The plane is great… there are nine seats across each row and we all have our own T.V. screen in the seat in front of us.  We have a choice of 9 or 10 features… I will see more movies in flight on this trip than I’ve probably seen in a year! They treat passengers royally on this airline. Pillows, masks, socks, toothbrush and paste, free drinks, two meals, movies…. whatever…. I sure didn’t sleep much.

     We arrived in London at 8:30 am (19th) and found the Hazel’s there waiting for us.  We stored our luggage at the airport and took off on an express train into London proper.  It was a dreary, cold day… just like one always hears about in London.  We walked all around and saw an awful lot in one day.  Dick and Shirley had done this before so they were excellent guides.  We went to Buckingham Palace, to Westminster Abbey, Piccadilly Circus, Big Ben, Parliament, the river, Trafalgar Square, Downing Street, and The London Eye that had been built for the millennium celebration.  It’s a good thing we weren’t left here any longer.  It seemed like we used half our film on the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.  Everything is damp and has green growing on it… roofs and buildings etc.  We spent a good while in the Abbey looking all around and through it – quite interesting.  We got back to the airport to reorganize and spent the evening there … checked in at the email station.  Our plane didn’t leave till 10:30 so we became familiar with our surroundings…. We didn’t realize they would feel “like home” when we returned on January 4th.

   The plane to Nairobi was one size down from our earlier flight but all the amenities were the same.  We had seven seats across on the same row… the Hazels in a section for four and the three of us across the aisle on the right window side.  The plane was full.  This time there was a big screen TV so we didn’t have the choice of features… the choice was watch or try to sleep.  I think I got about three hours of sleep.  We have noticed the Hazels have good experience at sleeping through on airplanes… must be due to lots of practice on international flights!

   Our plane arrived about 40 minutes early in Nairobi (9:30 a.m. 20th) as we had a tail wind assisting us.  This was about 56 hours after my departure from Shreveport so I was glad to arrive!  The most exciting thing was that ALL THE BAGS arrived.  Andrew had waited six days or so for them to locate his!!!  We found our guides (with East African Ornithological Safaris) when we exited through customs (“Hazel” on the handwritten sign).  There was no sight of Andrew in the area so we’d decided he was meeting us at the hotel.  We were walking to the vehicle when I recognized a silhouette!!!  There he was – what a welcome sight to see!!  That was my Christmas right there!   We all fit in one vehicle and headed into town to the Norfolk Hotel.  This hotel opened in 1905.  It’s in the middle of the city now but at that time it was in wide-open spaces with wild animals crossing through the grounds.  It’s lovely and quaint and reminded me very much of hotels in Costa Rica.  It feels very tropical and damp.  The gardens are beautiful and green.  There is a Christmas tree in the lobby (au natural) that has little baskets and animal hide ornaments on it.  Our guide had given Rus and Andrew and me a card for a friend of his.  The Hazels opted to shower, rest and relax at the Norfolk for the afternoon.  We opted to hire this friend and his taxi and go exploring.  Nairobi is a huge city of about 3 million people.  Most of the people are dark… you see the dark skin shades and Islam influence there is very evident. Swahili is the official language and it’s from the Bantu and the Islam… a combination of those language families…  Ramadan has started.

   Smog and fumes are quite noticeable…. One tries not to notice the driving.  They sit on the wrong side of the car and drive on the wrong side of the road, have round-abouts and don’t appear to follow rules… Later Dick would tell us this is so much better than Lagos… They don’t honk horns so much here and they appear to pay attention to the white lines in the road.  People are hawking stuff all down through the four lanes of traffic… things like shoes, dusters, watches, papers, and magazines… ANY thing… Talk about “drive-through”… On the go shopping!!!

  We went to the Giraffe Manor, which was outside of town and in a scenic and tropical setting.  I had read about it and was tickled to come.  We hand fed the giraffes from the second floor porch and certainly got to see them up-close.  They are so graceful and so gentle…. Except for one of the mama’s… She’ll butt if you don’t feed her right away or are giving something else your attention.  You have to keep your eye on her!   There were also two wart hogs there so that was my first close up view of them.  From there we went to Karen Blixson’s home.  She wrote “Out of Africa.” The movie was also filmed very close by on the property.  It was a beautiful setting and so interesting to experience.  We saw what was left of her coffee gin.  The gardens were lovely and there was the hugest fuchsia bougainvillea I have ever seen. It was actually just covering a tree underneath.  Next to it was a huge cactus-looking tree (called a Candelabra) that later we would see many times.  Neither of these stops was too far out of town but we passed a whole group of baboons along the road.  It appeared we were in a suburb.  It was a strange feeling. 

     We went by a cultural center but it was too late to catch the performance.  We passed the National Nairobi Park, which is just out of town.  They have every wild animal there.  Andrew had been able to go and spend half a day but we didn’t have time.  It’s just amazing that it’s all available so close to a huge city!!  On the way back through town we had the cab driver stop to let Andrew check on his Visa for Tanzania and then to do email where he had done it before.   We got up to the fourth floor and on a computer when the power went out.  I think it happens quite frequently… so we gave up on e-mail there.  We were very close to the area where the U.S. Embassy was bombed.  Andrew had toured that area.

   We headed back to the hotel at this point and ran into the Hazels on the veranda.  They looked so fresh and rested!  They had just eaten and we took their place on the terrace to do that ourselves.  We had HAMBURGERS… couldn’t believe we did that – but they were great!  We bought a few postcards and did a little email and then were ready to crash!!  Linda and Sherry slept from the time they got in their rooms until we left they next morning.  We had two sleeping beauties!   We are probably just jealous we couldn’t be one!   It was nice for us to finally get to crawl in between two sheets and stretch out flat to sleep!