London blog:

Hilton: best breakfast we’ve ever had, really, and we’ve had some nice ones!
Double Decker busses: great way to see London, cheap and manageable for us.
Sites we saw walked to: Piccadilly Circus, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Fountain, Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abby, The Mall, River Themes, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Horse Guards, Scotland Yard: rode past the London Eye, Marble Arch, Hyde Park, Notting Hill neighborhood, probably more but I can’t remember now.

Things that were interesting/fun to notice: London Black Taxis, Look Left signs on the street, Telephone booths, fashionable clothing, dogs off leash, everyone drinking a pint on the street outside the pub after work.

People we had conversations with were from Morocco, Brazil, Afghanistan.

Things we actually did: see Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Monet, Seurat, Cezanne and Turner paintings at the National Gallery, eat fish and chips in a wonderful old pub, ride the tube (subway), ride a double decker bus, walk, walk, get lost, walk, enjoy experiencing a brief taste of London and get a bit of the time adjustment and the jet lag out of the way.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Our first full day in Kenya. We had a good night’s rest and felt pretty good after a shower this morning. After a breakfast of bacon, eggs, yogurt, mango and granola, we went on errands with Connie. Our impressions of Nairobi, much more hilly and jungle like or tropical than we expected. It’s a huge city, but if you just plopped us down in the middle we might think we were on St. Croix with the mix of regular western style buildings, little places of business where people are selling baskets, bananas, carved art, etc. right next to the steet. Paige wanted to bring home some puppies a man was holding out for sale by the side of the road. There were cars on the left side of the road, a rather ill defined traffic pattern that looks like chaos to us. Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way here and we have to remember that! We also stopped at a mall that would fit in beautifully in St. Charles, lovely landscaping, outdoor ponds, stairways, tropical flowers and stores full of beautiful things! We ran into some of the CMF teammates there, the Browns and Caziers and Rachel saw some teachers from school, and it has a nice neighborhood market feeling. We changed money, went to a supermarket and enjoyed seeing similarities and differences there. The only thing we’ve purchased so far was medicine for Paige. She’s suffering from a sore throat, congestion, headache, etc. and we got “Day Nurse/Night Nurse”. It’s like a Nyquil day and night package that we can buy in the states and it was actually less expensive or about the same price as I’d expect to pay at home. Please pray that she feels better soon! She’s a trooper and hanging in there, but she’s not herself and wants to feel better! While Kevin and Paige took an afternoon nap, I woke up from a shorter nap and went for a walk with the Crum ladies in the neighborhood. One of the things we find amusing is the housing under construction. The houses in the neighborhood and big and beautiful, but while building these concrete structures, the “scaffolding” is made of what looks like sticks held together by twine.

We had our “opening of the suitcases” and brought out two huge laundry buckets of the things that people sent over with us. That was really fun. One of the things that I intended to do and didn’t was to bring a church directory. Connie and Dan remember a number of names from FVCC, but a photo directory would have been helpful. Rachel was delighted to have all the gum she will be able to enjoy, the treats from home will be much appreciated and I realized why the DVD’s are especially enjoyed, they don’t have TV service at home, so it’s just a VCR/DVD player if you want to watch something. I like the lower level of electronic entertainment, but I admit that I’d suffer from internet withdrawal! The connection speed here is slow and the service goes out frequently while you are online. We hope to stop by Java House, a near by coffee house, where the internet is wireless and free to load this blog entry.

When we were packing, Connie told me it would be cool. I believed her in my head, but I was still surprised by how cool it is. I’ve worn my light weight jacket almost constantly since I got here. I’ll be fine, but I wish I’d left in that other pair of long pants and skipped the other pair of shorts! I will be glad I brought my fleece vest, which seemed really silly to bring to Africa!

Connie made her tortillas and we had a delicious taco dinner complete with guacamole made from avocados from the avocado tree in their yard, as we watched Lord of the Rings on video, Kevin is the only Oler that managed to stay awake for the whole thing; we’re still adjusting to the time. I’m writing this at 1 am Sunday morning, 5 pm Saturday in the states. Daylight savings makes it 8 hours difference from St. Charles, rather than the 9 I thought it was. I slept for three hours, then fell awake, hopefully I’ll get back to sleep soon. My pattern at home is similar, so, I’m not too worried.