Joburg stats and Chicken Liver!

Bem-vindo a Joanesburgo!

yes, in honor of Brasil's 3-0 destruction of Chile, today's blog is written with a Portuguese accent! please listen closely.

I've yet to really experience the real Johannesburg, but here is what I know so far.  Population is about 10 million.. or just 7 million in Joburg proper...according to our driver, Marko (13 yr resident from Serbia) 8 million in the metro area, with another 6-ish million in Soweto.  However, it's impossible to get a true census there because the nature of a slum, with a constant flux of undocumented births, deaths, immigration and emigration.  Government population surveys are done with Statistical Inference Sampling, so there is no true answer.  In a nutshell, this place is huge.

On a surface level, this place feels a lot like Houston; mass suburban sprawl, too many freeways, lots of pollution, over abundance of strip-malls.  Every weekday, I look out at a layer of smog, part from industry, part from grass burning,( which is rampant and unregulated)and even more comes from small fires in and around homes for cooking, heating, etc.  I seriously fear for the health of my lungs. We will all need some major detox after this trip.

I asked Marko where the river is. His silent, quizzical look answered the question. Joburg is the world's largest city not situated on a river, lake, or coastline.  Built on the Gold and Diamond trade, the evidence of mining is everywhere. Each morning, we shuttle past these large hills that, at first look remind me of a garbage dump covered in soil with a few trees planted to give the appearance of a natural hill. Yet these are much larger and the trees are more mature.  These are mine dumps or slag, soil and rock that was taken from the earth and filtered to extract the gold.  Over 200 such dumps dot the Joburg skyline, some rising hundreds of feet and spreading 20-40 acres each.  Slowly, the dumps are being removed, as small amounts of gold, about a third of a gram to every ton of sand can be recovered. Once removed the site is made available as prime real estate.

Yesterday marked the return of Arjen Robben to the Dutch Starting 11. He wasted no time slicing around defenders and launching a deft touch off his left foot into the corner in the 18th minute.  As predicted the Netherlands passing game was more than Slovakia could handle in a 2-1 victory for the Orange.  Sneijder also scored off an extremely crafty assist by Kuyt before the Slovaks scored a too-little, too-late Penalty Kick.  The Netherlands face Brazil on Friday in the Quarterfinals.  oooooh!

Keeping with the aforemented theme of the day, Audio Mixer To The Stars, Chris Allan and I found ourselves at the local Portugese restaurant.  Ya know when you order something and you're not quite sure you will like it, but you want to be adventurous and try it anyway? Well, I couldn't remember if I had ever tried liver before, so I ordered Chef Fernandos Special Saland with grilled Chicken Livers and Chouriço sausage. At first bite, I knew exactly why I hadn't ordered any liver product in years!  Instantly, I was taken back to my first introduction to this horrible food. yep! still hate it! Thankfully,  I had avocado, vinegar and Grolsh to wash it down.  Please remind me to NEVER do that again.

Speaking of Portugal, Pretty Boy Ronaldo and friends take on mighty Spain today at 11aPT in a cross-border clash.  The early game has Japan and Paraguay at 6:3aPT.

as if I didn't get enough iron in my diet by way of that most disgusting barnyard bird organ!