Its Wednesday early afternoon here and I am typing this from the Johannesburg Airport - We are waiting for our flight to Entebbe Uganda and I finally have the internat connection needed to write in this puppy!
The brief so far: We arrived in Joburg on Monday early morning - After a grueling red eye to JFK where we were met by a slew of disgrunted TSA employees (they are somewhat pardoned in retrospect, given that they may have helped apprehend the Time Square car bomber later that day, but why do they have to be so mean to poor sleepy people just trying to take a rest in their empty terminals??). After a layover of several hours we got on the giant South African Airlines flight and were ever so luck in our seating - we had a center aisle with 4 seats to ourselves which was just short of heaven! So three movies, some shut eye, and a lot of eavesdropping on our neighbors later - (I couldn't help myself, the dudes next to us were these American southerners who were whooping it up about the elephants and lions they were going to shoot and take home.. They literally drank like 12 beers each on the 14 hour flight. It was amazing.) - we arrived in Joburg!
We picked up our Europcar rental and then the fun began... The Joburg highways are a lot like LA's - giant and crowded, with the main difference being that all of the drivers sitting on the wrong side of the vehicle and the road. I have rarely ridden in a vehicle driving on the left side of the road and never in the front seat of one - Although Scott is an excellent driver and I am so ever thankful that he is driving (for now, my turn will come), this is a highly disturbing experience the first time you do it.. And we were doing it very very tired, at rush hour, in the rain.. Anyhow, we amazingly got to Jessy and Tim's house in northwestern Joburg (without a map, props to Scott's sense of direction and inexplicable memory of the city from 6 years ago) without a hitch.
My impressions of Joburg initally - Airport is awesome, really nice with many, many well dressed employees asking if you need help. City is a lot like LA, sprawling, with a small downtown of towers, and the majoy streets are pretty much walled off, with all the development behind, making for a pretty unpleasant walking experience..
Back to the action, we arrived at Jessy and Tim's place (gated, like a lot of nice places, a 3-story apartment/condo place) and were so impressed, 2 bedroom/2 bath with a great living room and kitchen as well as a patio. We rested a bit, went to the nearby mall which looked just like a big American mall for food, then Jessy and Tim got home from work. We had a great catch up session, then we went out to dinner in a neighborhood called Park Hurst where we had excellent italian food.
Ok, Scott is telling me this is too much detail! So I am going to wrap up Day 1 and promise that subsequent posts will be quicker and punchier..! Thanks for reading this far!
- Becca (posting from Scott's account)
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