Everyone made it, along with our luggage, to Johannesburg! After a bit of wandering and picking up a free Virgin Mobile SIM card we managed to find our ride to the hotel, a lovely short woman who is the South African doppleganger of my mother. She brought us to her truck, we placed our luggage in the trailer, and then sat for another 30 minutes as we made our way to Sandton.
There is a stark difference between the old world and new here, yet they manage to live just fine side by side.
This area of the city looks, and functions, most similarly to Long Island. There are tons of businesses and business oriented hotels. There are mostly malls and shopping centers and from what I can see few apartment buildings.
On the ride we learned that there is a nearly 40% unemployment rate and a lot of beggars. There is also a renewal happening in Johannesburg which has been plagued with crime. Some areas are even being called by the locals "Brooklyn-esque" - I wonder if that means that they have started selling overpriced food and waxing their moustaches?
After dropping our things in the hotel, showering, and fighting the urge to sleep we headed off to the mall to find food. We went to a Greek restaurant and were shocked how inexpensive, yet fancy, things were. I had a sirloin steak that is considered "pricey" by Sputh African standards but with conversion came to $11.40 USD. CRAZY!
After eating too much and wanting to nap as a result we decided to walk it off instead, especially since we were right near Nelson Mandela Square.
I don't know about anyone else but when I heard Nelson Mandela Square I envisioned a sort of oasis in a city - grass, some plant life, benches mad a bronze statue of Mandela. It's not clear if that was what it looked like before the mall, but now it's pretty much just the statue outside one of the mall exits. Pretty disappointing.
So a quick stop at the statue to take our customary photo and then onwards for our journey to find Woolworths. That was Liz's goal and I'm glad we went. It was like a combination of Walmart and Harrods. They had cheaper clothes laid out like Target and then a supermarket that had everything!
We filled up on snacks and water. I found a place to fill up my cellphone and then we started the walk back to the hotel. A quick change and then we met up again in the hotel bar. $2.50USD shots of Jameson. I went with my default drink, double Jameson, and we had a few local wines. It definitely helped us acclimate to the time change.
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