"I caught my first tube this morning, sir."

11 days left in Stellenbosch, 8 in Jozi


Afrikaans lesson #10
daars hy - 'there he is' (there you go)
beeldskoon - 'beautiful'

This past weekend, the gang and myself went to Spier, which boasts a cheetah reserve, small craft market, and a wine farm.  The weather was a bit dodgy but stayed tame throughout the day.  The cheetah reserve is quite spectacular though at times it seems more like I was on set for a Jurassic Park movie with the immense amount of gates and fences around.  There were several cheetahs around, more cubs than adults, with the occasional signage declaring "DO NOT FEED CHEETAHS".  Of course it's an additional cost to go see them, so I did what any curious American would do and paid it to see some exotic animals.  The trainers (for lack of a better word), go into the perimeter first and see if the cheetahs are relaxed enough to bring people in to see them, some appear to be docile.  Nonetheless, we ventured closer one at a time.  You can feel a subtle difference in the cheetah fur between the black spots and the rest of the fur, and even up close, they are absolutely beeldskoon.  There are a few other animals on the property, owls, eagles, and this animal which I saw from a far, if you don't know what it is, the clip below should give you a hint:

The wine was pretty good there, my favorite still being from Uva Mira.  The pinotage from here wasn't too bad.  Pinotage is a wine mostly found in this region, though I'm told grapes have been brought back to the states for growing.

Asara wine estate was also on the list for saturday, which has an unbelievable view.

The wine wasn't bad, and the food was divine.  Still, not as good as Uva Mira's.  Dinner brought us to 5 Rynevald, a sort of bohemian/hipster type restaurant.  

Me - "Hi, we have a reservation under U.S.A."

Hostess - "...I don't think the table's big enough."

It looks like an older home that was converted to a restaurant, with scores of books on the shelves and even on the walls themselves, letters on the ceiling, coffee tables and small tv sets adorned the adjacent room with a plethora of tea lights giving the atmosphere a smoother ambience.  The food was pretty good.

Sunday was surfing, once again.  8:30am go time.  Emiel surfed out with me today, further beyond the breaks we lingered at for the first few lessons.  It was cold out, windy, and cloudy, and the wetsuit didn't help much.  Amidst the exhausting of paddling, trying to catch a wave was rather daunting, but still extremely exciting.  This was my first lesson in putting all the aspects of surfing together.  I caught a few waves with the occasion wipe out (fall off board, wave carries you down, board hits head, water up nose, head submerged, adrenaline pumping).  Next sunday is my last lesson, and I will thoroughly enjoy it.

I spoke a little at group meeting yesterday and was suggested more experiments to do to elucidate some of the results I've been having.  My main project is tied to the sorption instrument which takes forever and a day to run, so hopefully I can use it round the clock to ensure speedy results since I leave here next friday.  The other project involves crystal growth of a specific compound of mine.  It crystallizes into two forms, a less interesting form (mono P)...

 and a more interesting form (rhombo R).

The latter gives rise to 9 angstrom channels throughout the crystal which may be a porous material as well.  The crystal is also solvated, meaning that it contains a solvent molecule in addition to the parent molecule in its crystal packing.  This is peculiar because there are very few examples of porous solvates in the literature.  Nonetheless, we think the rhombo R form converts into the mono P form and is irreversible, so our goal is to isolate the rhombo R form as a room temperature/air stable crystal to do further studies on.

I leave next friday, so this weekend I was thinking of ice skating and dinner with everyone I've met here.  We shall see.

I'm loving all the Halloween pictures from back home, and I'm loving my soon-to-be living situation once I return.  Mexican dinner soon when I get back and a raucous evening at Blackfinn.

Miss you all.
CK