The City of Gold

My flight from Madrid, ESP to Johannesburg, ZA was the worst flight of my life:

• I was exhausted from the previous days redeye + walking around Madrid


• It was 12 hours


• I couldn't get any sleep because a couple of Telemundo TV personalities were smoking, drinking, and being generally loud and obnoxious for it's entirety

On the plus side I got to share the plane with the Paraguayan national team.

The airport in Johannesburg had geared up to accommodate the impending influx of tourists so I was able to quickly sail through the passport control and customs. I met Beardo and Anna on the other side of security and they chauffeured me to their residence in Melville, a suburb of Johannesburg. As I was taking in the sights of my first visit to a developing country I noticed a distinct burning sensation in my eyes. I mentioned as such to Peter who remarked "yeah, they'll do that" - apparently there isn't anything resembling an emission standard in South Africa and diesel trucks still burn leaded fuel. As we approached their residence Peter pointed out the small wooden guard house at the end of their street (apparently there is another one at the other end of the street), and I began noticing 12 foot walls surrounding each of the houses with razorwire across the top and signs alerting passersby "ADT: ARMED RESPONSE."

That's great, I thought. I dropped off my stuff and Anna asked if I was hungry.

"I could eat," I said.

To which she replied, "ok, lets walk to service station."

I paused for a second. Let's what to service station? Peter and Anna had been living here for nearly a year, so I figured that they knew what they were doing.

From lunch we went to the art space where Anna was going to present her work with the first post-apartheid generation in South Africa titled: All My Cities. I painted, assembled, and generally helped out while trying to organize a union with Peter to rise up and throw off the chains of capitalist oppression.

Peter felt that it was important that I get at least one run in before the marathon to acclimate myself to the elevation, so the three of us suited up and ran the 7km to the Zoo and back. Peter was dead on about the need to acclimate, I spent the entire run back from the Zoo gasping and wheezing. The experience was enough to give me second thoughts about the race the next morning. To get to the start of the race on time, we needed to leave the apartment at 3am. I tossed and turned all night.