Last week, I was asked to do an article for work describing how I had settled in, how I liked my role, etc. Here was my answer to the first question (I wont post the other questions as they could be constructed as confidential to the company):

Life in South Africa is great. The country is known for its high crime rates, there are risks associated with the political and economical situation and I was told that infrastructure is not as good as Western Europe and North America, where I had lived up till my move to Africa. However, once you actually live in the country, you discover the other side of South Africa: it is a beautiful and diverse country with a very pleasant climate, great people from many different cultures (there are 11 official languages in South Africa!) and a high standard of living. You learn quickly where it is unsafe to go and find that, although burglar bars are a standard feature on the houses, crime does not really affect you on a daily basis in East London. The great help from my colleagues at Johnson & Johnson South Africa has made the adjustment to the new culture easier and allowed me to settle down quickly.

I then published a picture with the swimming pool and the view from the patio. Since you already saw that picture in an earlier post (See also here), I replaced it here with a lovely sunRISE picture from our patio. As always, you can click on the image to get a larger version!

Sunrise over East London

Overall, my experience is that people here work hard during the day, but during at night and during the weekends it feels like being on vacation all the time! There are some lovely beaches around the East London area and the weather is very pleasant – warm but not too hot or humid.

I found Christmas in South Africa quite an adjustment as it falls in the middle of summer and therefore we experienced 30 degrees sunny weather, which is not what I am used to at that time of the year.