codrin made 10 dollars in the airport casino in amsterdam and as a result we almost missed our plane.

i also checked my laptop at the airport for the next 3 weeks. and i have this feeling that it’s going to get stolen.  mostly because the guy asked me flat out if it was a laptop, and even though it has books in it and its wrapped and in the back room i’m thinking, here’s something that’s worth $1000 on the street and i’m only paying $80 to check it…

anyway, no need worrying about it now.  if it gets stolen i’ll make midventures buy me a new one

dont know when we’re shipping off to gaborone, we missed our bus this morning because of the airline, and there isnt another bus til monday. right now in a shopping mall in joburg.  arrived at a nice guest house at 2 am after driving around for an hour in a cab looking for a place.  the woman who owns the house is building an extension in the backyard, so we chatted for a bit this morning with the construction guys.  woke up at 6am, after sleeping 20 hours on planes yesterday i guess we were all a bit jet lagged.

the world cup rennovations are well underway, there’s a new stadium and the airport is spotless.  like china was this summer before the olympics.  we walked 2 km towards downtown until we realized we had no idea what downtown was, where it was, or how to get there, we just were walking towards the big buildings.  a lot of construction.

so we walked up to a hotel/casino and asked where we could find a shopping center (for ioana to buy clothes), most people we asked gave us blank stares, finally a white woman approached us and offered that her husband give us a ride to a shopping center.  so we got a ride into town from a guy named bobby, whose wife told us that we were in a black neighborhood and we should get out.  the neighborhood was fine, of course, we’re staying in a suburb, but listening to bobby complain about the “black situation” in johannesburg and what a problem it was—quite an interesting experience

this is not a very coherent update email…but figured id provide some information.  we’re having fun, and of course we are still alive