First day at work and giant hairy spider in my room

Ok, so today was simply amazing -- as I mentioned in my earlier post, we started off with meditation and a jump in the very, very cold pool. After I went back to my room and changed (and wrote that earlier blog entry) we were supposed to meet with our clients in a conference room here at the lodge. I was late. Why? because as I was heading out of room I noticed a huge, vicious-looking spider on the ceiling above my bed. Blargh!

Aparently it's just a Red Roman spider, which will rarely bite humans. But what the heck do I know?...when I saw the giant hairy thing (about seven inches across) I collected my things, took this photo from all the way across the room and let the hotel staff know that I'd appreciate if they removed it for me. I tried to be cool about it, but whoa!

Anyway, we got to hear a presentation from the MTPA Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency all about the region and then an overview from each of the project partners/clients. Looks like we have some really interesting work ahead of us. As I mentioned, I'll be working with Business Against Crime (BAC) on a project that will entail meeting with a bunch of stakeholders over the next few days and then trying to help the local groups implement a wireless emergency alert system.

We met for a couple hours with Yvette from BAC and then she and I headed off to the airport to pick up the rental car we'll be using. I was very happy to see we'd gotten an automatic transmission -- i can drive a stick, but still. And learning to drive on the left side of the road was a bit thrilling, but I think I've got it down.

Tonight we're going to barbecue ("brei") at the hotel. Here's a shot of the sunset from where I'm writing this now.