Finishing the first full week

Hey all,

It has been a few more days and I have done a few more things in Johannesburg. A few nights ago after work, I got to see a little bit more of the city. A little background: since our regional meeting is next week, two people from the international office flew in to help set things up and make sure our office is trained to be able to help everyone else. These two were talking around lunchtime and wanted to go grab some food as a group and with some guidance from Robyn, who unfortunately couldn’t come, they decided on a Thai restaurant. So we all stayed a little later at the office (I designed a cool logo/map, I will see if I can post it) and then took off to the Thai restaurant. I rode with Zimasa and although we were a little late (got a little lost) it was good to chat with her a little bit.

At the restaurant it was great to see people outside of work and see who they all were outside of work. Also, it was rather cool to think we had four continents represented at our table, quite the diverse group all coming together for the same thing. It looks like a great group of people and it was a fun time to hang out and enjoy some good food with them. One of the two from the international office was covering for a third who had gotten sick, so David decided to call her and tell her that we missed her since we were going out. It was a fun moment because everyone at the table got to talk to her, including me, who has never met her. I was coached on how to say her name so when the phone was passed to me, everyone laughed and it was a good moment. I feel like I am becoming part of the group and this is a comforting thought for the lost American kid sitting at the table.

On Saturday, I got to sleep in a little bit which was wonderful and then decided to go check out another part of town for lunch. For those of you following along, it is in Parkview, Johannesburg. I went to Gingko, a fun and pretty hip place with healthy and good food (only parallel would be like the Whole Foods of restaurants with a little Trader Joes mixed in). I ended up getting some really good pasta with pesto with fresh mozzarella and itty-bitty tomatoes with a delicious berry and honey smoothie. I guess since it is my first time out I can treat myself but I will probably be cutting back a little bit once I am buying my own food.

The delicious pasta with pesto from Gingko

All in all, a delicious lunch and I followed that up with a walk around Zoo Lake, which was about 2-3 blocks away from the restaurant. There were tons of swans and ducks and other various birds and a ton of people. It is tucked into a very nice neighborhood and it looked like people of all ages came out to enjoy the sun and rather picturesque setting.

The view at Zoo Lake

Other than that, it has been a quiet couple of days since working all week. If you want to hear more about something or another, let me know or if there are any questions that you want to hear an answer to let me know. I appreciate all the readers and I hope that I can keep you up to date on my life and maybe hear a little back on yours every now and again.

That’s all I have,

Scott