Last night I attended another cricket match – a one-day match between South Africa and India at the historic Wanderers Stadium in Joburg. Unlike the test match I attended a few weeks ago, which lasted for five days, this one began at 2:30 in the afternoon and ended around 10:00.

You can buy produce at the grocery story here, just as you can in America. But it’s much more fun (and usually more economical) to shop at local fruit and veg markets. When I first arrived my favorite market was the Tyrone Fruiterers in Parkview, but Joe and I have since become regulars at Imapla Fruit and Veg in Northcliff.

South Africa has been pounded by heavy rains for the last several weeks. Several people have been killed and settlements and farms across the country have flooded.

The Vaal River is the main source of water for Joburg and the surrounding Gauteng Province, and the floodgates have literally been opened at the Vaal Dam. (Interesting fact: Johannesburg is the only major city in the world that is not located on a major body of water.)

Zoo Lake is one of Joburg’s most popular city parks. It has what you’d expect from a city park with a lake in it: ducks, row boats, picnickers, barking dogs, trees, park benches. But like many places around here, it has just enough South African quirkiness to be worthy of a blog post.

On the last day of 2010, Joe and I went down to the city center to monitor the Zimbabwe situation (which had died down significantly since yesterday) and to check out the Joburg Carnival.

We had a quiet Christmas Day at the Lucky 5 Star. The most notable thing about it, for me at least, was the weather – it was about 30 degrees Celsius (that’s upper 80s for you Americans) with blinding bright sun. It was a beautiful day, but I felt a little unsettled. It just didn’t feel like Christmas to me.