Addis to Nairobi

So the day of the trip to Kenya started early. I could not keep my eyes open l last night, so crashed about 9. No wonder I was wide awake at 6AM. The church started broadcasting about 5AM just like it does every Saturday morning. The churches here do this each morning about 6 except for Saturdays. I put the last few things in their respective bags, some stuff coming to Kenya other stuff staying behind at Deker Inn. Dereje picked me up about 8 and off we went to the airport. There was a guy at the bottom of the ramp that asked to see my passport. Dereje was able to carry my bags inside the terminal. Then there was the first x-ray machine at which point the bags were handed off to a porter of sorts. I approached the empty checkin counter at Ethiopian airlines, and the attendant asked me if I had a doctor's certificate to travel. Say what? I have a bruised ligament in my left foot not a set of 12 stitches in my chest as the result of a gunshot wound!! I was told if one asks for a wheelchair, it is company policy that they must ask for this certificate. They told me it was up to the captain if I was allowed to fly without the proper certificate. I politely but firmly voiced my disapproval, and declined the wheelchair. I figured ... no wheelchair, no need for letter from their doctor. I waddled through immigration whom you have to see as well on the way out of the country. I then went upstairs, sharing the elevator with a few guys from Egypt Air who thought my story as ridiculous as I did. We were bussed to the jet about 30 minutes late and off we went. They had back-of-seat screens with movies and the like. The flight was only 100 minutes so it would have been impossible to watch a full movie anyways. I decided to poke around, and everything I tried was "not available for the moment". I settled on watching some of the Taking of Pelham 13 but after selecting that flick, I found myself in the middle of something with Adrian Brody. Never mind, I must have pushed the wrong button on my remote, so selected something else. I ended up in the same Brody movie so gave up. I browsed to one of the online surveys they offered, and decided to see what an Ethiopian survey looks like. It was on checkin and boarding. There were 5 questions and they looked like this: E5 E5 E5 E5 E5 I guess it was not working very well. That's actually a good way to ensure that no negative results are tabulated ... make sure it doesn't work. During the pre-flight announcements I thought I heard something that needed clarification (keep in mind this was a flight less than 2 hours). The attendant said they would be serving lunch ... lunch!!! On such a short flight in North America they stopped serving meals over a decade ago. Air Canada ... you listening? We landed in Nairobi on time then I was wheeled to the immigration area where I bought a visa for $25 USD. There were 2 people who helped me and they were very nice. I dropped a nice tip on them. The car from the Fairmont never showed so I took a $20/20 minute cab ride to the hotel, Guess what ... she is (BIG TIME). We had a too expensive lunch and ST is napping for a short time. She loves her onesie and the silver earrings/necklace set I got her. She also loves the Ethiopian flag shawl as we anticipate it may be cool at night on safari. Initial impressions of Kenya are that it is not as poor as Ethiopia, the people are nice, and they are not as religious. I see lots of women on the street in Addis who keep their heads covered (orthodox Christianity) and have seen none of that here. I saw the Nairobi version of the Addis blue bus ... it's white. They drive on the British side of the road here which I did not know. As of tomorrow at 7:30AM we will be on safari; do not pass go, do not collect $200. By the way the Kenyan schilling is 72 to the US dollar. Also, the "e" in Kenya is short. My next post may be with a giraffe or elephant (zebra or wildebeest EVEN) less than a few hundred metres away. The parks we are going to insist that safari vehicles are docked by sundown so we will not be out much past 8PM if even that late. Thank-you in Swahili is "asante". Asante for reading this out there in BLOG land, and this is both of our first trip south of the equator. There is no whirlpool in the toilet here so I could not verify that it goes counter-clockwise as opposed to clockwise in the northern hemisphere.