South Africa, February 18, Day 1.

We finally made it into port! It was the most beautiful day, and the port was FINALLY an amazing port! The last beautiful port we had was Dominica… so this was a nice change! We docked at about 11 am, but then had to wait for immigration to come on board. This time they needed to see us all face to face and stamp our passports. Thankfully, my sea was called first! I got off the ship around 12, and headed for the mall with Kayla and Mel. We had planned for our first day (the one that we missed) to be our relax/shop/internet/beach day, but that didn’t quite work out. I didn’t have any set plans for the second day, which was now our first, so I made that into my shopping/internet/food day. Not much to report on the first day, other than how incredible even just the waterfront was! I felt 100% safe walking around alone, and it was so refreshing not having to worry about being a girl walking around alone.  The waterfront had a huge mall, lot’s of stores and restaurants, live music a lot of the time, and even a ferris wheel.  The weather was absolutely perfect! Everything was perfect. My friend Will and I ate dinner on the ship and then went and got delicious strawberry daiquiris at this restaurant at the waterfront. Later that night, my entire group of friends walked to Long Street. This is the street with all the bars and clubs, and I’ve heard it is incredibly scary and dangerous at night, but I felt safe the entire time. I probably wouldn’t have walked around alone at night, but I was in a big group so we were all fine! We all got used to going to clubs in places like Dominica or Manaus, so we didn’t even think to bring our ID’s. A lot of the clubs were carding, so none of us could get in, even though we were of age!  We walked around for probably an hour before we found a place that we could get into, and it wasn’t really a club. It was so much fun though! It had a balcony over looking Long Street, and it was a beautiful night, so I spent most of the time outside. I met a few South African’s, and had great conversations. It was nice to finally be able to interact with people in the country without them asking for something of you.  I got a cab back to the ship with a few friends, and went straight to sleep. We had to wake up for wine tasting the next day!