Wrapping up Joburg

Well tomorrow we leave Joburg. We've done just about everything I've wanted to do while we've been here and met some interesting people along the way. A couple differences I've noticed so far between Africa and the US. First, driving on the left side of the road really isn't that difficult. Getting used to driving like a South African is. Yesterday, on what I would assume was a two-lane road, it was turned into a four lane road. Cars are inches from each other where ever they go. There is also less order in changing lanes, avoiding other traffic, making turns, etc. You just have to be paying attention at all times. I've never heard so many hoots (honks) in my life either. Not the American kind where you slam on your horn because some idiot cut you off. No, these white vans, the informal taxi service, that fit about 15 crammed people honk at every person walking down the road. Then the person gives a hand signal as to where they need to go. If the bus is going there, he stops. If not, he keeps driving.


To go back to where I left off after the USA-Australia game, we'll start on Sunday. Sunday we went into the one of the posh suburbs, Sandton, and walked around the shopping mall and got our match tickets. One of the few places where we don't really stand out all that much. Tried a butter naan. Tastiest 50 cents I've ever spent. Pretty much a dull day.

On Monday, we took a tour of Soweto, where both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu have lived. Also the site of the Soweto Uprising where thousands of teenagers and younger staged a march against learning strictly in Afrikaans. Makes me want to go back to DC to check out our museum and history again. Tried chakalaka and pap, both traditional African foods. Very tasty and eaten with your hands. Our tour guide also took us to a shebeen which is basically a bar in the back of someone's house. Comparable to a speakeasy would be my guess. Took a tour of Alexandra, a suburb that consists of informal housing and formal housing where there are 1.3 million people in a 1.5 square mile radius. As we drive by one of the kids yelled out 'White boy!' in African and we had a laugh about that.

Starting to run out of time on the hour I paid for the internet. Tuesday got up and took a couple guys from Spokane to the car rental place. Then headed to the Apartheid Museum. Pretty moving stuff. There for about 3 hours and feel like I need to relearn more about our own history.

Today was more of an fun learning experience. We went down into Joburg again to a restaurant and ordered chicken livers as an appetizer and a couple things I can't pronounce as a main meal. Turns out it was the main dish was cow liver. It was tasty at the time but not sure if I could chow it down again. Then it was off to the SAB World of Beer. Took a tour that went through the history of beer from all over the world and naturally had to taste a couple of them.

I'm out of time on the computer. Good day!