I've moved!

Slight crisis this morning - having checked out of the hotel, and quibbled over a phone bill of less than 2 Euros (somehow I thought it had been more) when no-one had actually answered the calls, I moved over to 'luxury accommodation in the heart of Gaborone'. Got there to get my studio apartment (actually a bit small, but at least self-catering) and found that it was only available for one night, rather than the weeks or months I was planning to stay. Long debacle.

Eventually they had a townhouse for me. That's a two-bedroomed house, with the bedrooms on the small side, but a house. Luxury? I don't know. They look as if they are not much loved, and mine has more the flavour of a shared student house - there's a certain amount of wear and tear. The groundfloor is quite dark, what with the house opposite about 3 m away, and at the back a concrete wall, a dirt (garden) space about 1.5 m deep, behind that trees and high green netting. Don't mention the view! Wifi - I am not sure about it. But there is a pool (nearby, obviously not in my backyard) and there the wifi seems to be ok. Not sure that I would want to inhabit the house with a bunch of small children. Maybe the flats are better? I don't know. At least I have internal space and a functioning kitchen.

I had taken the huge office car to go shopping, and bought enough staples, cornflakes, bread, wine, beer, the usual things to last me a while. The vegetable front was a bit limited, even in the supermarket, and at the time I had not seen the house to assess freezer space. Maybe I'll take the car back to get some more frozen veg. The aubergines in the supermarket seem to take the American term 'egg plant' literally; they were egg sized. Otherwise the food is a peculiar mix of British food (custard, all those jellies, Patak's curries etc), German food (a la South African) with buttermilk etc, and local spices. They seem to like their spices, the Batswana. The wine shop, Liquorama (doesn't that really make you feel like a drunk?) was tucked round the back, and quite small. But there was a nice bookshop in the Riverwalk mall, and I picked up some books by African (South African) writers. It is only a small section; otherwise the shop is middle-brow, but I am only here for 6 months, so it'll be fine.

Let's see how it goes. I'm a bit depressed about having another dark house, after Georgia, but at least it's near work, and other useful places - not that there are that many (no opera etc, though I see there will be a concert by someone called something like Soweto busk, a string ensemble, on 11 July. Must check that out.