May 26th

May 26th

Pearls and Diamonds & Sherry Oh My

So off to the mall we went this morning. The mall in Pretoria is the largest mall in the southern hemisphere. It puts Tysons Corner Mall to shame – it’s 6 stories. I had really wanted to go to Cullinan today to take a tour of one of the oldest diamond mines but it would have been about $400 rand just to get a taxi there, and none of the other girls were interested so I decided to give up.

So navigating this mall is a disaster – there is no similar lay out to the floors and there are half floors – and only certain escalators go to the half floor. One of our first wanderings was to a jewelry store. I decided to look at some diamonds. The first tennis bracelt I tried on was beautiful and then she gave me the price $8,000 US or $48,000 rand – I asked her to take it off right then. The 2nd bracelet - $3,000 US or $12,000 – I asked her to take that one off as well. I always knew I had expensive taste ;)

So while I was doing that - Meesh happened to get stuck by the Garnet section and started looking – which happened to be next to the pearl section. Oh, what the heck. I tried on a necklace, a bracelet and earrings. I think I knew in about 3 seconds that I loved them – then she gave me the price. In the US I don’t know that you could buy the necklace for that price. So I told her to hold them, that I’d take a little walk and then come back. Meesh and I also noticed that there was a huge bottle of sherry and glasses on the counter. We figured that was to help ease the pain of the purchase ;)

So off we went to do some more shopping (only window shopping for me) and then we went back to make the purchases. As they were checking us out Meesh and I toasted with a tall glass of sherry. If they had given that to me earlier they probably could have gotten the diamond bracelet out of me ;) Holy strong.

The closing dinner of the Rotary Conference was last night. I’m told that this is a universal Rotarian thing – but let me tell you about all the bad jokes we head from the MC last night. Not “That’s was cute – hehe,” but “Groooaaannnn,” bad. So we did dinner and the lovely IT guy from the conference center happened to be there last night so he gave me a few new tools to help get the virus off my USB drive and digital camera. And me feeling bad that I kept him from his Saturday night plans gave him about $20 rand (after the $50 rand) for helping me the other day. He was kind of reluctant to take it but I just made the guy work on a Saturday night for something that isn’t his job. So I think the problemis finally solved – but on the way out he told me that if I have any issued this week he’ll come to the house I’m staying at for no charge – very sweet.

So tomorrow – we’re off to our final stay in Pretoria for the week. Two vocational visits – one is going to be art related with Jessica (again – trying to figure out what to do with me) and Tuesday I’m going to the University of Pretoria to study their Sports Medicine set up. Should be interesting…