Nairobi

The view out my hotel window last night.  I feel like I'm on vacation! 

This post is coming from my cute hotel room in Nairobi where I have outlet and cables, yet I'm still having trouble with the internet.  I fear my blogging will drastically decrease once I arrive at my final destination.  I'll also probably have a few other things to do :)  I have a warm breeze coming through my balcony window and can hear singing, as if a church or school is nearby.  So awesome.

I'm ALMOST there!  My plane from Amsterdam to Nairobi was huge, like first class was on the 2nd floor huge.  I navigated the Nairobi airport without any trouble, miraculously.  First stamp in my passport, check!  My bag was maybe the last one of the plane, which got a little worrisome, but it eventually showed up.  My driver was right there and fabulous, and my hotel is so cute!

My 2012 New Year celebration is one to remember.  (From what I saw on Facebook, the hoosiers added another reason to celebrate!  I'm already so out of touch, haha.)  I nice Turkish businessman wanted to practice his English, so we chatted and he shared his Tusker with me, which is Kenya beer.  Not bad!  Then he offered me a foot-rub, and I decided it was time for bed instead.  Haha.

My body is very confused as to what time it is.  I got a good amount of sleep last night, but I'm not feeling 100%.  Hopefully a nice shower will help!  I fly out for Eldoret this evening, and apparently I'm supposed to be out of this room in the next 5 minutes...so it looks like an afternoon reading my Kindle in the hotel lobby is in order.  Ciao!  (I'm so international, haha)

Making My Way

Saturday, December 31^st, 2011.  6:15am in Amsterdam airport.

                They tell me I’m in Amsterdam…!?!  I’m not convinced.  Can you really trust that little Nintendo airplane supposedly tracking your course?  But here I am, definitely in a new place.  I feel like I stand out like a sore thumb but I’m doing my best to blend in for the time being.  I’m sitting on a couch near a window, typing away on my laptop, using my converter for power (thanks, Christina!).  I look quite cozy, really.  Thankfully the Amsterdam airport is fairly deserted at 6am, but I will be here for another couple hours so hopefully I’ll get to see it gradually come to life.

                Where did everyone get those cute shopping cart things for their bags?  I want one.  Darn it, that totally gives me away.  Regular travelers know about these things.

                I find that I have a lot of intrusive thoughts to my writing.  It’s generally accepted that I’m not a great writer, and I admit that I make little effort to improve.  My mind thinks so much faster than I can type…and once I take my eyes off the screen, my mind has moved on to a new topic.  SO I’ve decided to embrace this fact instead of fight it.  At least for this post.  Feedback is welcome. J

                My travels thus far have been very smooth.  My mom and I held up during our goodbye at the Indy airport.  Considering she was already misty-eyed when she picked me up, I think we did well.  Side note-- it might be the last time I let her take me to the airport.  Sorry, Mom!  I'm not going to pretend like I don't have nerves about this trip.  They've been fluctuating for a few days now.  However, I think I was also stressed about our goodbye because my appetite promptly returned mid-flight, haha.  My Detroit layover was shorter than I thought, but I was able to stock up on snacks and order a very important dress before departing.  Unsurprisingly, I’ve already met a couple people who are helping define my experience.  One woman in the Detroit airport wanted to talk about med school, and how I could help convince her daughter that she should go, haha.  Another was my seat partner during the last 8 hours.  26B, (somehow we didn’t exchange names?), if you happen to have remembered my blog address and are reading this, it was lovely sitting next to you!  I hope you made it to Stockholm safely.  Remember, there is more to Indiana than fields and boilermakers :)

                I still have a couple hours to kill, but time is already flying by.  I should probably read up about Nairobi, but I think The Hunger Games will win out.  I started on my last flight and I love it.  For the Kindle users out there, I’m 34% through.  (Brooke—I “borrowed” the first 2 from Katie before I left, so I’m set!)  It’s also an excellent book to read when you are about to embark on an adventure of the culinary kind.  My airplane food looked gourmet after what she was describing!

Anyway, thanks for reading. Now I’m going to attempt to hook up to the internet and post this bad boy….SUCCESS!!  I hope you all appreciate that photo because it took 10 minutes to load, haha.  Next up--Nairobi!

One week away!

Katie and I won tickets to a big New Year's Eve party with our awesome holiday ensembles!

Oh right, I'll be in Kenya :-D

It's hard for me to believe that one week from right now I will be on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic.  My Kenya to-do list is gradually shrinking and now seems very manageable.  I have had some interesting dreams involving my trip, haha.  Luckily all of them have been good dreams.  The one I remember was literally a dream about how well I had packed! 

I want to send a big THANK YOU to everyone out there who has offered advice, lent me supplies, or said encouraging words.  You guys are giving me the confidence to take this huge step out of my comfort zone.  And for entertainment's sake, here are some of the highlights of what I have to look forward to:

"I didn't take my own bedding and it was fine. You wouldn't want to bring it back anyway since we had bed bugs twice."

"There is a power strip in the hostel room but it sparks sometimes and looks dangerous."

"Pack work shoes that you'll want to leave behind b/c there floors are so nasty there.  Seriously, any pair of mine that made it to the wards I left in Kenya."

"Buy some bug spray when you get there for stunning the cockroaches.  We had a long stick in our room that we would then use to smash them."

Adventure indeed :)

And last but not least . . . MERRY CHRISTMAS!!



T-minus 2 weeks!

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog!  I'm currently 2 weeks away from my departure for KENYA!  I still have so much to do, not the least of which includes all of my Christmas shopping and celebrating.  (...did I use that phrase correctly?  "Not the least of which..." It's like I'm blogging or something.  Weird.)  Anyway, I just wanted to get the ball rolling with this blog thing, and get everyone else as excited as I am!  How am I going to do that, you ask?  I'm going to let other people do it for me:

IUKenya.org
Click the link above to learn more about the whole program--it's pretty amazing.  There's an overproduced video for those of us that prefer pictures to words.  I'm just one of many participating in this world renowned, life saving and life changing partnership.

Only in Kenya!
As if that super official website wasn't enough, make sure you are in a very public place, turn the volume up, and click the link above.  It is truly inspired.  I recommend watching it several times, actually.


Well that's it for my first post.  Thanks for stopping by!  I'm still figuring out this whole blog thing...and international travel thing...and 3rd world medicine thing...but I'm ready for an adventure, so here goes nothing!  :-D