Last Friday evening, we headed to the airport right after my three travel companions took a test at the university. At 8:30 PM, our flight departed to Johannesburg - commonly referred to as Joburg or Jo'burg by the locals. However, we didn't stay there but went straight to the capital city, Pretoria. The next day, there was a one-day festival with many bands. One of them was Rubber Duc, whose music I have been enjoying for a long time. The main act in the evening was Jeremy Loops, a South African singer who has also achieved international success. He will be performing in Germany next year. Before heading to the Botanical Garden where the festival was taking place, we had breakfast at the Hazelwood Foodmarket. The weather was great, so we sat on the grass in the Botanical Garden, played cards, drank wine, and listened to the first acts. As more people arrived, we joined the crowd. The music was amazing, and I enjoyed every band. However, standing for a long time became tiring, and the crowd was extremely annoying. We were constantly being pushed around. It also became really cold. The temperature dropped from 24 degrees at noon to five degrees in the evening. That's why we left before Jeremy Loops finished his performance, to avoid waiting for an Uber in the cold with hundreds of other people. Check out Rubber Duc on Spotify :) Since my roommate Svenja had her birthday on Sunday, we went from the festival to a bar - The Jolly Roger - to celebrate. We played cards and waited for midnight, then hit the dance floor for a while. But we didn't last long - we were all exhausted from the day.When we arrived at the hostel, we were in for a nasty surprise: it was soooo cold in the little huts where we slept. Despite wearing long clothes, socks, and three blankets, I was still freezing, and none of us could sleep well - it's a wonder we didn't get sick. The next day, we treated Svenja to a nice breakfast café for her birthday breakfast and then went to the Union Buildings in Pretoria - the parliamentary buildings with a beautiful park in front and a huge Nelson Mandela statue. In Pretoria, you can't do much more than that. At least we didn't find much online that was worth visiting. So we decided to go back to Johannesburg around noon. In the end, it was the right decision. I had searched online for a hostel and found one located in the small artist district of Maboneng. But as we were driving through the streets in an Uber, everything looked far from inviting, and the others got more and more nervous as we got closer to our destination - they didn't trust my research in that moment. However, when we arrived at Curiocity Backpackers, everything looked much better. The hostel was great, and we were immediately recommended a small African market down the street, which was really cool. We were told that we could stroll down the street without worries because it was safe. And indeed, there were security guards at every street corner. Maboneng is a bit strange - a few years ago, a real estate company started buying and renovating industrial buildings there, and an art gallery was opened. That was the starting signal: afterward, numerous bars, cafés, restaurants, galleries, designer shops, a theater, and bookstores settled there. A 'hipster island' was created, a street full of life where almost only young, black South Africans are on the go. Away from this street... everything looks completely different. And as beautiful as Maboneng is, as much as I enjoyed strolling along there and sitting in cafés, restaurants, and bars next to young, trendy locals - it's easy to forget that it's all just a façade, that Johannesburg is not like that everywhere. Maboneng, which means 'Place of Light,' is an artificial name; the neighborhood is actually called Jeppestown. And in a way, Maboneng itself is also art, artificial. But beautiful. The next day, we took a typical city tour in one of those red tourist buses to quickly get an impression of the other side of Johannesburg. Shortly after departure, we got stuck in traffic, causing us to have a forty-minute delay. Our plan was to get off at the Apartheid Museum, spend some time there, and then continue the rest of the tour. Unfortunately, due to the delay, we couldn't do the latter. But the museum was worth it. Even though it didn't offer much new to me since I had already researched a lot beforehand and had a seminar about South Africa at university, where we extensively discussed apartheid and Nelson Mandela's autobiography, the museum was very well done and powerful. The entrance alone was divided: when we paid, we received a ticket that said either 'White' or 'Non-White' - arbitrarily and not distributed based on real skin color. I was non-white. The entrance to the museum itself was also divided, with one gate for whites and one for non-whites. This initial shock was a really good idea by the creators of the museum.After our museum visit, we had to return to the airport and go back to PE. It was definitely worth it, even though the time was very short.
