Joburg is more or less impossible to get around without a car, especially for the purposes of A) consulting and B) not getting assaulted. So, all of the expats who come in to work at Monitor are given a car. I was both excited and somewhat terrified by this - I love driving, but wasn't so sure about my ability to do so on the left-hand side of the road. I also anticipated getting the typical car down here - a Yaris or Jazz or something else that would fit in the back of my Dad's Suburban back home. Since I'd only driven stick once (I know, I know...), I requested an automatic car down here. Turns out they only had one left...
Not too shabby. A Mercedes C180 Kompressor. They said that as soon as they have a lesser car, they would come out and downgrade me. But, they have to catch me first.
Driving on the left isn't as scary as I thought it would be. It's the turning that gets me. Left turns are easy, right turns are hard - takes some getting used to. Also, the roads are okay for the most part, but turn lanes aren't marked, lanes disappear and reappear without warning, and the drivers here aren't the most skilled or patient that I've encountered. But, really, drivers of Johannesburg - honk all you want, I'm doing the best I can!
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