Every Color of the Rainbow: Wednesday, February 23rd

Today we headed out of the house at a little after 9:00, making our first stop at Canal Walk, the biggest mall in Africa! We had high hopes as we started our journey, thinking of all the possible stores we could visit! We soon realized that the shops in this mall don't have particularly good sales, mostly because they don't need to. We found comfort at our beloved Mr. Price Home, and bought a good amount of stuff. We were aiming to leave the mall by 11:30 to head to our next destination, so at 11:00, Elaine and I decided to get some lunch. We contemplated a few places, but in the end decided to go to Mugg & Bean. As we rounded the corner before Mugg & Bean, who did we see but Mark and Caleb, just giving their orders! They had been through the whole mall once, and half again, and couldn't believe we had only gotten around 1 corner. We sat down at the table to join them, trying to decide quickly what we wanted. This time I got flapjacks with apple and whipped cream, and a chocolate milkshake. As usual it was very tasty! At 11:30 we made our way to the waterfront to go on the Robben Island Tour, the island Nelson Mandela was held in prison for 27 years. We got our tickets and went to wait in the line. I was surprised at how many people were lining up to go, there had to be at least 100 people or more! It took a while until they finally started letting people through. There were no guns permitted, and everyone had to walk through scanners, like at the airport. The only thing was, we don't think the scanners even worked, as no lights came on and no one beeped even though we definitely had metal on! Elaine and I didn't realize there was higher decks on the boat, until after we got sitting down in the lowest part. By then all the upper seats had been taken. If you looked out to the water around the boat, you could see seals and sometimes even dolphins! It was about 30 minutes until we reached the harbour of Robben Island. When we disembarked from the boat, we walked along the pier to where the busses were waiting. We took a seat near the back, Elaine and I on either side of an older man from Whales. Our tour guide on the bus was a coloured guy, 24 years old, and he was great! He kept us entertained on the tour, as well as gave us interesting information about apartheid and other stuff. When the bus tour was over, we were dropped off at the actual prison where the prisoners were held. We began the tour going in different places around the prison, then at the end we went by Nelson Mandela's cell. At about 4:00 we headed back to the boat to embark on the return journey. This time we made sure to go up on the higher decks. The top deck was full by the time we got there, but we just waited at the bottom of the stairs and stood on the deck. When we started going, it got really windy and chilly up on the top deck, so a lot of the people came down. I had my sweater on the whole time, because it got pretty chilly with the wind out on the water. The next place we headed was across town to go to a Christian's house for supper. The lady's name is Grace, and she is really cool! We had supper there with some other young people from the assembly. It was really cool to meet young people from different places. One guy there was from Switzerland, and he was gearing back there after living in Cape Town for a while for school or something. We sang a little together after we ate, then had a nice little Bible study. We didn't stay too late there, as we were planning to head out really early the next day to get a head start for home! We stopped in at Total, the gas station, for some snack food for our journey home the next day. When we got back to the house, we gave it a quick clean, so as not to leave it like a tornado when we left! We got all our bags packed, and food ready then we hit the hay to get in as much sleep as we could.