We all know the popular South African aphorism – “Joburg has better drivers than Cape Town.” Even staunch, I-could-never-live-anywhere-else Capetonians say this. I certainly have.
We embrace our crappy driving and wear it as a mark of pride. There is no need for a sense of direction when you can just look up at the mountain to figure out where you are. Hurry? Why hurry? It’s not like anything is that far away. Indicate? Why indicate? You can only go one …

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I’ve been here nearly two weeks after our “semigration” from my home city, Cape Town. Most of it’s been spent unpacking boxes, drinking too much whisky and driving around the megalopolis trying to find decent furniture.

The GPS has taken me through Mayfair, similar to the rougher parts of Woodstock with its seedy slum feel, and a suburb called Blairgowrie, which could have been directly transplanted from Cape Town’s Plumstead.

Then there was Fourways. Fourways defies comparison, but imagine Parklands mixed with Belville, multiply by 20 and wave a Tuscan wand over it.

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I dreamt about horses last night. According to the dream books this is indicative of a “highly stressful time of change”. Huh, it should have been a hundred wild stallions then. This moving to Joburg business is rather taxing and I’ve run out of single malt whisky. Fuck.

Bitching and whining aside, I’m pretty excited. A whole new city! New people! New restaurants! New bars! And, since it’s not Cape Town, nobody asking me where I went to school!

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Ah, Soweto. A name that was invented via a public competition, the prize money being 10 pounds. Idiosyncratic and surprising, it’s a community of heartbreak, hope… and guys mowing the lawn on a Saturday morning.

I was astounded by how much housing there is, even in the poorer areas, and the manicured green parks that accompany it. During apartheid Soweto residents weren’t allowed trees or bushes (terrorists could hide behind them), but they’re definitely making up for it now. In Cape Town we have the dreary N2 Gateway Project buffered by 40 kilometres of shack, shacks, shacks.

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