Day 3 continued.

8:40 pm
Johannesburg, ZA

Note to self: 15 minutes in Joburg time= 4 hours.

Yep, waited that long for a driver to pick me up. I was really frustrated and not a very happy camper this morning/afternoon. (Understatement). Joburg is apparently the type of city where you must take tours everywhere. It's not very tourist friendly, nor friendly towards the type of people like me who hate tours. I eventually got picked up by a young man in his car, which made me really really nervous, but even more nervous when he started talking about how he was going to drop me off at Constitution Hill to meet up with another driver. When we got there, I refused to leave the vehicle. He went to find the other tour guide, who had taken some other people from the Pediatrics Conference on the same tour. They both came over to get me as I sat completely frightened in the car. The tour was not what I signed up for, but I was just glad to be doing something other than sitting in the hotel.

Constitution Hill is an old prison as well as the present day High Court site. Gandhi and Nelson Mandela were both prisoners in this prison, so it was pretty interesting to see.
The High Court is much much smaller than ours, and is located in a beautiful building. Africans live by the saying "Underneath the trees," so everything in the building is centered around this. It's pretty spectacular. After this we drove to Soweto, a township built to answer the overpopulation outbreaks when gold was discovered in ZA. The township is hardly what I think of when I hear township (Hazel Green, WI anyone?). It does house Nelson Mandela's former home. The homes (including Mandela's) all look like one bedroom shacks. In Soweto is the soccer stadium where the final World Cup game was held. Our guide said he believes that once the hype of the World Cup blows over, the city will be dead again. The students in Joburg get out of school early on Fridays to remember the students that were killed while defending freedom. It's neat, they get to go to the museums and monuments and just hang out there. If they are really using these Fridays to celebrate their freedom and those who died for it, it's awesome. Otherwise, who wouldn't enjoy a half day of school every Friday?

Safari tomorrow and archaeological site, and after a rough night of sleep last night and a bad morning I could really use some catching up!
Love and miss you all,
K