My To-Do list is getting longer, not shorter!

When I headed out for ZA, it was with the intention of having an entire week off to get all of my affairs in order. However, it didn't work out that way. After arriving in Jo-berg late Sunday night, I arrived for my first day of work early Tuesday morning.

I still need to learn how to drive a stick-shift
-buy a car
-rent an apartment
-get a cell phone and a calling card so I can talk to all of you fine folks
-find a grocery store (or ANY store) open past 6pm (can you imagine!)
-get Sophie's pet permit
-figure out where the heck I am and where it is in relationship to everything else
-figure out exactly what my job is and start doing it (so far I've just been doing a lot of reading about all of the different aspects of the program)
-get my work permit/temporary residence permit

Those are just the major issues. The minor issues like finding a doctor, hair dresser, etc will just have to wait for a while.

My plan for tomorrow is to get my first manual trans driving lesson and also get Sophie's pet permit headed my way. I'm hoping that if I can get two or three driving lessons in before this weekend I'll be able to go get a car (my first ever!) so, wish me luck! Once I have a car, the rest of the list should be much easier to attend to.

The reliance on a car to get places is coming as quite a shock to me, who was for years the queen of public and pedestrian transportation. Now I'm being forced to join the ranks of the road ragers everywhere.

More to come...

Susan