South Africa, February 20, Day 3.

Today, I slept in for a little while (only until about 9am, but that’s considered sleeping in while in port!) and Kayla and I went to the mall to find some internet. We sat outside and got online for a while, and decided what we were going to do that day. I got to skype with my dad for a few minutes (and then my computer died! Sad.) which was nice! It was only 4am at home, but he works super early, so I can always catch him up! After about an hour, Kayla and I decided that we were going to hike Table Mountain. I am not an avid hiker, but I can always be up for a challenge.  Our friends did it the day before and said it was hard, but so worth it, so we decided “why not?”
We took a cab to the second starting point. There are two points you can start from. One is the “4 hour hike” and one is the “2 hour hike.” Naturally, we chose the easy one. We started in, and after about 15 minutes stopped for a break and looked down. “Oh we have hike a pretty long ways! Maybe this will be easy after all!” ….YEAH RIGHT. After about another 20 minutes, we stopped and talked to this American guy who asked us how far until he got to the bottom. We said about 30 minutes if you don’t stop, but that was just to the road. He said he didn’t care where it went, he just wanted to get a cab and go to sleep. He was hurting! So that scared us a bit… we had no idea what was to come. After that, this man in a big white hat passed us going pretty fast. We lost site of him after a few minutes, but went the way we thought he went. We got to a point where the ground leveled off, it didn’t really go up or down. After about 15 minutes of walking along that trail, we starting questioning whether or not we were going the right way. We decided that it didn’t matter… either way we would get somewhere, whether it be to the cable car and then we would take that up instead of hike… or maybe we were going the right way and we’d make it to the top, we didn’t care. 15 more minutes went by when we met this two guys our age. They asked us if we were going up or down, and we said up. They said “Well… then turn around. You are going the wrong way.” It turns out we had just hiked all the way back to the first starting point! Of course we didn’t want to seem like wimps in front of these guys (Sebastian and Felix, who happen to live very near to my sister in Germany, small world!) so we decided to hike up with them.
After traveling with them for about an hour, Kayla and I decided to tell them to go ahead of us and we’d meet them at the top. We knew we were going to be stopping about every 10 seconds, so we didn’t want to hold them up! Haha The hike got harder and steeper, and we only brought one water bottle for the both of us, so we were struggling! After hiking for about 2.5 hours, we reached this point that looked like the stairway to heaven. The top of the mountain was finally in our reach! Now, I know you are all thinking I’m crazy for dying on a 2.5 hour hike, but let me tell you… it was pretty treacherous (but I still suggest you add it to your bucketlist!).  We finally made it to the top, went straight for the little restaurant and bought water and strawberry slushies!  I felt like I just conquered the world. The view from the top was absolutely breathtaking. You can see all of Cape Town! We could even see our ship! We met up with Sebastian and Felix again, and got our amazing pictures. I brought up a huge South African flag to take pictures with, so we all took turns standing out on a ledge taking amazing photos overlooking Cape Town. It was like we were on top of the world.
Something pretty funny happened next. Kayla, Sebastian, Felix and I were getting ready to say goodbye and exchanging contact info, when this blonde lady yelled something to us in German. Now, German sounds angry to me all the time, so I couldn’t tell if she was mad or if she was just speaking German. Felix looked shocked, and then yelled back “Say it in English so they can understand you!” but the lady just kept yelling. He kept telling her to “say it in English” but she just kept yelling at him. The husband or boyfriend of the women then yelled over “We just want you guys to be quiet. This is a nice viewing place and we are having a moment!” Felix then started saying something back at them in German, and Sebastian chimed in. I know a few German swears, and I heard them a few times. This was not a nice conversation! I was embarrassed and confused, but it was also quite comical. Finally they stopped, and Felix and Sebastian contemplated whether or not they should tell us what the women had said. They finally told us: “Tell your fat American girls to shut up, this place is too beautiful for loud voices.” (mind you, were speaking in regular voice, not loud ones.) Kayla goes “FAT? And WHO just climbed this mountain?!” hahahaha  
Kayla and I took in the view for a while longer, then headed down the mountain on the cable car. Hiking down not only seemed to be too strenuous after the hike up, but it looked way too scary! It’s a steep hike and a long way to tumble if you fall! At the bottom of the mountain, we got a cab to the huge mall called Century City. We wanted to get some shopping done and grab a bite to eat. I bought my roommate a pillow pet, because she left hers at home and says how much she misses it all the time! I couldn’t pass up buying one when I saw it! I got a few dresses and shoes at this store called Mr. Price (pretty much like Kohl’s only cheaper). I love what I bought, and I love that I can say I bought it in South Africa! When we went to the food court, I got California rolls. If you know me at all, you know that I’m addicted. It’s been tough not having them, and I was SO excited to see them in the mall! I could have had 50, but sadly settled for 8. Hahah
We got a cab back to the waterfront, got ready really quickly (I got REALLY good at getting ready to go out in under 20 minutes, let me tell you!) and met up with all our other friends at Mitchell’s. We hung out there for a while, and then got a cab to Camps  Bay. Camps Bay is this strip a long the coast with beautiful beaches and awesome nightlife. The place to be that night was St. Eves, but when we got there, there was a 100 rand cover charge and we didn’t feel like paying it. We went tot his cute beach bar called Sapphire instead. It was a ton of fun, and there were still a ton of SAS kids there! After a few hours, we headed back to the ship and called it a night!