Beginning of Holiday

My holiday started Wednesday March 27 at 12:30.  I rushed from work to pick up my boyfriend Dan from the Sandton Gautrain station.  He agreed to take the Gautrain (a light rail system making stops in Joburg and Pretoria from the airport, most easily pronounced by English speakers as "How-train").  From the station we went to meet Johan Manefeldt, an artist, at his home studio in the south of Johannesburg.  We decided on two paintings, one of a windmill in the Karoo and one of the colouful buildings of District 6 in Cape Town with Table Mountain in the background.  That night we made ostrich burgers for dinner, yummm!

On Thursday, we left early to pick up my old roommate's cousin (David) from the airport.  Since it was just me and the boys, I thought a rugby game might be a good idea.  We went to see Innocent play at St. Stithians for the Easter festival.  Apparently the Easter festival is quite a big deal.  There was even a beer tent!  Not quite good enough beer for us though so after the rugby game we headed to Gilroy's, a brewery and beer garden in the west of Joburg.  While we were there, the owner Gilroy came out to give a toast and chug a beer.  We headed home for more ostrich burgers and then went to pick up Sarah (former roommate and BATS cohort member) and Jessica (another fellow BATS member) from the airport.

The following day we slept in quite a bit since everyone else had just recently spent about 30 hours traveling.  We were planning on going to the Apartheid Museum that day, but I realized the day before that they might be closed for Good Friday, which they were.  We decided instead on Bush Babies Monkey Sanctuary.  We had a good time there, even though there were some South African hicks on our tour (or "common people" as they would be called here).  They refused to leave their bags in the lockers as they were asked to and as a result one of the monkeys ("little thieves") stole gum and cigarettes.  Thankfully Apie (the monkey) also spent some time with members of our group even though we didn't have gum and cigarettes to share.  That night we went to a restaurant close to my apartment for dinner and drinks and went to bed relatively early to prepare for our early departure on safari the following morning!

One of the paintings Dan and I bought

Dan and Apie crossing the "Bridge of Courage"

Lunch time at the monkey sanctuary