Joburg, Part I.

I first flew into Joburg at the beginning of June - I had exchanged a few emails with professors I had never met, and agreed to meet them in Entebbe, Uganda, at a hotel for breakfast. Some people might flinch at such chancey ideas. I was just ready to go.
I spent a day in Joburg at the Ritz backpackers (not highly recommended, but if you are working within a budget, they do at least get you from the airport safely). I thought I'd go out and buy some supplies, so I wandered down the street, slightly jetlagged, to the nearest Spar. It was a nice day, the leaves were changing, I was strolling and breathing autmnal air. It probably should have occurred to me to notice that, as usual, everyone was in their car/SUV, not on the sidewalks. I noticed a charming sign in a parking lot explaining how much they weren't responsible for its users, and thought it would make a nice picture. A man walked past me as I was taking the picture, and I thought perhaps he might think I was a bit nuts. About 3 yards later, an old lady stopped me, in great alarm "Did you not see that black man? Were you not so terribly afraid?" - I suppose different cultures operate differently (ok, so I'm not quite that naiive, but clearly jetlag makes me forget the delights of post-apartheid reconciliation efforts). Ah, Joburg. Of course, in my attempts to actually get to Spar (the grocery store over there), there was no pedestrian route, because nobody walks to the shops, so I had to navigate a high-rise carpark just to get inside. (!)
I also greatly appreciated the artistic intertwining of razorwire and wisteria growing at the youth hostel - time to get out of civilization.