Similar to America, South Africans celebrated Father’s Day yesterday. So we
celebrated David yesterday, with South African influences. David chose to go out for lunch at Spur, a
very not PC (in the US sense) sit-down hamburger place. The restaurant has a Native American theme,
with a warrior as a mascot, and the restaurant is full of cartoons of sort of
like how Native Americans were portrayed on TV in the 1950s. A no-go restaurant theme in America. But other than that, Spur is great. The real winner in our world is that they
have a super play area for kids while you wait for your food. Don’t think McD’s playland. Spur has coloring, computer games, movies,
blocks to build towers, stuff to climb, etc.
Plus, the play area is staffed with two attendants to help watch the
kiddos, so that parents can get a break.
Thanks to the rough South African economy and cheap cost of labor here,
I’m told I can go to Spur and get a hot cocoa and an hour+ of babysitting for
two kids for $1.70 (the price of a hot chocolate at Spur). I just need to learn how to drive there by
myself first.
But back to Father’s Day.
One thing lacking here in South Africa is decent ice cream. They have what they call vanilla ice cream,
but don’t be fooled! My survey of
Americans in South Africa showed unanimous agreement that it is vastly inferior
to vanilla ice cream in the States. When
I first tasted “vanilla” ice cream here in South Africa, I had to ask Steph what
flavor it was.
So in honor of David (who loves ice cream) we made homemade ice cream
yesterday afternoon. We unsuccessfully looked for the electric ice cream maker, but the hand cranked machine ended up working fine in that we had to earn a few of our calories before eating them back with interest. We made real vanilla ice cream, and also vanilla with Ghirardelli
chocolate chips (from the States, as semi-decent chocolate chips are also
impossible to come by here). Delicious beyond words.
After eating ice cream, David opened his Father’s Day gifts
from the kids. Each of them brought home
gifts that they made or assembled at school to give to David for Father’s Day. Matthew made a handprint, and the teacher’s
assistant attached it to a nice bag of trail mix…I was impressed that a
mother/baby class sends home a legitimate gift for Dad. (Not that those sentimental art projects that
I did in school all growing up weren’t legit…)
Timothy’s gift was particularly South African. It included 1) Biltong. This is a snack sort of like beef jerky,
except the flavor is about a million times stronger…very popular around here. There’s an entire shop devoted to biltong
across from the grocery store in Hilton.
2) “Springbok Juice”. It’s a very
small bottle of bright green liquid. We
don’t really know what it is. Cream soda
here is green, so maybe it’s just cream soda.
But when Steph first saw it, it reminded her of the small sample of
vodka that she and (Brother) David got at the opera.
And I know that Springbok (the SA national rugby team) fans like their
alcohol… we actually went to see the Springboks play on Saturday. (They played Wales…SA
won and we know a lot more about rugby now!)
At the Springboks game we observed that alcohol and rugby are even more
intimately intertwined than beer and American football. We observed one guy at the rugby game walking
through the concourse while carrying three pitchers
filled with beer. Yikes. So anyways, maybe
Timothy just gave David vodka for Father’s Day.
Or maybe green cream soda. David
said he’ll sample it tomorrow and report back on what “Springbok juice”
actually is.
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