and i didnt really know what to expect. I was in the primary school and spent the morning with year1 kids just keeping them in order and helping with some english - very basic, think Cat Sat Mat Rat Pat etc... Afternoon was on to netball coaching for around 30+ kids with only one ball and no pitch marked out! At home we'd complain but these kids have nothing and are so keen that they never wanted it to stop. From then its on to football coaching outside the school for anyone who comes along! As the girls have no structured coaching etc and speak no english i just ended up playing a match with them for about an hour.

Today was high school teaching - you take kids out of their classes 2 at a time and read through passages of english with them, then ask them questions to check they can understand. Some are fine but then you get the ones who literally can't read more than 3words in a passage and you realise why you're there. Again the afternoon was spent teaching sport at the school and then moving on to the soccer pitches to help out there.

So yeah its pretty much 9-6 working everyday, and then at the weekends we are free to do whatever we want! This weekend the plan is to head down to cape point, making a stop off at a bridge for bungee jumping (for Tom not me) and then coming back. Hopefully now i'll be able to upload some pictures of my apartment and cape town itself so you can put some pictures to my endless ramblings...!