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| 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.
"You're doing fine, love. Turn signal is on the other side. Looks like we drifted a bit, let's move left." [1]
I am so darn happy the company lent us a car! It's a small, silver Toyota Yaris that I strongly intend to nickname "Lefty" once I get Jess's assent. (And yes, the tagline on the Toyota website is indeed: "Yaris! It's a car!" It's small enough to be confused with a choking hazard toy.) Despite the teasing, Jess did an excellent job of driving around last night as we scoured the town for food. Her first car had been a stick and, while that was 13 years ago, the experience was apparently like riding a bike. Only faster.
I took Lefty out this morning for a bit of exploring while Jess fought with the water heater. The heater "won" by the way -- showers here are invigorating! Although I hadn't driven stick in four years, I had learned in Pakistan (meaning I had no other-side-of-the-road bad habits) and really don't drive much in the States (so few good habits either).* I certainly didn't start off as well as Jess did and stalled a good half-dozen times in one of the parking structures. I was glad she wasn't there to laugh witness.
Nelson Mandela Square, near our apartment, was surprising if a bit odd. I had come to Johannesburg expecting a city like 'Pindi or even Amman. Instead, the northern suburbs are full of good restaurants, designer haircuts, and suits with creases so sharp they could give you paper cuts. The mall at Nelson Mandela Square would put South Coast Plaza to shame. There is real poverty in this country and unemployment north of 25%, but even outside our immediate area looks no worse than most places I've been in the States. Clearly, more exploring is called for.
We did find Jo'burg's own Hyde Park (picture below), which left us a bit nostalgic for Chicago friends. Oh, and the local term for traffic lights is "robots" although the orange billboard pictured is much more fun without that trivia.
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| Let's go jogging! |
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| Puts South Coast Plaza to shame. |
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| All hail our robot overlords! |
Late afternoon, we took a quick trip to Melville, a neighborhood just north of the Central Business District.
It's a cute area that bore strong resemblance to (strangely enough) Hyde Park back in Chicago, albeit only a few square blocks and far, far fewer hipsters. A cute place with huge amounts of character. We'll definitely return and brave the neighborhood's bizarre traffic circles to enjoy its cute shops and famous music scene.
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* If I haven't heard it already, there's a great story of how I learned to drive stick with nothing more than instructions printed from the internet and my incredibly patient and well-armed Pashto guards.
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Jess's Footnotes:
[1] After the office manager picked us up at the train station after our 30+ hours of travel, she drove us to pick up our rental car. It was agreed that I'd drive first since I actually owned a manual once and TJ's experience was limited to a few months in Someplace-stan. So into the car we went - after me trying to get to the driver's seat from the passenger side - and off we drove into traffic. Things went fine for the most part...
Except for the one time I ran a red light, stalled in the middle of the intersection, couldn't figure out how to turn off the darn windshield wipers and then almost drove into oncoming traffic. But other than that, driving was a breeze. :)
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