Two Lists

Soooo...I have been keeping two lists while here in South Africa...


One is a list of things I will definitely miss about our stay here.


The other list is of things I will totally NOT miss about our stay here.


Some of these are kind of like "inside jokes" that maybe only some people would understand, and please do realize that I write this "med glimten i ögat" and it is just my sense of humor.

List Number One then is
THINGS I WILL DEFINITELY MISS ABOUT OUR STAY IN SOUTH AFRICA:

• Fitting easily into South African size 34 pants.
• Roman’s Pizza
• Café 41
• Really cheap tasty Chinese takeout
• Eating outside whenever we eat at a restaurant
• Ranch dressing.
• Big grocery stores with lots to choose from.
• People doing our dishes for us.
• The completely ideal weather during the daytime.
• The beautiful view of the city from the Union Buildings.
• Flowers and trees and animals I have never seen before.
• The rich color of the earth.
• All the beautiful African people everywhere.
• All the times we got to hear ”Soooooo cuuuuuuuute!” when people saw Esther on our walks.
• Our new friends the Pelesis.
• Long, carefree walks with my family, with no other responsibilities other than just being with them.
• Time for it to truly be just the 3 of us.

And the Second List,
THINGS I TOTALLY WILL *NOT* MISS ABOUT OUR STAY IN SOUTH AFRICA:

• The Siberian Porcelain Toilet Seats of Frozen Death
• Living in a studio apt (that would be ONE big room) with a new baby.
  
• A showerhead that has a mind of its own, soaking the entire bathroom
• Separate hot and cold spickets on every sink so that you can never get lukewarm water for the baby bottle.
• Totally uneven sidewalks and no slanted curbs, making me wish that strollers came in all-terrain, 4-wheel drive models
• That almost every slab of concrete along the sidewalks contain either dog footprints, cat footprints, shoe footprints, bike prints, or some combination of the aforementioned.
• The pedestrian go signal that lasts approximately 2.6 seconds.
• The INCESSANT honking of the white minivan transports, letting us know that there are seats available (and thereby startling sleeping infants).
• That it gets dark at 6 pm.
• The absurdly thin toilet paper.
• The funny gourd-shaped knitted winter hats the African men wear.
• The security gates / fences / razor wire / vicious guard dogs in front of every home.
• The temperature in our room going down to 16 degrees Celsius at night.
• The time it takes to shrink all of my huge photo files to 70 kb before I can upload them to the blog.
• A car alarm that gets triggered around midnight and doesn’t get shut off until around 6 in the morning.
• Looking the wrong way when I cross the street.
• The confusing notion that chips are fries and crisps are chips.