The University of Michigan Women's Glee Club is traveling to South Africa to participate in the 2012 Ihlombe! Festival, where we will be joining hundreds of other choral enthusiasts to sing, explore Africa, and share our cultures.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Welcome to Cape Town!

EVERYONE FINALLY HAS THEIR LUGGAGE. It all made it safely to Johannesburg and accompanied us directly to Cape Town. We are all quite pleased to be in our own clothes-- and I'm sure the other choirs are a little relieved, too.

Yesterday we took a quick tour of Cape Town and made our way to the singing dinner. Though it was a bit unorganized at the beginning through no fault of anyone, it ended up being a great night of socialization and some brief musical interludes from each of the 5 choirs-- we were all together for the first time! We've met a ton of wonderful people through the festival and the good times just keep on getting better.

Today was a tour of the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point--and wow. Wait until you see these pictures. There were incredible views no matter which way you looked. Truly breathtaking in every sense of the word, the walk up to the lighthouse at Cape Point was well worth the work. We moved along to Simon Town and saw some penguins on Boulder Beach and of course got some shopping in; we like to do that whenever we can. We even learned to barter today! The open air markets are really great.

After a brief rest at the hotel this afternoon, we loaded up for dinner at the Gold Museum Restaurant, which was described as an evening full of authentic African food served by waitstaff in traditional dress with all the explanations we could want. And so it was. The evening was kicked off with a brief drumming session and then we jumped right into dinner-- all 12 courses! From spiced tomato soup, to springbok kabobs, to some sort of rice pudding, we were all in awe of the incredible dishes. But that wasn't even the best part. The music continued throughout the evening with dancers who even required group participation. We have some ladies in our choir who really know how to get their african groove on! It was a wonderful time and the entire restaurant was like one big party-- or rather, one big "Jol", a South African word we learned today.


Tomorrow is our anti-penultimate day of tour. We have two concerts left, and then we will be back on our way to America. I'm sure that's still plenty of time to make lots of memories and have a really great time. See you soon!


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