Yesterday morning at 6:30am I touched down in Johannesburg to the friendly faces of Antoinette and her Riaan. Outside was a comparatively miserable 18degC and overcase with drizzly rain. Apparently I've managed to hide the best of Pretorian weather so far (yes me, the weather master).

Riaan drove u to Antoinette's place where I met her sisters, watched some cricket (Australia vs South Africa - they actually have a chance of beating us in this one), ate a bit, napped a bit and generally hung around.
We went down to a large nearby shopping centre nicknamed Mordor to buy me a sim-card and check the place out. The place is quite simiilar to any Australian shopping centre and was just massive. Apparently currently or recently held the title of largest in the southern hemisphere. They pointed out to me the jewellers that was help up just a couple of weeks ago. Not a typical hold-up as we might think of it either, but men with AK47 assault rifles cam in, got what they watned and have so far got away scot free.

Later in the afternoon I was whisked away to Anrie's family's house where I'm staying for a few nights. I'm really enjoying staying here so far, the family are loads of fun and good sports and full of great advice too.

Last night Anrie organised a "big party" for me at a bar nearby. I think the quote was "if everyong invited comes and they all bring friends then it will be big". There were probably about 20 people there during the night, including Bryce, a good mate from Brisbane who's over here with work.
I thoroughly enjoyed the conversations that night, getting a totally foriegn perspective on a fairly foreign problem. It started with people asking me how I'm finding Pretoria so far and how it compares with where I'm from.
The countryside and climate are quite comfortable and fairly familiar. One of the first things I noticed was that all of hte houses in all of the suburbs have large security fences as a minimum, most with barbed wire or spikes on top, and many with big security company signs out frong (though they all have security systems, hooked in with the companies and the police). It seems a shame to me that everyone lives in the restricted way; housing developments full of small duplexes that all look the same are attractive to many people here for the extra reason of being inside a security enclosure.
Anyway, this type of discussion led on to talking about "the blacks", and society as it is now. The number of blacks outnumber whites by about 8 to 1, and for the last 12 years the government has been seen (at least by the whites) to be the polar opposite to the appartheit government before that. It was really intersting to speak to these whites whom in their lifetime have seen so much oppression one way and now are feeling it the other way. They were telling me about university courses where a certain number of blacks must be enrolled and passed every year (there are 250-260 out of one guy's 280 person medical course), and the bias in the court system that would allow a white to shoot a white in self defence, but not a black, and about how unsafe they feel in general (especially the girls - can't even drive on their own after dark, and had been held up at knife point). The conversation was punctuated with "we must be sounding very racist, but we're really not", and some of them told me of thier experiences with very generous blacks who have even helped them in dangerous times. I put across some examples of the Aborignal plight in Australia for comparison and contrast, but it seems like a mostly different situation. Yes, a thoroughly interesting conversation, and one where I did my best to take an objective outsider's position.

Anyway, the people I've met have all been wonderfully generous and friendly, and I even got up and sang karaoke at the end of last night, so by all accounts I'm loving South Africa thus far!

Anrie's Family's residence, Pretoria