Johannesburg

I am terrible. I have lived in South Africa for 22 out of the 23 years of my life, and yet I have never travelled around the country. Sure, I have visited Plettenberg Bay pretty much every year of my life; sure I studied in Grahamstown which is ten hours away from my Cape Town home. But still, there are so many places that I haven't explored.

One of the places that I feel I haven't gotten to know nearly well enough is Johannesburg. When people think of South Africa, the first two cities that generally come to mind are Johannesburg and Cape Town, and yet I have only ever been to Joburg twice, and have never done any real exploring on either of those occasions. The first time was spent driving through the outskirts of the city to get to Sun City and the second time was mostly spent in Benoni and the towns that lie just outside of Johannesburg. This is why I was kind of looking forward to heading there last weekend.

It was Sam's twenty-first (Sam being Grant's sister) and Grant's dad had been kind enough to buy us each a ticket to come down for the occasion. The event itself was on a Friday, which meant that Grant had to work a half-day and we started on our way to the airport at 12:15. The check-in for our flight closed at 13:35. We could totally make it. We all climbed into the car and started on our way to the highway.
But wait.
We needed to fetch Grant's jacket from the drycleaner.
Slam on brakes.
Back track.
12:30 and we were back on the road again, speeding a little but not too badly. Just trying to catch up on some lost time. The tunes were pumping, we were all singing along. Everything was hunky dorey and we were making good time. And then...
Slam on brakes.
Procession of cars in front of us held up by two different trucks, both going ridiculously slowly.
This procession lasted for at least half an hour and when we finally managed to overtake, there was no doubt about it. We were going to be late.
Shaun (Grant's brother) tried to phone the airline and check-in over the phone, but alas, no such luck. 1Time does not allow for check-ins over the phone. We had no choice but to hightail it there and try not to get caught by any of the notorious Port Elizabeth speed cameras. Thankfully, we arrived at the airport with about five minutes to spare and Shaun ran to the queue to hold our places while I carried the luggage and Grant parked the car. With about a minute to spare, we checked into the flight and went straight through security and onto the plane.
Sighs of relief were breathed.

The flight to Johannesburg was quite an entertaining one in itself as Grant and I eavesdropped on the argument that Shaun started with the religious girl sitting next to him about how stupid and pointless and unreasonable religion was. Shaun is, of course, an atheist. We merely sat behind him shaking our heads and trying to pretend not to know him, giggling at the look on the flight attendant's face when she realised what they were talking about. Evidently, she agreed that this was not a conversation that should be had in the middle of a flight with no way to leave.

Once we had arrived in Joburg and were on solid ground once more, we made our way to the venue for the 21st and immediately started setting up - blowing up balloons and placing them at all of the tables; setting up the main meal, dessert and tea areas and getting the spit-braai started. A couple of hours later, we finally arrived at the house and had to start getting ready immediately for the party that was to come. Dressing up in the dress that I had worn for my own 21st (since the theme was the same), we quickly got ready and made our way back to the venue to carry on getting things ready. Once the guests started arriving, the birthday girl started calming down. The disaster of the chocolate fountain and the DJs who had neglected to bring her music and had replaced it with their own doof-doof alternatives were quickly forgotten and she slowly started having fun. The rest of the night went smoothly with dinner being served (a perfect spit), toasts being made and alcohol being drunk. Needless to say, Sam and her boyfriend both ended up getting completely sloshed, with the boyfriend taking the brunt of the beating at the hands of his father who wanted to "raise the boy's tolerance." He ended up spending the night hugging the toilet in Grant's spare bathroom and retching non-stop until about 9am.

Saturday morning greeted a number of hungover individuals (me not being one of them) and Grant and I sat around playing Boggle with Shaun and Rob (Grant's dad) until about 12:45, when we decided that we should probably start getting ready if we were going to meet my cousin for lunch at 1:30. We quickly got showered, dressed and freshened up and were on the road by 1. Unfortunately, we hadn't been on it long before we hit some major traffic. Traffic on a Saturday morning? That's Joburg for you apparently! We hadn't been in the traffic for long when Grant noticed the little orange light blinking out of the corner of his eye.
"Uh... we have no petrol."
Forty-five minutes later, we were still well stuck in the traffic with no sign of it relieving and the car was starting to feel like it would stall any minute. After an hour in traffic (and being half an hour late already) we finally found an exit and only just made it to the petrol station on time.
Phew. One less thing to worry about. Now we just had to get to the restaurant where Daniel would have already been waiting for half an hour.
After driving through the centre of Joburg only to turn onto a different highway and go in the opposite direction, we finally found ourselves nearing Waverley and quickly found the restaurant that Daniel was waiting at. After a quick introduction to his friend, Danielle, we went into the restaurant to get some food from the buffet only to find that (thanks to the late hour) there was hardly any of it left. Despite this, we paid R200 for a couple of small plates of food and then went on our way. Not wanting to go our separate ways quite yet, we decided to head to Zoo Lake where we had fun watching the geese (and the people attempting to feed them) and went on a boatride on the lake where Grant decided it would be HILARIOUS to row us into the fountain. None of us were particularly impressed, least of all Daniel who practically jumped out of the boat to stop himself getting wet. When we got off, we decided to go for a quick walk around the lake and then headed back to our cars.

On the drive back to Grant's house, we couldn't help but notice the number of Jews that we were passing, walking on their way to shul (synagogue).
"Wouldn't it be funny if Gina lived in this area?"
We were going to be seeing Gina later that night so that I could see where she lived, meet her fiance and get the material for my dress (me being a bridesmaid and all). We shrugged off the question, figuring that Joburg was a big place and she probably stayed in one of the other Jewish areas - there had to be quite a few, we were sure. When I phoned Gina after sundown and she told me that she lived in Oaklands, I figured it probably wasn't the place we had driven through earlier. I had seen numerous signs there telling me that we were in Glenhazel, not Oaklands. As we got into the car and the Garmin started pointing us in the same direction, we started getting suspicious. When we started seeing sites that we had passed hours earlier, we knew that our earlier suspicions weren't too far off. Oaklands was, in fact, pretty close to Glenhazel. It was too bad that we hadn't been able to contact Gina earlier and spend more time with her during the day.

After meeting with Gina at a petrol station (she didn't know her address, having recently moved), we travelled together to the apartment that her and her fiancee will be living in when they get married in two month's time. As she had only moved in days before, the apartment was in a bit of a state, but that was to be expected, and it didn't take away from the awesomeness of the place itself. Grant immediately fell in love with the giant TV that Joel had insisted they buy, and while he studied it carefully, Gina and I slipped into the bedroom where she showed me the material and design of my bridesmaid dress. I instantly fell in love with it and can't wait to have it made! After showing us around and changing out of her shul clothes, it was time for some food and we headed to Great Burgers - a Kosher burger place in Glenhazel itself. It was only the second time that Grant had had a Kosher meal, and despite his teasing on the way that he was just dying for a cheese burger (Jews cannot eat meat and milk together, so cheese burgers are a serious no-no), his Kosher burger did seem to exceed his expectations. After dinner, we had a quick tour of the neighbourhood, seeing where Gina's old apartment was, where she works, driving past the Yeshiva Academy that I heard so much about during my high school years and finally showing me where Joel works. Since Joel caters events like batmitzvahs and there was one happening that night, he was at work and I got a chance to go in and meet him even though he was ridiculously busy and not too up to chatting. In any case, it was nice to finally meet the guy that one of my best friends is going to marry, even if it was only for a minute or two and even if it did feel excessively awkward standing amongst people in their Saturday best with me in a pair of tracksuit pants and a t-shirt. As we drove Gina back to her apartment, her and I discussed some of the wedding plans. Since I have to make my way to Joburg for the event, I needed to know when to book my flights. Gina calmly informed me that her bachelorette is being planned for 8 days before the wedding, which set me into a bit of a tizzy since I will hopefully have found work by then and can't really take off that much time, nor fork out that much money for accommodation if I don't have a job. But despite this little hiccup, I am really looking forward to coming down to see my HSBFF (High School Best Friend Forever) get hitched. We arrived back at Grant's place without too much difficulty and before his parents did, as they had been at a Neil Diamond concert, and chatted abit with Shaun and Grant's dad and stepmom (when they arrived) before calling it a night and heading to bed. We had to be up early the next morning after all.

Sunday morning dawned and we all packed into the car with the bags that Grant and I had shared at the back and started making our way to the airport. After a quick breakfast at Mugg and Bean and a hurried goodbye, our trip to Joburg was drawn to a close. Even after spending a weekend properly travelling around it, I still feel like I hardly know the city, and I don't think I am the only one. I think you have to have lived in Joburg for a long time to consider yourself knowledgable enough to say that you know the city. But I can tell you what I do know - what with the traffic and the size of the city itself, I am rather glad that I don't live there.