Johannesburg / Pretoria, South Africa

Over Spring Break, Chris, Wendy, Jessie and I went on a trip to South Africa!  All four of us went to Egypt last year and we thought it would be a good idea to go to South Africa this year.  This trip was a lot different from Egypt; we had to plan every part and even book our own hotels and rental cars and other excursions.  We decided to go to Johannesburg and Cape Town.

The first set of pictures are from our Johannesburg and Pretoria part of the trip.  Pretoria is the political center of South Africa, so there were buildings for the government.  Johannesburg was where the Apartheid museum was as well as other monuments for the Apartheid.  Being in the Apartheid museum really opened my eyes to understand that this occurred as recent as the 1980s.  The Apartheid is still very visible and there is still lots of discrimination.  For those of you that saw the movie "Invictus", Nelson Mandela has really poured a lot of his efforts into seeing true integration in South Africa.  I highly recommend the movie if you haven't seen it.

South Africa's Union Building, Pretoria, SA

Look out from the Union Building

Below is the Hector Pieterson memorial.  This memorial is in tribute to those that fought for justice during the Apartheid.  Hector was shot and is being carried by a fellow student after an uprising in Soweto.

This is where Nelson Mandela lived before being put in prison on Robben Island, Cape Town.

On our way back to Pretoria (where our hotel was), we passed by the "Kalabash", which is where the finals for the World Cup 2010 were to be played.  As you can see, they had a lot to get done before game day.

In Pretoria, Chris, Jessie and I decided to go for a walk in the area near our hotel.  We stumbled upon the Loftus field, a rugby field and World Cup stadium.  We happened to get inside and we even took pictures on the field.  Everything was just fine until we went to leave and found that the gate was locked!  Oops.  There were people cleaning up from the rugby match the night before, so we got out, but for a second we were panicking a little.