Last weekend I drove up to Joburg to spend time with my friend Joanna. Joanna and I became friends while at JHSPH together and now we both work for the same organization, except that she’s in the Nigeria office. Her program is having a global meeting this week in Joburg so she came a few days early so that we could hang out. It’s the first time we’ve seen each other since June 2009!
Joanna’s plane arrived at 5:20 in the morning, fortunately I was able to find a hotel near the airport that does free pick-ups so I sent them because any wake-up time that starts with a 5 is definitely a no-go on the weekend. After taking a nap and trying to find breakfast with Sim we checked into our guesthouse for Saturday night and then had lunch at Moyo at Zoo Lake. Zoo Lake is my favorite Moyo location because it’s outside under huge trees. Plus the food is so yummy. I had the veggie tangine with cous cous. After lunch we hit Arts on Main for a bit and then spent lots of time shopping at Melrose Arch until they literally kicked us out of Woolies. We tried to go wine tasting at Winesense but the machine for charging the card you need for tastings was broken so we had dinner at Mezepoli by Plaka instead and shared a bottle of wine there.
The highlight of the weekend was Sunday morning and going for treatments at The Saxon Boutique Hotel & Spa. Oh my, The Saxon is so amazing and gorgeous. The spa is a bit of a splurge (because really what spa isn’t?), but considering you’re in a 5-star hotel I think the prices are very reasonable. About what you’d pay for not as nice of a place in the U.S. I had the Elemis Lime & Ginger Salt Glow body wrap. It was delicious. After the spa we hit the market at Rosebank, did more shopping and then I dropped her off at the hotel and was on my way back to Lesotho.
All in all, it was a really great weekend. Joanna is the second girlfriend from my group of friends at JHSPH that I’ve been able to see in the last month since I spent New Years with Olga in Switzerland. Whenever I’m with any of them, get emails or get random Google chats from them I feel so lucky to have them as friends. They have been endlessly supportive and really great friends. Yay for good girlfriends!
P.S. Clearly the picture isn’t from this weekend. Unfortunately I have no pictures of the two of us – because Joanna hasn’t emailed me hers yet! So this is an oldie but goodie.
P.P.S. Hat tip to my friend PSully of Near and Dear from Afar for the blog title. She’s a far better writer than I am, always has witty titles and this one was totally inspired by her style.
