On Sunday it was ten weeks of being out here in South Africa. And it took me exactly ten weeks minus three days for my mind to arrive as well. And this is how it happened:
Daan is currently spending a few weeks in the states and offered to bring some goodies back for us. The moment he said it, my eyes started to glow and my heart was beating a little faster: The shopaholic inside me had woken up and was picturing a trip to A & F! So after pacing myself for a few days, I finally found a moment to go on their website and got carried away immediately … jumpers, T-shirts, skirts … so much choice and all so pretty! So trying to be responsible, I limited myself to a few things – some of them even reduced – and put them in my virtual shopping basket.
Out of curiosity I went on to check how much my shopping would cost me in Euros rather than Dollars before posting my order. The currency converter calmed me down and removed all potential guilt from my shopping spree: it came to less than €100, which I thought was not bad at all for what I was getting. But then I made a cardinal mistake: I converted it into Rand! You should have seen the shock on my face when the website told me that I was just about to buy a jumper for more than ZAR700! Seven hundred Rand! Jesus Christ – that is a whole lot of money and from one second to the other – even though nothing had changed - I could no longer justify buying the jumper! The funny thing is that while I would have been very happy to spend $70 on it, €50 or £35, I could in no way spend ZAR700! It just seemed like far too much money for one piece of clothing!
And this was the moment when I realised, that I had arrived in South Africa. After ten weeks of being physically here, my mind had finally made the transition as well and I was starting to think the South African way…
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