Category Archives: South Africa

South Africa vs France

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ZA vs. France – Match Day

After a great sleep in a comfortable bed with an electric blanket and a hot shower I didn’t think it could get any better at La Porte Vase B&B, but I was delighted to be wrong. The breakfast was delicious and quite filling. We had fruit salad with pineapple, papaya, and grapes to start followed by Yogurt and cereal for the second course. Our third and final course was scrambled eggs, 2 sausages, a slice of bacon, grilled mushrooms/tomatoes and toast. Although Kroonstad is not a typical place for foreign tourists, if anyone is driving the N1 in route to Port Elizabeth I would highly recommend La Porte Vase as a sleep stop. It was well worth the money.

It was only a two hour drive to Bloemfontein, so we arrived at Grace Cottage just after twelve in the afternoon to check in. In our room the owners had prepared a very helpful world cup packet with all the information we needed on parking.  Bloemfontein was offering a park and walk option which we decided would probably be easier for exiting the game later. We noticed a big store with a sign saying “uniform store designs custom sports uniforms” that caught our eye and would later visit.

Face painted and anxious to get there we arrived at the park and walk 3 hours before kick off. It was the first FIFA parking to ask to see our official match tickets for entry. I don’t know how it is possible that every time we have parked it has been completely different, I thought they all were supposed to be following the same protocol.

We had a lovely scenic walk to the stadium, passing by the Bloemfontien zoo and Kings park. Bloemfontein is known as the “city of roses” because of the over 4,000 roses bushes in the park and around the rest of the city. Continue reading →

Highveld Driving

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21 June (lost blog post until today 29 Dec)

A late start today meant that the Museums in Newtown must wait for our return to Johannesburg. A last load of laundry was done as we don’t know the next time we will have that access, and a quick cook up of the ‘minced’ meat that we seasoned with Taco seasoning and sour cream, inside terrible burritos. We thought it a novelty to try out the latest in Mexican food here in South Africa, as we had famously made a large serving of Mexican food while in the dorms at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2007. This could not  be topped by our attempt, as the ‘Mexican’ rice was quite a disaster, and the taco seasoning though in a similar package to that sold by El Paso, did not taste like much.

It was a bit surprising in the Pick ‘n Pay (the large supermarket chain started in South Africa and now in many African countries), that the selection has changed very little in the three years we have been out of the country. On a whole, the three major chains, Woolworths, Pick ‘n Pay, Checkers, all draw their products from both the UK and the United States. In most cases it is the best of both worlds (cheap prices on Cadbury Products as there is a factory in Port Elizabeth) and Activa yogurt. However, there are curious absences, such as no tortilla chips or dry stick deodorant. Most stores also seem to plan to sell most of their bakery and dairy products on the same day, as when you enter a store in the evening, the shelves of loafs of bread can be near bear and few bottles of milk left in the dairy section. It is rare to see a large trolley of bread at the checkout as we have seen most South Africans seem to buy what they need for the day, or only two days out. Though we did see a checkout total of R1000 (150 USD) the other day, so perhaps trends are changing. Continue reading →

Kimberley and Emo Adams

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19 July (written 5 months later)

Today we departed Hurlingham Manor early with Elna to get a ride to Park Station. She had a appointment at Wits University (or Univ of Joburg), so she was kind enough to give us a lift for our morning bus ride to Kimberley. We were going on our fifth week in South Africa and had spent much of our time in Gauteng with Elna. But it was on this ride to the train station we learned the most about her. She had grown up in Mafikeng, a border town with Botswana, where her father worked for the train company. She told us one of her earliest memories about Mafikeng was her out on the traintracks watching black migrant laborers heading to the Rand. One of the passengers had spit out a massive piece of chewing gum. Elna picked it up and chewed it, whereapon her mother found out what she had done when she arrived home and proceeded to wash her mouth out with soap. Elna seemed to make it seem that it wasn’t necessarily picking gum off the ground and eating it, but the fact that an African had been chewing it that was the part that needed cleansing.

It has always been of interest to listen to white South Africans, especially Afrikaners for their memories of the second half of the 20th century. They’re made out to be such vile and racist people, yet they were very similar to white Americans of the same era. Continue reading →

Sunday in Newtown

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Enjoyed a lazy Sunday morning and then made our way to Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown.

The square is one of several fan parks around Joburg with large jumbo trons for public viewing, but when we arrived there were very few people walking around. We thought that it would pick up once the games started for the day but it remind quiet with only a few more people trickling in for the match. A unique art feature of the park was a giant red man made of Coca Cola boxes that toward overhead.

Next to Mary Fitzgerald square was the Museum of Africa that I had read about in Lonely Plant and was interested in check out, especially because it was FREE. The entire square was fenced off for the fan park making entrance to the museum a little more challenging. We didn’t feel comfortable walking around along the street because the area around the square is not the safest neighborhood in Joburg, so we decided to go through security for the park and cut across. The security guards could have cared less if I was caring anything illegal; one squeeze of my closed bag and I was cleared to go through. At the other side we realized that there was no exit. I was ready to just hop the fence given that it was only a little taller than waste high, but some security guards who were also looking to get out took the fence apart for us. Continue reading →