No, I didn’t temporarily lose hold of my senses while trying to spell “neighborhoods” – Neighbourgoods is a fun, partially enclosed market in the central business district (CBD) of Joburg showcasing local merchants selling all manner of goodies: organic wine, raw chocolate, French cheese, thin crust pizza, empanadas, fresh baked bread, fruit smoothies, raw honey, […]
This weekend marked our first real weekend away from Joburg, and it was all I hoped it could be. Al and I and three friends (Josh, Ken, and Elli) spent the weekend hiking, braai-ing, and drinking in the Drakensberg Mountains and, let me tell you, it was glorious. The Drakensberg Mountains run along the western […]
We’re taking a weekend trip to the scenic Drakensberg mountains and will be gone until Sunday afternoon. So there will be no blog updates this weekend, but I’ll be sure to fill you all in as soon as I’m back. In the meantime, please enjoy this ridiculous photo of some of the services offered at the […]
Big day, guys. Today, Al and I became the proud owners of a 2008 Toyota Yaris. We went to the “car dealership” (full disclosure: it’s a repo lot) this morning and then I attempted to drive myself back home, following Al. But first we had to get gas at a specific gas station, because the […]
On Saturday evening, Al and I hosted our first braai (barbeque). Braai is the Afrikaans word for barbeque or grill. In a traditional braai, the meat is cooked over wood, but nowadays a lot of South Africans use plain ol’ charcoal briquettes just like everybody else. Al went to the store on Saturday and purchased […]
Another milestone achieved today: I attended my first exercise class in South Africa. For me, attending an exercise class in another country is always an exciting and nerve-wracking experience and, therefore, a rite of passage into a new culture. I’ve written before about the vastly different spinning experiences I’ve had in different countries and about […]
… To say that things are somewhat coming together over here. We don’t have the stuff that we shipped from DC (but it’s being delivered Friday, supposedly). I still don’t have a desk. Our toilet leaks. We only have one (rental) car and one set of housekeys between the two of us. And last night […]
Given that I don’t have a car or phone here in Joburg, I am pretty much housebound. Also, I’m married, so I guess this makes me, quite literally, a housewife. Depressing. Give me a couple weeks and I’ll be hiding bottles of vodka in the oven and snapping at the children, Betty Draper-style. Today I, […]
Yesterday I was introduced to cricket, the second most popular sport in South Africa (after soccer and before rugby), and, I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. Being an ignorant American, my impression of cricket was that it was a gentlemanly (read: boring) “sport” in which the players wear sweater vests and take frequent […]
Since arriving in South Africa, my life has been punctuated by a series of small adventures: Al has driven on the left-hand side of the road without killing us both in a fiery wreck. We spotted a white-tail deer at a country estate. I tried biltong (cured game jerky) and ostrich. And now, we are […]
