South Africa Tidbits

This past Sunday I did more driving-probably a good 20 minutes. But I spent all my time focusing on coordinating driving a stickshift and Dan had to keep telling me to watch out for the curb and to stay in the middle of the road. Because the steering wheel is on the right side of the car I have no concept of how much space the car is taking up to the left of me. It’s so weird. It will take lots more practice before I drive by myself. It’s so nice to drive on real roads on Sundays because hardly anyone is out. Nothing is open in the afternoon so there’s no reason for people to be out unless they’re learning to drive like me. 

Lucas just came and asked for milk. That’s been a highlight and the most purchased item on our grocery list. We love that we have fresh milk again!!!! Dan’s so happy to have a toaster and loves having toast for breakfast almost every morning. Alexis is happy that Rice Krispies is one of the most popular cereals here. I’m happy that I can find brown sugar! Our first few trips to the grocery store were overwhelming to say the least. Several of the stores remind us of Wal-mart but we haven’t seen that much stuff in one place in a long time. The aisles were long and there were so many choices.

Figuring out prices is a whole different game. In Dakar we used “cfa.” For awhile 500 cfa = about $1. So we learned to divide everything by 500. Not so hard. Here the currency is called the rand. Right now $1 = about 8 rand. I just have to keep remembering to divide by the right number! And cooking using Celsius, grams and milliliters is a little tricky when my recipes are in cups, tablespoons and teaspoons! I must admit that so far everything I’ve cooked has turned out fine and my math skills have greatly improved!

A Morning Adventure

We were watching Mary Poppins just last night when I happened to see a mouse run out into the living room and back behind some boxes. We looked all over but never found him. At 4am I heard some scratching on the door. I got up and closed the door to our bedroom thinking he was still in the living room and we’d get him later. Then the scratching came from a different part of our bedroom. I sat straight up in bed and Dan acknowledged he’d heard it too. Oh my! The mouse finally came running out from under our bed and Dan got him! Good thing because I wouldn’t have been able to go back to sleep! We really do experience something new here everyday!

The Lion Park

Lion Park

One of the most popular things to do when visiting Johannesburg is to visit the Lion Park. We were excited to visit the four lion sections but first we had some other fun that included feeding a giraffe and petting lion cubs. We took a drive through one part of the game park that had antelope, zebra, wildebeest, ostrich and other animals. Then we drove through the lion part of the park. We chose to view the lions after they had been fed because we knew they’d be more active. We weren’t disappointed! We were able to view lions that were often within 5 feet of our car and the guys really liked it when a couple of them fought over a chunk of meat. So, here are some snapshots of our adventure!