Nairobi

Considering that my last trip here was only for a total of 9 hours, I feel like this is actually my first time visiting Nairobi. For all yall who haven't been here - guess what? Nairobi is way more developed than the city I grew up in (Richmond, VA, and proud of it). There are fancy restaurants (Tuesday - Salvadoran, Wednesday - Thai), plenty of shopping, movie theatres, nice hotels (heated pool? check), and yes - even a baby elephat orphanage (details to come as soon as I get a chance to visit!). One of my friends who grew up here said, "I'm so glad I got to live in Nigeria too, because Nairobi isn't like real Africa."

Since Nairobi is so developed, it has become a hub for lots of regional offices - so in addition to the cool places to go, there's a huge expatriate population living here. On the airplane, announcements were made in Dutch, English, and Spanish!

But, some things are the same as other in parts of Africa:
1. overwhelmingly attentive hotel & wait staff. enough said. it's annoying.
2. danger! car jackings, kidnappings, crazy crime like that - people get lulled into this false sense of security because the capital feels safe - awareness is key.
3. getting hit on by married and/or old african men. never changes.
4. i'm still a better swimmer than everybody else at the pool
5. at the end of the day, the food is never quite spicy enough.
6. they serve meat 'n potatoes at breakfast
7. the weather is all i could ever ask for. hot in the day, cool at night, and an occasional rainstorm
8. the people are uncommonly welcoming - I love that about them. Everyone is your friend.
9. I get to the end of every day feeling like I need an extra shower - the dust is so heavy - maybe it's the smog.
10. loads of huge open markets (holding with a thousand things that i will doubtless find irresistable)
11. the only good thing on tv is the adam sandler movie on mnet. ick.

That's all the first impressions I can put together at the moment - more to come when I get pics and stories-