What's good about Good Friday in Jo'Burg

2nd April
Raining, not a downpour but more of (once again like Melbourne!) that constant drizzle. The fridge had been stocked with breakfast and we had bought fruit salad the day before so we ate well. We then walked up to the local shops, about fifteen minutes downhill one way and up hill coming home, apparently safe to walk around this neighbourhood although we were the only white people we have seen doing so. This is where the exchange rate is particularly favourable. Chicken fillets, mushrooms, snap peas, mushroom sauce, bag of pasta, bread and milk for 122 Rand which is about $24.
When we got back decided to try out the wireless internet supposedly available in the cottage. After many attempts and Bosi trying her best to help we gave up. Maybe we could watch TV instead. Three TV stations, one of which was the sports channel which now I think only shows rugby union. Once again Bosi tried – told us we should have more channels but nothing she did could fix it. We decided to spend the extra money and use global roaming on our phones to download emails and send very important text messages to Mum to let her know we had arrived safely and to Curly to find out if the Lions had won the footy (Go Browny!!!). An hour later and Bosi came to the door. Hilary had rung to ask us to ring her. The phone in the cottage that was supposed to receive calls wasn’t working so she had been unable to contact us. For some reason I couldn’t text her using my phone but could make an expensive international call to her just around the corner. She invited us to the movies at 5pm with dinner after. We arranged for her to ring our number on the intercom, but yes of course that wasn’t working either but once again Bosi to the rescue and we set off. Hyde Park is a large shopping ‘mall’ or ‘centre’ just like any other we have been to in Australia, New Zealand, or the USA. It was only 15 minutes into the movie that I realised that maybe I was a bit over watching movies after 13 hours on a plane doing nothing else. And the movie was The Hurt Locker, one of the most depressing movies I have seen for a long time. Hilary’s husband John and a friend of hers, Susan, were with us, and after the movie we ate at a seafood restaurant in the mall, very good fresh fish. Hilary told John to take special care ordering the wine as she wants to show off SA reds to us Aussie wine drinkers.