Mirror

So Johannesburg was a blast last weekend. It is such a cool looking city. It is built on rolling hills, and although it is gigantic, it doesn't feel overwhelming, which is nice. The city is decked out for the World Cup. Any space that could have a huge poster hung on it was sure to have one and they just stuck giant soccerballs at the top of most of the buildings. I got to see the outside of the new stadium there too which was really cool. We were also supposed to go to the apartheid museum while we were there, but it was closed. Instead we went to Constitutional Hill, which was also really cool. It used to be a prison during apartheid for both black and white people, men and women. The current supreme court is located there too, although they left much of the old prison in tact. It was really interesting, but I will not bore you with the details of the museum. I will just say that if you ever find yourself in South Africa, pay a visit.

As I said in my last post, I was mainly in Johannesburg for a retreat and for reflection over the past two months. Let me tell you, if I reflected any more, I am sure that I would've actually turned into a mirror. It was really nice, though, and very relaxing. Everything was about being peaceful and soothing. We had an avacado tree growing in our back yard. Naturally we were on a ladder within about an hour trying to get them down. We eventually had to climb up on the roof and walls to reach them, we got about 8 in the end. Now we have delicious guacamole in our fridge. I still don't understand my body's relationship with avacados, however. I know I am mildly allergic to them when I just eat them by themselves, especially if they are not ripe. But for some reason I can eat tons of guacamole without any problems. Katie, coincidently enough, has very similar allergies as me. She cannot eat melons of any kind and avacados bother her too. She is more allergic to these things than me, but it did make me feel a little better that there might actually be some rational behind this problem.

We are friends with an Indian family here, the Josephs, who have basically integrated us into their family as daughters. We went there this past weekend for food and games and I had the most delicious thing. It was fish brayani, and the fish was baracuda. No joke, I thought I was eating pork for about 10 minutes because the baracuda was so different than other types of fish. They are also taking us to Durban with them this weekend. We leave at 4 a.m. tomorrow morning and it is about an 8 hour drive. We will get back in the middle of the night on Sunday. Hopefully I will be able to sleep away most of the driving. I don't know exactly what we are doing there, but knowing the Josephs, food will be a huge part of the weekend. My only goal is to go swimming in the ocean. The water is supposed to be a swimmable temperature, which is all I am looking for.

Other than that, things are going good here. I realized yesterday that the computers in my classroom did not have anti-virus protection for the past week. I installed some yesterday and of course all of the computers had viruses because my students were using the internet for a week and I have been moving files between the computers. The computers make a loud beeping sound when a detection is found, which is pretty funny because now everything is quiet except for this symphony of beeps that resonates through the computers for about an hour.

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Kelly