A very full day, but would you expect less? I suppose you could say it some ways it started when I awoke from a few hours sleep on the plane and discovered I crossed the equator unaware, so had a slight disappointment in that, but felt my earring tingling, not really but it sounded good to say. At that point I turned on ‘40 Year Old Virgin’ and saw a good chunk of it, which was very funny. Then we landed. After waiting a bit, we exited the plane and boarded a shuttle bus. We went through customs quickly and I tried to call my parents and after that left. And with a confused look on my face, a man came up to me, shook my hand and said “Are you looking for a taxi?” I told him I was and he said it would cost me 320 Rand (which is about US$53.00 or so). I asked him to let me go get some money from the ATM. He said that was fine, and I did, though I knew I was being ripped off, I just wanted to get to the hostel. We went to his car in the parking garage and were off.
Johannesburg seemed like a decently sized city, and my cab driver and I talked a lot along the way, about Boxing Day (which this day happened to be), and white South Africans, whom he did not have a great opinion of. We arrived at the hostel and I had a walk around, but at the front desk we had some dispute over the cost of me staying the night. I was very dazed but went downstairs and finished the Christmas entry in this journal. Afterward I laid in my unusual round room for a while. Then an extremely sweet Australian girl with the softest voice came into the room, I talked to her a bit and learned that her boyfriend had been in hospital for a few days. They needed to catch up to their tour the next day by airplane. I asked her if I could accompany them for some food, which she said would be okay. I met Christine’s (the girl) boyfriend Justin outside and we all got along famously and walked to the nearby BP and I got some beef flavored chips. We then went back and they made toast with cheese and put beans on it, giving me some.
We talked about everything from dietary habits to currencies. After a while I took a fairly long nap. When I awoke we went out to eat at a mall called Hyde Park Corner. We went to a restaurant there, where I got a carbonare dish and it was surprisingly cheap. After supper we walked back to the hostel, and they went to bed. I also wanted to, but instead tried to write this entry, which I began but ended up mostly watching Gods & Generals on television instead. Eventually just going to bed.