Places
This post is dedicated to talking about the places I have been living, studying, and working here in Cape Town, to give a better idea of my immediate surroundings.
To start off, I'm living at 32 Camps Bay Dr, in Bakoven, Cape Town (don't bother sending me a letter at this point - it won't get here in time!). In his audiobook I'm currently listening to, Trevor Noah describes Camps Bay as a quiet neighborhood where old, rich white people live (Trevor's father, who is white, retired here), and all the locals are surprised, and somewhat envious, when I tell them I'm staying in Camps Bay. It is quite a beautiful area, right across the street from a white sandy beach lined with palm trees and big boulders jutting out of the water.
The ~200 iX students are staying in a sort of apartment complex with a great diversity of rooms. Some of the suites are incredibly nice, with separate bedrooms and bathrooms for each person and in-unit washers and dryers, while others are just one room split between 3 people, without even a door to the bathroom. Our room is somewhere in the middle - we have a nice big common room and kitchen and 2 bedrooms, a triple that I am in (I got top bunk unfortunately) and a double right next door.
We are on the 4th floor (3rd by South African counting), and probably the best aspect of our room is the balcony that overlooks the beach and has a stunning view of Lion's Head. On the other side, we're greeted with a clear view of Table Mountain and the 12 Apostles when we walk out the front door.
The main street we are on is lined with fancy restaurants, most of which are pretty good and relatively cheap. They are all sit down places however, so it's kind of annoying some days when you just want to grab something quick. There's also an upscale hotel on the street (there's always an Aston Martin parked right in front of it) where I go to workout in the tiny gym they have most mornings.
At the end of the string of restaurants, the road starts sloping up, and that hill is covered with beautiful houses. There is a lot of construction going on in that area, and some of the new houses are selling for R25 000 000 (~$2 million).
In the mornings, the shuttle would take us up that road into Clifton and through Sea Point and Green Point, to Workshop17 in the Watershed at the Victoria and Albert Waterfront, where our classes were held. The whole trip goes along the coastline and takes about 20 minutes from pick-up to drop-off. The Waterfront is a very touristy area, with the big V&A Mall, a ferris wheel, and tons of restaurants, stores, and museums. The Watershed is a large, open (which makes it pretty cold most days), container that is home to a bunch of retail stalls on the ground floor and classrooms and office spaces on the 1st floor. Our classrooms and the student lounge are really nice and modern, with glass walls looking out over the rest of the Watershed, and are filled with standard desks and chairs and huge comfy beanbags.
Right next to the Watershed, past the Nobel Prize Patio (an area with statues of South Africa's 4 Nobel Peace Prize winners - Albert Lutuli, Desmond Tutu, F.W. De Klerk, and Nelson Mandela), there is a food mart with amazing options. I've tried pretty much every food stand for lunch or dinner, and they're all good! I'll write more about that in my upcoming post on South African food.
For the internship we have worked at 3 different locations - the Aliens office in Longkloof Studios on Kloof Street, the Absa Regional Office in Century City, and the Barclays Rise office in the Woodstock Exchange. Our primary base has been Longkloof Studios, since we are working most directly for Barclays Aliens. It's a hip place with a start-up feel. Everything there is very transparent - the main space is 1 large room with long desks rather than cubicles, and even the few private meeting rooms are either open to the larger room or have glass walls allowing you to see out and in. There's a small lounge in the corner, also complete with bean bags, and a nice kitchen with free snacks where we have mainly been working when we are there.
Last week we also visited 2 other offices, one in Century City and one in the Woodstock Exchange. The Absa Office in Century City had a slightly more corporate feel, but was still very modern and slick. The bank has strict security protocols however, and we weren't even allowed to access the wifi, so we didn't stay long.
The last place we visited was the Barclays Rise office at the Woodstock Exchange. Rise is a program sponsored by Barclays that provides a co-working space and mentorship to companies in their 13-month accelerator program, as well as other companies willing to pay a fee to be there. Again, another very hip space, but I don't actually think it would be nice to work in. All 10 or so companies work out of 1 room that basically just has tables and a few whiteboards on a concrete floor with limited decorations. This could be to limit distractions, but it would still be pretty distracting to work among so many other startups with no almost no privacy. The office is also pretty far out of the way in Woodstock, about a 25 minute drive from Camps Bay, so we most likely will not be returning there.
Our boss has been out of the office quite a bit however, so we can really work from anywhere and at anytime we want, which has been very convenient. It has given us the freedom to explore other places around Cape Town, and we have worked from coffee shops like Truth, Workshop17, Longkloof, and even from our rooms back in Camps Bay.
To start off, I'm living at 32 Camps Bay Dr, in Bakoven, Cape Town (don't bother sending me a letter at this point - it won't get here in time!). In his audiobook I'm currently listening to, Trevor Noah describes Camps Bay as a quiet neighborhood where old, rich white people live (Trevor's father, who is white, retired here), and all the locals are surprised, and somewhat envious, when I tell them I'm staying in Camps Bay. It is quite a beautiful area, right across the street from a white sandy beach lined with palm trees and big boulders jutting out of the water.
The ~200 iX students are staying in a sort of apartment complex with a great diversity of rooms. Some of the suites are incredibly nice, with separate bedrooms and bathrooms for each person and in-unit washers and dryers, while others are just one room split between 3 people, without even a door to the bathroom. Our room is somewhere in the middle - we have a nice big common room and kitchen and 2 bedrooms, a triple that I am in (I got top bunk unfortunately) and a double right next door.
We are on the 4th floor (3rd by South African counting), and probably the best aspect of our room is the balcony that overlooks the beach and has a stunning view of Lion's Head. On the other side, we're greeted with a clear view of Table Mountain and the 12 Apostles when we walk out the front door.
The main street we are on is lined with fancy restaurants, most of which are pretty good and relatively cheap. They are all sit down places however, so it's kind of annoying some days when you just want to grab something quick. There's also an upscale hotel on the street (there's always an Aston Martin parked right in front of it) where I go to workout in the tiny gym they have most mornings.
Last week we also visited 2 other offices, one in Century City and one in the Woodstock Exchange. The Absa Office in Century City had a slightly more corporate feel, but was still very modern and slick. The bank has strict security protocols however, and we weren't even allowed to access the wifi, so we didn't stay long.
The last place we visited was the Barclays Rise office at the Woodstock Exchange. Rise is a program sponsored by Barclays that provides a co-working space and mentorship to companies in their 13-month accelerator program, as well as other companies willing to pay a fee to be there. Again, another very hip space, but I don't actually think it would be nice to work in. All 10 or so companies work out of 1 room that basically just has tables and a few whiteboards on a concrete floor with limited decorations. This could be to limit distractions, but it would still be pretty distracting to work among so many other startups with no almost no privacy. The office is also pretty far out of the way in Woodstock, about a 25 minute drive from Camps Bay, so we most likely will not be returning there.
Our boss has been out of the office quite a bit however, so we can really work from anywhere and at anytime we want, which has been very convenient. It has given us the freedom to explore other places around Cape Town, and we have worked from coffee shops like Truth, Workshop17, Longkloof, and even from our rooms back in Camps Bay.
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