Stranded; Day Three

...Stranded, not quite, but to some people stranded is the truth.

There remain to be hundreds maybe thousands of people stranded in Joburg, and even more in London, Mother and I on the other hand have the kind hospitality of Hayley and Steve. We have been quite fortunate in the fact that we DO have family in Joburg; we haven't had to scour the city for a hotel, or worse, sit in an airport and sleep on shifts so that our luggage remains ours and not someone else's.

Last night we had a fairly late dinner, 9ish I believe? We had potatoes, a lovely green salad made by Christine, and pies from Spar (the local grocery store), Mother and I did halfsies on our pies, half spinach/feta, and half vegetable curry. Oh, also some lovely bread, it had tomatoes and then cheese on the top, delicious!

After dinner Ashley went right to bed and Shirley followed shortly after, followed by me and then everyone else. I was going to try and watch the rest of Bride Wars with Shirley because we didn't finish it the last time, but by the time I arrived in our room she was out like a light.


Today the plan was to shop and get some of the outstanding Christmas presents purchased. I awoke at about 8:30 am, one of my earliest mornings (besides wedding day of course) and eventually wound up outside with everyone else, making a cup of coffee first, essential to the beginning of a good day. We all chatted a bit outside and decided the plan for the day, shopping at Northgate followed by lunch at Dros (a pub that Dean was quite excited to visit).

Something I forgot to mention was that yesterday when we went out we had to take two cars and Shirley was a driver for one, she actually did fairly well. Today was round two, two cars again and therefore more driving practice. We got to the mall, parked, entered and formulated a plan; an hour and a half then we would meet and leave the mall for Dros.

Whilst shopping I managed to get my hands on 4 pairs of sunglasses, all Deadmau5 appropriate, as well as a dress for Emma. Ashley got herself and her two friends some necklaces to bind them for eternity, Dean and Christine accomplished the majority of their shopping and Hayley, who detests shopping, made a number of purchases and seemed successful.

Ashley came in contact with her friend Dominique who happened to be at the same mall as us, and was in fact supposed to be dropped off there later anyways, so Hayley walked her to where they were and Ashley was off for the evening, a sleepover! As soon as Ashley was with Dominique it was suggested that we change our lunch plans and head to Monte Casino, the local Johannesburg casino!

Dean was not too keen on this plan, but the women out numbered him and therefore we headed home to drop off a car, where we almost had a serious issue when the gate began to close on the Honda, but that was dealt with and no serious damage. Then we were off to the slots!

We arrived at the Casino and parked, only to realize as we walked to the elevator that there was a "Gun Safe" floor, this was somewhat concerning, but Christine and I took the opportunity to document this peculiar sign.

After entering the casino I noticed many similarities to Vegas, although obviously on a smaller scale. We made our way to the outdoors patio type area and had dinner at "Ciao Baby" an Italian restaurant. Everyone enjoyed their meals, they were quite large portions and I was only able to finish about half of mine.

Side note, Shirley and I have noticed that food is most certainly cheaper here, today our meal, for 5 of us, with a glass of wine, 2 ciders, and 2 beers came to about 490 rand? Which is about 70$ Canadian. When you think about it that’s really quite good, I mean drinks alone would be close to 30$. We have also noticed that cheese in particular is very cheap, a box thing of Boursin (Yas' fave) was about 22 rand which is like 3$ at home, and normally Boursin is easily 8 or 9 $.

After lunch we made our way into the Casino and began to gamble away. This was my first legitimate time being able to take part in any gambling while in a casino (the first time was in Vegas and we weren't even allowed to stop and watch Robert and Shirley) I ended up being up about 49 rand on my first machine, then I was ready to venture to more machines. This casino has "member cards” and the members have money on those card and insert them into a machine, what I didn’t realize was that there was a card in a machine before I inserted my money. When I inserted 50 rand into the machine beside Shirley a little woman in a white hat came up to me and started getting fairly mad due to the fact that my name was not Elizabeth, and that I had used one of her rands to play a round, so I instantly cashed out and was up 7$ which this "Elizabeth" woman claims was her money, so I paid her 7 rand and got right out of there.

The remainder of my Casino experience was not quite as exciting as that little bit, nor did I "win big", but I sure did enjoy myself.

We returned home and the sun was shining, what a great afternoon. I skyped with my dearest darling sister Emma, who was just waking up, 9:30am her time. Then after my skyping I soaked up the sun, in and out of the pool. Mom, Hayley and Dean went to the store to get a few groceries for dinner while Christine and I switched movies.

After spending a significant amount of time outside it was movie and "clean up room" time, lovely way to spend the evening. Dean had some sort of an issue with the bri, essentially the bbq, so dinner was a little delayed tonight, but it was in fact completely worth the wait, delicious.

Mother and I are finally going to finish Bride Wars tonight and then tomorrow we are doing the "big Sun City shop" at Checkers, a grocery type store, followed by lunch at Dros, something Dean will be eagerly awaiting I’m sure!

It looks like, if all things go well, which they should then we'll be on a flight on the evening of the 24th and home by the 25th, fingers crossed.