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Sunday, June 20

Johannesburg, RSA

After a relaxing and delicious breakfast, care of Sylvia, we spent the morning walking around our Bed & Breakfast‘s neighborhood of Zoo Lake.  There was the little Park View Village area of shops and cafes (where we had bought our cell phone the morning before) and, of course, the eponymous Zoo Lake.  We had a great walk and exploration.  When we headed back to our abode, we were pretty antsy and didn’t want to try to do anything else other than get to the stadium, see the atmosphere there and take in the excitement of our first South African World Cup game.  Sylvia had heard that the train ran every 12 minutes so we decided to head down there at 2:30 – for our 8:30 game!  Sylvia had a driver arranged for us (Justice’s partner, Thibiele) to take us to Park City Station, where we could catch the train to Soccer City for our game in the evening.

Saturday, June 19

Johannesburg, RSA

We had a BIG first day in Jo’burg.  Too big for one post.  We’re going to break it down so it doesn’t feel too overwhelming for us to write it out.  It was a bit overwhelming as we jumped in, feet first, straight to Constitution Hill and the Apartheid Museum – both recounting the tumultuous past of South Africa.

We started the day at our Bed & Breakfast and Sylvia helped us sort through our plans a bit with what was practical and what wasn’t.  It’s hard to determine which sites are in walkable proximity and how best to plan time to make sure we saw and did everything we wanted too.  In addition, as advertised, Jo’burg is not a walkable city and everyone warned us to be cautious (a warning we initially heeded and then progressively tried to overcome).  After our first amazingly delicious breakfast of Sylvia’s, we were picked up by Justice, a driver she arranged for us for the day.

Our first stop was to the little village shops of Zoo Lake so we could pick up a cheap cell phone and some prepaid minutes.  That took no time at all – and now set with a South African phone number, we were on our way to Constitution Hill.  This is a heady place and leaves you with a heavy heart.  It is the site of the Old Fort Prison complex.  There is the Old Fort (where white prisoners were kept), Number Four (for black men), and the Women’s Jail.  The prison was still functional until 1983.  Now, the beautiful new Constitutional Court building is built on the hill using bricks from one of the demolished prison buildings.  We toured through Number Four and it’s exhibits (of note, there is a room documenting Gandhi’s time at Number Four and his time in South Africa) and we walked around the ramparts of the Old Fort.

It was inside Number Four that they posted one of Mandela’s quotes:

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by
how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”
— Nelson Mandela

Justice then drove us over to the Apartheid Museum near Soweto.  Again it was another thought-provoking experience for us and filled in the gaps of our education.  The museum truly illustrates how treating others unequally can get out of control and makes a good case for exercising judicious caution in the present and future.

Our favorite part of the museum was a temporary exhibit celebrating the life of Nelson Mandela.  It was awesome! We learned so much from that exhibit.  Jeannette thinks it’s crazy that the OJ Simpson trial made more of an impact in her high school than the long-awaited release of Nelson Mandela.  Our favorite quote from that exhibit was:

“The cell is an ideal place to know yourself.  People tend to measure themselves by external accomplishments, but jail allows a person to focus on internal ones, such as honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, generosity and an absence of variety.  You learn to look into yourself.”
— Nelson Mandela

We decompressed from this very serious morning with a cappuccino at the Museum and then continued on our drive with Justice.

Number Four:

Old Fort Ramparts:

Josh taking photos of the city:

The view from the ramparts:

The stairs that lead up Constitution Hill between the Constitutional Court building and the prison:

The Constitutional Court:

The Apartheid Museum:

Thursday, June 17 to Friday, June 18

Boston, MA USA to AMS to Johannesburg, RSA

After our beers at the Harpoon Taproom, we had a short 7 hour flight to Amsterdam.  We had just enough time for cappuccinos and pastries at Schiphol before our not-so-short 11 hour flight to Johannesburg.

We were pretty bummed after our flights.  The pilot notified us of the Celtics Game 7 loss on the first flight – we were so depressed we didn’t even bring it up for days.  Then the pilot of the second flight notified us of the USA-Slovenia 2-2 tie (a game we had expected to win).  We didn’t find out until later that the USA came back strong and that it was a pretty good game.  Hearing just the final score was a big downer.   We were hoping for better things for our teams while in the air.

Back on land, because we had FIFA certificates, we got through the passport line super quick.  Then, because we didn’t check any bags, we beat everyone to customs where we had nothing to declare.  This was all very important because we had to pick up our tickets in person at the FIFA counter, which closed just 1/2 hour after our flight landed.  We just made it in time to get our tickets.

They had porters to help everyone.  A porter got us to the FIFA desk (which was tucked out of the way in the airport), to the ATM, and to the proper taxis where he tried to make sure the cabbie knew where he was taking us.  Unfortunately, it turned out the cabbie only knew our general neighborhood of Zoo Lake, but didn’t know our street.  He was nice though.  We asked if he had a map and he handed it to us, for us to find Dee Street.  Then after we found it and showed him – he asked us where we were on the map right now! Once we sussed everything out, he took us right there.  The next problem was that we didn’t think it looked right!  It wasn’t signed (turns out that is normal — good safety practice) and it just looked like a really nice house.  We didn’t think we were in the right place at all, but our cabbie just drove right up and buzzed the gate and we were in!  The owner and Zoo Lake Bed & Breakfast were gorgeous!  We highly recommend Sylvia and her Zoo Lake B&B to anyone staying in Jo’burg!

The Front Gate:

The Grounds in Back:

The crane drinks from the pool!:

The sitting area in the sunroom where we ate breakfast every day:

Our B&B puppy, Savannah!  They also had two cats!:

This was our room for the first two nights.  We changed rooms when Sylvia found out that a new round of her guests about to come were not couples (FIFA only gives one name and the number of total guests) and this room we were in could be converted to single beds.  We didn’t mind at all.  But our room was gorgeous!

We moved to THIS gorgeous room!  The whole place is gorgeous!