Sept 26 CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

I have arrived in S. Africa! Woke up at 6:15 am for the "sunrise". The sunrise was clouds, wind, and rain! Cape Town is amazing. The view of Table Mr in the background is just.....words cant describe it. Eventually as the morning went on it cleared up and it was a beautiful but chilly day. The girls and I booked it intothe market and di some preshopping and exploring. The port remind me a lot of Newport, RI. Ships everywhere great little shops, mobs of people, tons of restaurants and street entertainment. The port has a HUGE mall(Victoria Warf). I got lost multiple times and kept finding new halls to go down. I had to get back to the ship for an FDP for Kaplan's class. I t was seeing the marketing side of wine production....aka WINE TASTING! We actually went to 2 vineyards. The first was called Backsberg. Gorgeous view of the mts and valleys. Got to try 2 whites, reds, a rosay, and a brandy. Brandy is quite popular around here. I enjoyed all the wines we tasted and our host Darwin was very entertaining. The interesting thing about this winery was that it is environmentally friendly. They keep track of all their carbon emissions and then try and reduce that number every year and all their productions do not pollute the environment. Very impressive. My friend Pooja actually won one of their award winning bottles of wine in a Q&A session. Next stop was Nelson's. This was a smaller, family run winery. They gave us a lot of into on how to sell to the consumer and how they market their wine. It involves lots of surveys and getting the label to catch the eye of the consumer. We got to try 4 wines : 1 white, 2 reds, and a rosay. I wasnt quite a fan of the reds but it was still good. It was fun to learn to "taste" wine and not "drink" it.(smelling techniques, stirring, and keeping it on our pallot for a few seconds). Great experience and cant wait to go on more!