First stop: London -> Second Stop: Everything I've Ever Wanted

 The past two days have been exactly like opening Sundays at camp. However, today was Tuesday dance night where the awkward attempts to make conversation, the laughing at things that you think are actually stupid not funny, the calling people by the wrong name, and the hesitance in every move have suddenly disappeared and the sarcasm, crazy pictures, and embarrassing facts about our lives have definitely appeared.  I am excited to say that I have two fabulous banda-mates, more on them later.  And that our banda name is the bush babies so I’m pretty stoked about that and a team handshake is definitely on its way.  But…lets rewind a bit.

London!  I actually slept on the plane for a couple of hours because I had three whole seats to myself but I was still exhausted and didn’t really feel like going out into the city during our twelve hour layover.  However, I knew I would be disappointed in myself if I didn’t so I took my 50 pound backpack into the city of London with about 15 other people.  For having no itinerary I would say we did pretty well.  We went to lunch, saw Big Ben, the London Eye, and an art museum (which as all of you know I could have done without…except for the fact that they stored our bags for free to give my shoulders a break).  We then took the metro back and chilled at the airport to prepare for our flight to Nairobi which was a little more crowded and hence less pleasant but I still managed to get a few hours in.  It was exhausting, but beautiful and a great chance to see somewhere I’d never been before.

Kenya!  Absolutely breathtaking.  Only a couple minutes into the 5 hour drive from the airport (aka civilization) to our camp…BAM! GIRAFFES!  Followed by cattle, goats, ostriches, zebras, and dogs.  But in case that wasn’t exciting enough I leave our dining area (also known as a chumba) and look to my right and what do I see? Yup, a baboon…no big deal.  Only my favorite things in the entire world hanging out in my backyard. 

I’m still very overwhelmed but extremely happy to have this incredible opportunity and also very sleepy.  But tomorrow we are going into town to go to the market and somehow I agreed to go running at 6:15 tomorrow morning.  And to leave you with one statement that our student affairs manager will tell us more about tomorrow supposedly… “Just stay in your bandas and in the chumba at night because we have had a lot of elephant break-ins recently and you don’t want to see that.”