Road Trip

I love road trips. The prospect of going somewhere new or different, away from the humdrum of everyday life; the excitement; the mix CD's of road trip songs; the pit stops at Ultra Cities and the long, random conversations. There's some truth to the cliche of the joy of the "freedom of the open road".

I'm not quite sure if my road trip this week met any of these criteria, aside from the Ultra City. Allow me to explain... Because I am somewhat (i.e. completely) insane, I decided that just doing my Honours degree this year didn't provide me with nearly enough to do, and hence enrolled for a short course in logotherapy through the Applied Psychology department at Unisa. It seemed like a really good idea, until Honours actually started and deadlines began looming and the Great Battle of Candice and her Supervisor commenced. I pretty much ignored the Unisa stuff until the last moment because I was so busy with work for Wits and I thought that I'd be okay, since I had a 3 week break in which to do the assignments during the mid-year vacation period. Somehow though, I still ran out of time these holidays and the assignments proved to be less about regurgitating theory and more about self-reflection and "Think of 3 instances in your life when..." I did manage to get everything done in the eleventh hour and then realised that I had to mentally prepare myself for 3 days of driving to Pretoria for the practical (and compulsory)workshop aspect of the course.

For the record, I have never driven to Pretoria before. I used to have anxiety attacks about driving to Midrand (in fact, I still do, if I have to drive there at night), so the prospect of driving even further up the M1 was pretty daunting. That said, on Wednesday morning, map in hand and directions stuck to my dashboard, I set out at 6:15am. Yes, 6:15am, because I had no idea what traffic would be like, and in my mind, driving to Pretoria is almost equivalent to driving to another country (albeit a small, Afrikaans-speaking one). A tad dramatic, I know. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there was almost no traffic most of the way, which I attribute to either the schools being on holiday or divine intervention. I was driving along quite happily and looking for the M1/N1 interchange when I realised that I was actually further along the N1 than I had thought, and that I was thus nowhere near the M1, having taken the interchange by accident! Luckily, I still knew where I was and managed to take the Lynnwood Road offramp and then navigated my way through Pretoria. I then had to find Unisa, which should, strictly speaking, be easy, considering that it's huge and on a hill. Somehow, I completely failed to do this, and ended up driving through the city and down its numerous one-ways! I eventually found Unisa and discovered that my mistake was somewhat glaringly obvious, in a "turn right instead of left" kind of way! Determined to not make the same M1/N1 mistake the next day, I succeeded in once again taking the wrong interchange, and again had to drive the long way round on the N1! I finally got it right on the Friday, but also ended up taking a rather scenic (and terrifying) detour down an already detoured route, which took me through farmland, past a military base and eventually through the less scenic parts of industrial Pretoria!

All my journeys home were somehow without event, because I managed to stay on the right road! The traffic was too bad and the only real traffic jam that I encountered was due to the M1 being closed for blasting for the Gautrain for 15 minutes. The entire highway was closed off and traffic was at a standstill, but everyone just sat and waited patiently, which is very uncharateristic of Johannesburg drivers! People turned off their cars, got out, went for a walk, ate their lunch or made phone calls!

The course itself was quite interesting - mostly due to the quirky (albeit slightly annoying) lecturer! Having been exposed to logotherapy for the past 5 years, I didn't quite agree with everything that she had to say, but it was still worthwhile and I can add it to my CV. I met some interesting people too. I have to say that I'm extremely grateful that I don't have to drive to Pretoria again - in fact, I'm looking forward to driving to Wits! I also look forward to some better road trips, with nicer scenery than my dusty pictures of Pretoria provide!