STELLENSLOSHED

We left this afternoon for wine country, a place not too far from Cape Town called Stellenbosch. We took the train there, which was a little longer and a little more hectic than we anticipated, but we made it there just in time for dinner. After we checked into our hostel, the StumbleInn, we went straight out to an amazing Lebanese dinner at Manoushes. I love rocket just as much as any other member of the arugula family, but the “Hezbollah Rocket Salad” did make me question this dining establishment for a second. But all the food was incredible, from warm flatbread sandwiches to the massive pineapple and mango display courtesy of Chef Jean. Stellenbosch is a college town so the waiter had several bar and club recommendations for afterwards. We were excited for a Thursday night out on the town after deducing that no college student actually believes Friday is part of the workweek, but the entire place seemed dead. We stopped in a bar called Terrace that is usually really crowded and the bartender told us that people are busy writing exams at this time of year. We decided we should take matters into our own hands and each one of us should buy the group a round, which probably would have been a good strategy if there were 4 of us… but there were 7. Two hours later when we had hijacked the sound system and plugged in Danny’s iPod to blast house music, played drinking games that all involved pounding on tables and yelling, created a new signature drink for the bar and christened it “The Stellenslosh,” I wondered to myself why on earth Americans ever get the bad rep of being obnoxious??