Open Letter

Dear Whales,

The last time I went to Hermanus, you put on quite a show. This time, not so much. Which was a shame. But we had a great time without you, including:

Wine and dinner (not pictured, but it was delicious, which is why it's not pictured)

Charades

Beautiful sand dunes (despite the lovely sandblasting effect from gale force winds--I'm blaming those on you too, Whales)

And nice ocean views.

In summary, Whales of Hermanus, who needs you?

Much love,
Julia



Dear City of Cape Town,

I was very excited when I heard that you were going to blow up the old cooling towers.

Especially after the support rings fell off one of them (see right side tower) and your engineers determined that both towers might come down in high winds, which aren't exactly few and far between in Cape Town, a city that may even give Chicago a run for its money on windiness.

A lot of Capetonians were excited too. In fact, there were people crammed into every possible vantage point to watch the towers come down. I'm not sure what we were expecting. Certainly not a small squall, which put a damper on things. But denizens of the Mother City are used to unexpected weather, so we tried to be positive.

In fact, we even played some games.

And then, you blew up the towers four minutes early. We all kind of missed it. But it's OK. We got to go bowling afterward.

Much love,
Julia