Dinner Dialogue

Best meal yet in South Africa: savory lamb shank with mashed potatoes and buttered vegetables for TJ; pasta with butternut squash, bay leaves, and burned butter for Jess. And for dessert...  delectable, amazing, caramel-y, bananna-ish, rich, moist, and utterly amazing malva pudding. Here is a snippet of our dinner dialogue while savoring the last few bites of possibly the best thing I've ever eaten in my life, after epic failure of truly valiant efforts to go salsa dancing:

Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa

Today was our first day at Edge Growth, a social private equity fund in Johannesburg. To understand what the company does it's important to first understand the country's Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) program. BEE was launched in 2007 in an attempt to address inequality in education, skill development, and overall opportunity as a result of Apartheid.

Some adventures in cars (D +1)

Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton

The Republic of South Africa is one of the 30-or-so countries in the world that drive on the left side of the road.  An odd piece of trivia, sure.  But it's a useful if difficult one to keep at the front of mind while maneuvering a stick-shift at +80kph.  Once running a red light.  With the windshield washer dancing crazily despite the absence of rain.

ARRIVED

We have arrived in Johannesburg!!  And it appears there is internet connectivity in our apartment: while bytes seem to travel single file in a patient and very unhurried queue, this still exceeds expectations and should make blogging easier and any lack of notes to my mother inexcusable (Hi Mom!).  In fact, everything about this place exceeds expectations:  It's a very nice, small one-bedroom apartment above a private house in Sandton - one of the nicer neighborhoods and only 4.4km (2.7mi) away from the office.  Some quick pictures are below, but the walls are a pale pink stucco, the rooms are cozy, and in case of food poisoning (Jess reminds me) we have TWO full bathrooms.

A foggy (and then sunny) day in Londontown

We're in London, and so far so good!

It's great to relax after a very hectic few days, especially with my cuddly surprise gift, Prince Harry, pictured above. Thanks to excellent foresight and planning, we decided to move all of our worldly possessions into storage in the midst of a record heat-wave. [1] Moving TJ's things proved especially interesting as he apparently has an aversion to boxes. [2]

I learned this when lifting his boxes into the U-Haul truck. It turned out the circled numbers on each box - 86, 78, 93, etc - were weight. In pounds. I guess after his first few boxes weighed in in the high 70s and low 80s he just accepted this as the "New Normal" (insert geeky economics joke here). [3]

Packing and Breweries! (D -6)

Packing, it seems, may get easier with practice but certainly does not get more fun with time.

Graduation was surreal, of course.  I can't believe that two of the most transformative years of my life passed so quickly and with such an awkward convocation.  In retrospect, I will just claim that the First Epistle of DFW to the Graduates was read as we all listened on.  (And I'm glad to have reason to continue my tradition of reading this every June.)