The first night, we stayed in the Balalaika Hotel in an area of Joburg called Sandton. Sandton is also the financial district of South Africa. Here is a rather blurry photo of the hotel:
- Bellmen (called Porters) were overly eager to help us with our baggage for a tip. Note: we overtipped them on accident when converting to Rand, so they loved us
- It was very confusing to find our room due to the hotel layout
- Central heat and air are very rare in ZA, but we were thankful to have an "air con" unit in our room which is set in degrees Celsius because they use the Metric System
- In addition to local ZA shows and sports in a variety of languages, TV airs a lot of old American sitcoms and movies
- We haven't seen a washcloth. From what I can tell, they use something a bit larger than hand towels in the shower
- Continental breakfast was full of meats, fruits and bread products I have never seen before. I will have many more posts on the food here, because there are so many interesting items
- Nescafe instant coffee is the coffee of choice
- There were guests from all over the world at our hotel. We heard more than 10 different languages and saw very interesting attire!
On Wednesday morning, we went to the Black & Veatch offices in Sunninghill for orientation and to pick up our rental car. We also took driving lessons because they drive on the opposite side of the road, like in England, and have unique driving laws. Driving here is absolutely INSANE and pretty darn scary. I will do an entire post on this soon. At B&V we learned all about taxes, health insurance abroad, safety and security. More on this later, too.
After orientation, we figured out how to navigate the highways and drove 1.5 hours NE to Witbank, which is where we will be living. We saw a variety of interesting things on our drive, including random people walking on the highways, animals and several shantytowns. It is truly eye-opening to see the level of poverty that exists here. Here is a photo of a shantytown (taken from the car at 120 km):
We have gone house hunting twice and haven't found the right one yet. We will keep you posted on our hunt.
Goodnight!
2 comments:
I'm LOVING these posts. That's funny about the washcloths...hope you brought your loofah! Lavender Lane looks adorable. Like you're on vacay! Too bad Matler has to work ;-) You KNOW what my favorite pic is though. The sausage woggies!! What are their names? And why is the swimming pool covered? Is it chilly there? And what kind of rental car did you get?? Please be funny...
B Weeeeezy!!!!! I did not bring a loofah, so I need to buy one. But first, I have to find one!!! Their stores are so different than ours. You have to go to like 10 places to find what you want. The pool is covered because winter is starting here (southern hemisphere so it's opposite of the U.S.). Stay tuned for a post on the rental car...get excited!!!!!! hahha xoxox
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