Johannesburg and Benfica Market

Well, since going to Cape Town we have done a few more neat things. Life has been pretty normal. I spend most of my days playing with the baby while Phil is at work. We take Brea on 2 walks every day and walk about 2-3 laps each time, which totals about 2 miles (for the whole day). So that is good for both me and the puppy, I suppose!

The weather here has been wonderfully pleasant! It is staying in the 60-70's and will get a little cool at night. I have been opening up the windows in the mornings for the cool ocean breeze to air out the house.

The other ladies have been very sweet about inviting the baby and I to go with them when the go shopping and what not. Shopping here is like a sport. There are a lot of stores (which was apparently not the case a few years ago), but none of them will carry everything you need. The ladies are good about scoping out where has what and letting people know if something new and exciting shows up.

We also went to Johannesburg at the end of last month. We were told we needed to leave again to reset our visas, so off we went! It's nice because the company pays for the airfare, hotel, and cab rides. So pretty much we get a free weekend vacation.

We stayed at a really nice hotel on the Nelson Mandela Square. The service there was wonderful and the hotel was attached to some mall type things that had lots of stores and restaurants. The food was great and SO cheap! We have been impressed with how nice and cheap everything has been in South Africa both times we've gone.

While there we didn't do much that was picture worthy. We mostly just walked around and bought groceries to bring back to Angola. I was focused on granola bars, Phil was focused on cereal. You can get cereal here it's just ridiculously expensive.

Here's one of the few pictures we took while there:

At dinner at a nice Thai restaurant on the square. Phil was being cooperative as you can see. 

This last weekend we went with some friends on the compound to Benfica Market. It is a craft/art type market that the locals sell fabrics, paintings, jewelry and wood carvings at. I had heard that the vendors can be pushy and intimidating so I wanted to wait to go until we could get a group together. Safety in numbers. Or something like that. 

It was neat to walk around and see everything they had. Many of the wood carvings were very similar. Lots of elephants, rhinos, giraffes, masks (which really creep me out), and figurines of people. We learned that there is some sort of wood in Africa (maybe African Blackwood?) that is dark and very pricey. Most vendors don't have the real deal so they stain whatever wood they have with black shoe polish to make it look like the expensive stuff. Phil and I really liked some wood carved tables that they had. We didn't feel in a hurry to buy anything though, so we mostly browsed. I, however, wanted some fabric to make some cute baby clothes with. So we meandered to the fabric area and bartered a bit to get some fun fabric. I'll have to show pictures of the end products!

Among all of the people and things being sold, there was an adorable monkey. Alice was intrigued so we stopped and let her look. Here are a couple pictures:

Not so good of me, but you can see the cute monkey's face

If you look close you can see the rows and rows of tables with wood carvings.

All in all our adventures in Africa have been fun! We are looking forward to a safari in Namibia here soon. Lots of people from the compound have done it and we have heard great things. We are excited!