I kissed a giraffe and I liked it

Wednesday afternoon. After about three hours of walking. Why? Because I knew where it was. What I didn't know was how FAR. So Nick and I got the workout of the week. If anyone who's in Nairobi wants to go to the Giraffe Centre, take bus number 24, not 15. And don't ask to be dropped at Nairobi National Park. It's nowhere near.
Anyhow, it was all worth it when we met the giraffewoman of our dreams, Kelly, and her friends. Mwah mwah!

The happy family! Until Nick ran out of food, and Kelly headbutted us both.

A weekend in Naivasha

Last weekend I went up to Lake Naivasha, a couple of hours outside of Nairobi, with two Norwegian peace corps volunteers: Marte and Torhild. We ended up doing a whole lot of stuff, and I don't think I've been this active at any point in 2011. Saturday we went to Mt Longonot, a volcano crater. The guide claimed it was a 2000 meter climb (from 500 m to 2500 m), but there's no way. More like 500. But it WAS very steep, and took us about two hours to get to the rim. Beautiful though. On our way down we figured we still had lots of time, so we went straight to do a boat ride to see flamingos and hippos (far too close according to my self, scary creatures), and then on to a game walk, and then to a viewpoint of a crater lake. Phew. Sunday we slept for a while, and then spent the whole day in Hells Gate National Park. Amazing! Rented bikes for about $7, biked about 10km, went for a couple of hours hike in this really cool gorge, where parts of Tomb Raider II was shot (just to mention that), and then biked back. Our bums, and pretty much our entire bodies were sore, but lord was it worth it.

Marte, me, Torhild in front of Mt. Longonot NP

Me at Mt. Longonot

Mt. Longonot crater

Marte, me, Torhild at Mt. Longonot

"Beware of buffalo" ...Game walk

Giraffes at game walk

Me, Torhild, Marte in front of Hells Gate NP



Torhild and Marte with their fancy cameras



The gorge. Seriously cool place!

Gratulerer med dagen!!! (som var)

This post is about Norways national day, May 17th, so because it's more natural, I'll write this in Norwegian, and translate into English.

Gratulerer med 17. mai! Årets 17. mai var en dag jeg hadde lyst til å tilbringe med mange nordmenn, men ikke ante hvor jeg faktisk kom til å være. På fredag trodde jeg at jeg kom til å være i Lilongwe, Malawi på dagen, og sendte mail til ambassaden der om feiringen. Fredags ettermiddag trodde jeg at jeg skulle feire i Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, og sendte mail dit. Dit var det en 28 timers busstur, og man kommer fram til Dar etter midnatt. Neitakk. Lørdag bestilte jeg flybillett til Nairobi, Kenya, og etter en kjempeartig helg i Lilongwe, ankom jeg Nairobi mandags ettermiddag.

Happy May 17th! This years May 17th was a day i wanted to spend with a bunch of Norwegians, but had no idea where I'd actually be. Last Friday I thought I'd spend it in Lilongwe, Malawi, and sendt an email to the embassy there about their celebrations. Friday afternoon I thought I'd celebrate it in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and emailed them. To Dar there is a 28 hour busride, and you arrive after midnight. In Dar. No thanks. Saturday I booked a planeticket to Nairobi, Kenya, and after a really great weekend in Lilongwe, I arrived in Nairobi monday afternoon.

Tirsdags morgen tok jeg taxi ut til bydelen Karen (oppkalt etter Karen Blixen), til den norske skolen der. Jeg tenkte at for en gangs skyld ville det være dumt å ankomme på "Afrika tid", altså en time forsinka, så jeg kom rundt en time fortidlig....vel, jeg er ny i byen.
Den norske skolen ligger i et nydelig område, veldig grønt, og var for anledningen dekorert med norske flagg over alt, i tillegg til en bunad og noen små blonde barnehoder her og der. Det tok et par minutter før tårene var under kontroll...

Tuesday morning I took a taxi to an area of Nairobi called Karen (named after Karen Blixen), to the Norwegian school there. I thought that for once it would be stupid to arrive in "Africa time", meaning an hour late, so I ended up arriving an hour early.....well, I'm new in town.
The Norwegian school is situated in a beautiful area, very green, and today it was decorated with Norwegian flags everywhere, in addition to a few national costumes and some tiny blonde heads running around. It took me a few minutes before the tears were under control...

Feiringen starta med flaggheising og nasjonalsanger, både kenyansk og norsk. Og korps! Ingen 17. mai uten korps.

The celebrations began with putting up flags (I don't know the correct term for this in English) and singing national anthems, both Kenyan and Norwegian. And marching bands! No May 17th without marching bands.

Etter dette gikk vi inn, for mer synging, diktlesing, og taler fra bl.a. ambassadøren i Kenya, som hadde med en hilsen fra kongen (det fikk vel ikke du! Hah...), og fra lederen av Scripture Mission Øst-Afrika (pappan til Ellinor).

After we went inside, for more singing, poetryreading, and speaches from the Norwegian ambassador in Kenya, who brought with him a greeting from the King, and (a speach) from the leader of Scripture Mission East-Africa (Ellinors dad!).

The kids from the Norwegian school singing

Så bar det ut igjen for å gå i tog!

Then we went outside again to.....well, English just doesn't have enough words today...let's just say we walked around singing Norwegian songs and shouting "Hurrah".

17. mai tog i Nairobi!



Fanen til den norske skolen

Endelig var det tid for de etterlengta pølsene, lapskaus, flatbrød, kringle og andre kaker. Gjett om jeg spiste masse. Dette ble etterfulgt av leker, slik som bokskasting, sekkeløp, potetløp, konebæring, spikerslåing, osv.

Finally it was time for the long awaited hotdogs, stew (kind of like the South African "poike"), and all sorts of Norwegian cakes. I was soooo full after. Yum. The eating was followed by traditional May 17th games.

Bokskasting. Fulltreffer!

Hurra!

Tomorrow I'm off to Lake Naivasha with two Norwegian girls I met Tuesday. We'll do Hells Gate National Park (finally!) and some other stuff. Back to Nairobi again on Monday, and after that, who knows? Am going to Arusha and Haydom soonish. I think.

Honey, I'm home!

I'm in ZANZIBAR! I thought I remembered that Zanzibar was quite beautiful. Well, I remembered wrong. It's absoloutly breathtakingly perfect!!!!
Yes I'm getting lazy, and no I'm not really exploring much. BUT I'm having an awesome time with my canadians, swedes, latinos, israelis, danes, brits etc etc etc. And I'm getting tanned. Very tanned. And I just heard it's snowing again in Norway. Mohahahahaha
James and I took the bus from Ukunda (Diani) sunday morning. After 10 hours of bumping and sweating and sweating and sweating and bumping a bit more, we arrived in Dar. Said goodbye to James the next morning, and took the boat to Zanzibar. After that, I've mostly been on the beach.
There's really not much to write about, but just to write something, I'm staying in a dorm at Kendwa Rocks, with Kristen x 2, 6 british teenage girls and 3 israeli guys. Tomorrow morning we're off snorkeling, and tomorrow eve is the Full Moon Party. Yay! Anyways, here's some pictures from Kendwa (Zanz.), and some older pictures from Diani.

alyssa, kristen c and me, sunset at kendwa

kc, alyssa, kh, me

fail...

our dorm. it's quite nice!

feeding bushbabies at stilts, diani

me and kh at diani

the sweet life of whites in africa. just had to ad this pic. you see very old (70) white people with very young (25) boyfriends and girlfriends all the time. classic.

Welcome to Diani

Stupid Sykes monkeys, constantly coming into my bedroom and messing with my stuff.

Sykes monkey invading my mozzienet

The Sykes monkeys are crazy. They come into my room every morning and every evening, even though I have no food there what so ever. The other day they stole my mirror...but decided they didn't want it, and came back with it in the afternoon.

Sunrise at 6.45, sun shines directly at my pillow and wakes me up every morning.

40 thieves <3

You won't have more fun than you can make yourself. Me, Sophia and Kristen C at 40s Monday eve.

Stilts!

Ali Barbors Cave. A resturant in a coral cave. Amazing and expensive food!

Bushbabies

Bushbabies being fed. They're so tame they'll eat out of your hand (will add that pic later)

Will be going to Tanz either tomorrow or Sunday, wish me luck! (Going to Dar with James and meeting up with the Kristens at Zanzibar)

Watamu and Gede

I'm at a very expensive cybercafe, so to save some money, here are the pictures from our day in Watamu Marine National Park, and at the Gede Ruins. Amazing day!

dolphins!

seaturtle that we happened to come across

the kristens

us with our guides

lobsters! didn't love it...

i was covered in monkey paw prints after showing up with some bananas

"can i please have one more? pretty pretty please?"

Gede ruins

i went up there, and it was scary!

Now I'm in Diani, which is heaven. Love my little stilted tree hut, but will write more about this later.
It's 30 degrees here, white beaches and turqouise water. Jealous?