Happy Birthday Pippa (and LMJ!)

6/20/09
This morning we woke up to a movie being filmed on top of the building next door. For at least four hours they shot the same scene: A guy walks out onto the rooftop. Four hours.

I ran my trail at Table Mountain and took care of some admin in the morning. Around noon Lucy, Pippa and I went to the waterfront. Pippa turns 21 today and she wanted a new dress for going out this evening. We had lunch at Hildebrand in the sun by the water. We shared a bottle of sparkling wine. Lucy told me that Champagne comes from The Champagne region in France, and is the only place it originates from. Thus, true champagne is so expensive everywhere because of importing prices. Most bubbly drinks are actually “sparkling wine”, but are essentially the same thing (just much cheaper). I guess I knew that, but never really thought about or paid much attention.

Back home, we got ready to celebrate Pippa’s birthday properly. We started with Champagne..sparkling whine actually…and cake on the roof. Her roommates decorated with balloons and banners. From their a whole bunch of us had dinner at Saigon on Kloof st. We were pretty obnoxious by nature, and only made worse by Lucy’s prompting “Happy Birthday” every 10 minutes or so. Luckily, their weren’t many other patrons. Saigon is a Vietnamese restaurant. The food was decent and I was served the most beautifully presented sushi I’ve ever seen.

that leaf in the corner is the wasabi

From dinner, we migrated to Long St. We started at Zula where a band was playing. I was introduced to a “springbok”. Not only an antelope and mascot of the rugby league here in South Africa, but also a delicious shot. It has a mint chocolate flavor. There was a band playing at Zula, but when they finished we moved on to the next venue. We walked up about 2 blocks to Marvel, famous for it’s dancing. I had heard this was the place to be for dancing as they have the best music. What this place was lacking, however, was a dance floor. In fact, for a place synonymous with dancing, it wasn’t a very accommodating venue at all. The front was very narrow; lined by a bar and a row of booths. The back area was a game room. I was about to ask why and where people would dance here when Lucy answered my question. She got up on the booths and began dancing. After a few moments, she reached for Pippa who joined her. Before long, we were all up there and every booth was occupied with dancers. We had such a blast. It was nice to be off the hot and over crowded floor, you would never see a scene like that at any club in the states.