Chicago to London to Nairobi

Getting ready to go on a longer trip is the hardest in the hours before you leave.  The plants need to be watered.  The sump pump needs checking.  A prescription was not filled…I did better than most times before a trip and just stopped obsessing about everything.  The drive to Chicago was simple and Jeff reserved parking so that made it easier.  

Checking in on British Airways, the person at the flight counter gave us directions to the airport lounge, which I thought was a mistake, since we don’t belong to any of the lounge clubs.  Still, we thought we’d give it a try, and when the lounge scanned our boarding passes…we were in!  I love airport lounges in the very few times I have been in one.  It is so much calmer, and the free food and drink is always appreciated.  Then Jeff looked online, and discovered that we had been upgraded to Business Class.  With sleeping pods.  Warm hand towels.  Cadbury Chocolate.  Champagne. Cheeky menus that listed snacks to eat if one were feeling "peckish." I like that much better than what we would say in the States.  I still can’t believe it, and even though I don’t know why we were upgraded, we appreciated it so much!  What a perfect start to our trip.

Jeff in his pod.  Usually you don't see faces this happy getting settled in an airplane seat.

My holiday treat!

The layover at Heathrow was short.  I enjoyed seeing stores like Harrods in the terminal, but there wasn’t much time to window shop.  I found out later that we apparently missed out by not being in the shopping area of Terminal 5.

Later in this leg of the flight (back in the regular seats), it was turning to dusk and I looked out of the window of the plane to see if there was anything on the ground.  No lights, but I saw a big, blazing fire.  Then another. Then a giant ring of fire. 

Fire....Fire....Fire!

I’ve never seen anything like it from a plane.  Looking at the flight map locator on the back seat of the plane, we were on the border of Ethiopia and South Sudan.  It was spooky and beautiful at the same time.

So cool.

Although there wasn’t free wine back in steerage class, my British breakfast meal had a scone and …clotted cream!  My favorite decadent treat from when I enjoyed on my original trip to London in the 1980’s.  Heavenly.  I also got my first taste of 'weird food.' I consider myself an adventurous eater, but it has been a while since I had some truly unexpected tastes and textures, this time in the form of breakfast sausages and baked beans on British Airways.  I now recall that breakfast is the meal of the day that I am most aware of when it is not what I expected as breakfast food (cold cuts in Eastern Europe come to mind).  John didn't eat much at all either, not even the clotted cream!  I'm going to have to work on him.

After landing in Nairobi, we got our first taste of immigration visas.  I’m learning that hot and crowded is hard for me to handle. Or even just hot.  It was just a mass of people filing out random forms that seemed to be the same one we had filled out on the plane.  The one bright spot was the group of people we starting talking with in the ‘line’ for the hour we were there…a mother and her sons from England and a native-born African from Toronto. 

Just, ugh.  Do I have to do this?

Carolyn, Vance and Cherry (Jeff’s mother, uncle and aunt), met us outside the airport, and then the most grueling part of our trip emerged…the drive to Limuru, where we were introduced to the roads in Kenya and driving here in general. I found out why several advisory groups recommended wearing a sports bra for the ladies, and we were almost sideswiped in a roundabout. We arrived at the home of a friend around 11:30 p.m.  Some quick snacks and then it was time for bed.