Pretoria and the Women’s Gold Medal Match

August 10, 2024

I signed up for another Viator tour today – this time a half day tour to Pretoria. I didnt realize it was going to be a private tour – I did appreciate this in theory, but that also meant that the price was higher.

The guide was scheduled to pick me up at 930 and I like to be early so I was in the lobby by 915. I ran into my tour guide from yesterday he was picking up another guest for his tour today. We had a little laugh, because I thought “You again?” My guide was early as well so we were on the road by 925.

It was about a 45 minute drive from my hotel to Pretoria. Our first stop was the extra large Voortrekker Monument. The monument is a perfect square 40 m by 40 m. This monument is in honor of those that made the “Great Trek” from the Cape Colony inland. These were mostly Dutch speaking people living under the British Empire and the Boers (European collective). During this trek an area called Natal became the area which those on the trek desired to colonate. However they were met with aggression from the natives and a war broke out. Many people died.

This is all VERY confusing. Basically they built a monument to honor BOTH sides of the battle. I dont quite understand it all except there is a big monument (that Im sorry, isnt that pretty), that now has like a family fun center surrounding it. There is a large celebration on December 16th every year to commemorate the battle.

After the Voortrekker Monument we were off to downtown Pretoria. Our next stop was Paul Krugers house. He was the president of South African Republic. I also dont understand much about this man other than the area that Joburg is in, was the area he was president of. I dont seem to be getting much of the full story of anything. His house was interesting, very large for the time. It also housed two of his carriages and his train car!

We drove through Pretoria city center next to head to the capitol building. It was a Saturday, so the building was not open to the public. This is where the legislative body sits for six months of the year and the president lives. My guide was able to park in front of the building and I was able to walk through the park to get a better view. Yesterday was National Women’s Day so they were tearing down a large tent used for celebration. There is a large Nelson Mandela statue directly in the center of the building and I had a great view.

This wasnt the greatest of the tours that I have done in my life – but I learned a bit, yes, just a bit. I probably could have learned just as much, if not more from Google, but why sit in a hotel room all day.

I was dropped off at my hotel mid-afternoon and decided to go eat at a restaurant down the street called Tiger’s Milk. I got a vegan burger and sweet potato fries. I realized while I was here that the women’s soccer gold medal match waas going to air at 5pm this time. It was about 4pm when I left the restaurant.

I got back to my room and turned on the TV and come to find out – they will NOT be airing the gold medal match, but instead break dancing (Im sorry, why is this a sport at the Olypmics??). So, in true first world problems fashion – I turned to Google to figure out how the heck I will be able to watch this game. After about 30 minutes of Googling I figured out that I needed a VPN platform to be able to stream it through the US.

After I got the VPN, I logged into Hulu (which I was told would work) and it did not. So I tried NBC (because it also said that would work) and failure. So, I did some more Googling and found a station in Australia that was streaming the game. I ended up pulling the game 20 minutes into it. But so worth it. All that Google stress led me to order a shake and fries.

Great news, the US won – GIRL POWER! When the game was over I attempted to go to sleep, beacuse I needed to be leaving to the airport at 1130pm. That was all for not, not a wink of sleep was to be had.

I got ready for the airport and my driver picked me up at 1130pm. I was at the airport nice and early. Of course RwandAir had no signage so it took me a while to find the check in counter. I checked my bag in and headed through security. The security agent decided that X-ray wasnt enough and emptied my backpack, just to go through the whole damn bag.

I waited at the gate for about 2 hours and then we finally boarded. The flight was more than half empty. I got the window seat in the exit row – plus they gave us pillows and blankets! They even tried to feed us breakfast at 5am. I couldnt even fathom.