Today I went to the mall...
Finally made it to the gym! 5k in 33 minutes or so. Had a blank moment trying to figure out what speed to set the dang thing at, since it's in kilometers rather than miles. Guessed 5.5mph would be roughly 9kph and was pretty close. The gym here is quite posh - my treadmill had a 15" lcd embedded in it, on which I watched the season final of last years grey's anatomy.
Tonight I was on my own for dinner, since I decided to work out first. There are only a couple of places to go here to be out and about - long street, which is just a downtown street lined with bars and such, and the V&A waterfront - and the waterfront is closer so I went there. The waterfront itself is filled with high end restaurants and entire mini-malls full of African trinkets for tourists to buy, and on one end it has an actual mall. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of yet another fancy-pants dinner, but it's better than KFC so off I went. The mall was still open so I decided to wander in and viola! Real people (mostly teenage mallrats and families), real shops, real random mall food! And best of all, a huge grocery store with a deli. Yay! So instead of shelling out like R140 for a fancy dinner (~$20), I got a panini freshly toasted at the deli and a big bottle of water for R30 (~$4). I am officially a happy girl - the place is huge and has all sorts of food like items. Including a vast array of cheese... MWUAHAHA! It was nice to see real people out and about, instead of stuck up afrikaans/dutch/german tourists (what the hell do I know, they're tall and blond). I also see my first hippies, interracial couples and mixed race groups of teens. Awesome. My cabbie on the way home tells me that his daughter, born in the late 80's, has informed him that the blacks under aparthied were "stupid" to allow things like pass laws (kinda like a hall pass to go to the bathroom, only you had to carry it all times in order to be out on the streets at all, and were often restricted to certain physical locations) to be put into place. This both obviously upsets him and makes him terribly proud, all at the same time. Ah, the confidence of youth.
Tonight I was on my own for dinner, since I decided to work out first. There are only a couple of places to go here to be out and about - long street, which is just a downtown street lined with bars and such, and the V&A waterfront - and the waterfront is closer so I went there. The waterfront itself is filled with high end restaurants and entire mini-malls full of African trinkets for tourists to buy, and on one end it has an actual mall. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of yet another fancy-pants dinner, but it's better than KFC so off I went. The mall was still open so I decided to wander in and viola! Real people (mostly teenage mallrats and families), real shops, real random mall food! And best of all, a huge grocery store with a deli. Yay! So instead of shelling out like R140 for a fancy dinner (~$20), I got a panini freshly toasted at the deli and a big bottle of water for R30 (~$4). I am officially a happy girl - the place is huge and has all sorts of food like items. Including a vast array of cheese... MWUAHAHA! It was nice to see real people out and about, instead of stuck up afrikaans/dutch/german tourists (what the hell do I know, they're tall and blond). I also see my first hippies, interracial couples and mixed race groups of teens. Awesome. My cabbie on the way home tells me that his daughter, born in the late 80's, has informed him that the blacks under aparthied were "stupid" to allow things like pass laws (kinda like a hall pass to go to the bathroom, only you had to carry it all times in order to be out on the streets at all, and were often restricted to certain physical locations) to be put into place. This both obviously upsets him and makes him terribly proud, all at the same time. Ah, the confidence of youth.