So today I leave Europe, I leave my life of travel and I
head to a new beginning. A scary place
when you don’t have anything booked, nowhere to live, no job and no real game
plan as such. This is totally not me,
but getting out of your comfort zone makes you a stronger person and I take
that with me as I finalise my World Odyssey blog this morning and wrote my last
entry with mixed feelings. It has
something that I have devoted my time to over the last 22 months with a blog
entry for every single day accounted for.
What I have seen, where I have been, the people I have met and the highs
and lows of the life of a travelling bum.
I know when I finally get a chance to re-read what I have actually
witnessed let alone the dedication it took to keep my entries coming, I am sure
I will be very humbled indeed. So it is
with sadness I say goodbye to my blog www.berniesworldodyssey.blogspot.com
but also of some excitement and intrepedation of the next journey as I share my
new beginning. The trials and
tribulations of a finding a new job, learning a new culture and new country and
most importantly integrating myself, being accepted and making my life and of
those around me a better one.
So for the last time I was ready to move my 60kg. After realising my plan of not getting my
things sent until I had the correct visa, I feel better about the amount of
money I have spent carrying that stupid 2nd bag with me. I don’t want to even add the final tally-but it
will be worth it all the same. The lifts
of the hotel are small and I was lucky to get all my luggage in one ride! I got to the reception counter and both good
lookers were there, now how is that for a farewell!? I returned my key and one of them asked if I
was now going back to Australia. I said
actually no-I’m moving to Kenya. Both
their faces looked shocked and they asked if I knew someone there and I said
not really-do you have a job-no and then they looked incredulous. I know, it is such a BIG move to have nothing
planned, but as my plans have been so airy the last few weeks, I guess I
couldn’t make a commitment anyway. Well
I’m going now and I will just have to see how it all pans out when I get there. The 2 guys have been so helpful my whole stay
that I am going to write an email to the hotel telling them so. I don’t think ‘good’ things are often
communicated, it is only the problems that people have, so I want them to know
just how thankful I have been. One of
the guys helped me out with my bags, hailed a cab and then shook my hand and
wished me all the best. What a nice way
to leave. After we had bundled all my
gear in the taxi, I made sure I could see the meter and we were on our way for
the 25 minute ride to the airport. My
taxi driver didn’t speak much English, he tried a few things and then we just
sat back and he turned up the radio when I starting tapping my fingers to a
song, we smiled and it felt weird. When
I got to the airport the meter said 26.40EUR and then there was a surcharge of
4.20EUR. Not sure what the surcharge is,
but at least I could see it on the meter and I gave him 35EUR and told him to
keep the change. What was I going to do
with euro coin? The trolleys were close
by, but curb side they aren’t free.
Crap-I had just told the taxi dude to keep the coin that I now
needed!!! Crap. So I asked if he had change for a 10EUR, I
couldn’t ask for my change back now and trying to explain that to him-yeah
forget it. Let’s just try and get change
for the trolley, but he have me a 50c and I looked at it not realising that was
the cost of the trolley-that’s cheap, so he took it back off me and went and
got the trolley for me. He was so sweet
and then just as we had loaded up the trolley, 2 police officers came over and
started speaking to me in Spanish. Oh
no-what have a I done? Then they spoke
to the driver and pointed to where his taxi was and he had parked in the bus section. The poor guy, he was just trying to get me as
close to the doors as he could for Qatar.
He didn’t get a fine and with a smile and a wave, to the cabbie and the
Police officers, I was on my way inside and to find out what sort of process
that was waiting for my extra bag.
I had checked the Qatar Airways website before I left and
I could take an extra bag and it was going to cost me 17USD per kilo for the privilege. That I could handle. It is still a crap load of money, but at
least it wasn’t 110AUD a kilo like Malaysia Airlines. I still can’t believe that! I had allowed myself plenty of time, so I
didn’t have the disaster that I had when I was in Brisbane and when I got to
the check-in’s I was the only one there.
I wasn’t super early but I was just on 3 hours prior. So I was called by a chick and she seemed
really nice and at the end of the day that is all I can hope for, a nice
check-in chick. She asked if I lived in
Nairobi as I was entering in on a one way ticket and I said yes, but I am
entering in on a tourist visa that I can get on arrival. I had my Ethiopian Airlines ticket at the
ready should she ask for proof that I had an outgoing ticket, but she checked
her computer and said yes that all good and proceeded to check me in. She asked how many bags I had and I said 2
and she told me that I would have to pay for the second. So I wacked the monster on and he was 25.1kg
(I’m allowed 23kg) and then the second bag was put on the scales and it was
12.5kg. So I had 37.6kg of ‘checked’
luggage. I’m allowed 23kg, so
technically I was over 14.6kg. I didn’t
think that was too bad and because she was SO nice, she said I’ll just charge
you for 10kg. AWESOME. Thanks so much. I knew I would have to pay and any discount
was better than nothing. So the monster
went through and I had to take the smaller bag back, go to the sales counter around
the corner, pay and get my receipt and then come back to her and she would give
me my boarding passes and take the bag. I
also had to put on bag tags on my hand luggage, well she had to and I was just
waiting for her to pull me up on the amount of hand luggage that I had but she
didn’t bat an eyelid-a silent thank you as I didn’t want to bring too much
attention to that. So I did all this and
in no time I was thanking her again and with my window seat boarding passes I
was on my way to security. I am NOT
going to miss travelling with all those bags that is for sure. Security was busy. I have learnt to take off all my bangles
before getting there these days as it just creates havoc when I go through, I
beep, I have to go back-it’s like swimming upstream with people coming in, take
off all my jewellery and then go back through again. I had actually decided to take off all my
jewellery this morning anyway before getting to Kenya, just being security
smart now, so I have left 2 bangles, 2
non -descript rings and a small necklace on and the rest has been packed
away. As I came out the other side of
security and packing up my stuff, an older guy asked what part of America I was
from. I said Oh, I’m Australian and he
said oh you don’t sound like it. That
statement can be good, some Australians really have a twang that makes me
cringe and it could be bad that I sound American (no offence to my America
friends) or that I have been travelling that long that I have lost a part of
home. He was a very chatty Cathy and
asked where I was heading and when I told him Nairobi his brows knitted
together and told me to be very careful there as it is a very dangerous
city. So needless I didn’t tell him I
was moving there and not really encouraging words-but I know that the city has
a very rough image. Do I really know
what I am letting myself in for? Maybe
not 100% but like any other city in the world, you need to know where the bad
parts are and use some common sense and I like to think that I will be able to
do both.
By the time I had checked in and gone through security it
was 12.50pm. My flight was at 3.25pm and
we had to be at the gate at 2.25pm. So I
didn’t have too much time to kill, so I found the eatery, got myself a drink
and then organised my bag, my boarding passes, made mental notes of flight
numbers and what gates I had to get to.
I caught up on my notes and then it hit me. IM ON MY WAY!!!! Holy cow.
I started to make my way to my gate at 2pm and it’s just as well I did
as Gate D is tucked back up near security and seems to be where the
international departures all leave from-well outside of the European Union that
is. I got my passport stamped and there
was a line already for the flight, so hell I just joined it. I was going to be sitting for over 6 hours; I
may as well stand while I could. The
flight was called late, but somehow we still managed to leave on time which is
just as well as I only have a 2 hour connection in Doha and I didn’t want to
miss that flight. The flight was full
and I was sitting next to an annoying guy that couldn’t sit still and that that
really annoying leg bouncing thing happening and I had to keep moving my own
leg to try and not feel it-it is one of the most annoying things someone can do
when you are sitting with people. We
were sitting on an A330 plane with a configuration of 2x4x2. The overhead space wasn’t that great but I
got my 2 bags up, with the help of annoying man and the seatbelt fit without an
extension. Woo hoo. The arm rests are the higher ones, so it
wasn’t too embarrassing having my legs push it up during the flight. We were given a refresher towel for take-off
and a tray of hard lollies was also passed through the cabin. Nice touch.
Late lunch was served and they displayed the menu on your personal TV
screens which is pretty cool as then you know everyone has seen the menu, but
it was annoying as it interrupted whatever you were watching for the 15 minutes
it took them to show it twice round with an English and Arabic version. BUT the most annoying thing was that they
don’t pause what you were watching, it kept ticking along, so you had to go
back and rewind to where you were up to.
A little annoying and it was like that with every single announcement
they made, it never paused what you were watching. I watched 2 movies-Pitch Perfect and Abraham
Lincoln (the vampire one) and then I finished off with 4 episodes of Modern
Family and I did get some looks as I tried to use my ‘airplane’ laugh and not
my normal laugh-gosh I love that series.
Everything was right on track, the planes was prepared for landing, we
were over Doha and we got an announcement that due to air traffic we were going
to have to circle around for 35 minutes till we could take a gap and land. Oh no this wasn’t good. That’s 35 minutes till we land. I then needed to get off the plane, through
security and find my gate in 20 minutes that boarding was to begin in
Doha. Man I hate these close shaves,
they are so stressful and even though 2 hours looks like enough time, it is a
push the second a flight is delayed. I
told myself I did have some extra time at boarding was at 12.25am, but the
flight technically didn’t leave till 1.20am.
So I guess I did have some snafu time, and as I was connecting from a
Qatar to Qatar flight, they knew we were on our way. It doesn’t always work that way, but
hopefully if we weren’t any later than the projection I would be okay. The upside to holding at night over Doha was
that it was beautiful. There were
patches of blackness and then a section of lights signalling an estate, a town,
the marina, and the hotels on the water-whatever it was they were built in
patterns, so from the sky it looked like thousands of tiny diamonds all
glittering. The beauty of a planned city
I guess. It really was a stunning city
from the air at night. We were finally
given the green light for our run in and I swear just near the airport we would
have been only 500m from the roof of the Marriott Hotel as we came in-it looked
like I could nearly touch it!!!!!
We landed at 11.45pm.
My next flight was boarding at 12.25am but not leaving till 1.20am. But I still didn’t want to dilly dally around
and you can imagine my exasperation when we had landed that we were not docking
at an aerobridge and we had busses to take us to the terminal. It was then I found out that Doha
International is going through a refurbishment and NO planes were docking via aerobridges,
every single plane was getting met by busses.
So we were bussed the 200m, yes it was only 200m to the terminal and then
the shit flight was on for security. In
the airports defence they had 2 lines, one for quick transfers (that was me)
and then people that had more than 2 hours used a different line. How very smart of the airport authority. So I was waved through the short term with
just about everyone else from my flight where I nervously waited for 15 minutes
to get through. There was a staff member
at the base of the escalators to take us to the departure gates so I asked him
if he knew what gate I had to get to and he said gate 33. So when I popped out up top of course I found
myself at gate 8. By this time it was
12.20am, so I guess I was doing okay. I
did need to go to the toilet, but figured I could use one near the gate once I
had found it and made sure that I was leaving from there. I found the gate no worries and I figured I
had time to go to the toilet and when I found they were closed, so I had to
head back 400m to the main lounge to use that one and then hightail it back to
my gate and as I did so they had started boarding. There didn’t seem to be many people in line
and when we got to the very small waiting area at the bottom of the escalator I
am thankful there wasn’t. We all had to
wait 15 minutes for the bus to come and there wasn’t enough seating for
everyone in this small room. I had a
seat, so I guess I didn’t care.
I hate the bus transfer thing. HATE it.
So once the bus was full we pulled out to what turned out to be a 15
minute drive to our plane! I think it
must have been the longest terminal to plane transfer I have EVER done. We basically passed the terminal and all the
planes lined up and then crossed a highway and then we headed back up the other
side and for about 5 minutes we couldn’t even see the planes that we were
heading for and then a bend in the road and we saw another collection of planes
to which one was ours. I was starting to
think that we were going to be driving to Kenya at that rate. At one point the driver looked lost, but I
guess he knew where he was going, though he did cruise past one plane really
slow to then take us to another one.
Imagine if he had of dropped us at the wrong plane and we end up in Asia
somewhere. I am sure they have a few
more checks than the bus drivers word for it that we are at the right plane. Right?
The other down side to the bus transfer is you don’t know how many more
loads of people are coming, so you just don’t know if that seat that is empty
next to you is just a ruse as that person is on the next bus! We were travelling on a smaller plane on this
section from Doha to Nairobi but it was a newer plane to the one we were just
on. It was an A320 with a seating
configuration of 3x3. The overhead
lockers were actually bigger as well but as I was sitting in the last row,
those overheads are always full of Hostees bags, medical kits, bags of
headphones, blankets etc….. so I had to store my bags 3 rows in front but that
is the bonus people of getting on the flight first. There were a few more bus loads, but not with
a lot of people of them and I had my row free with one guy on the other
window. AWESOME. With the flight just under 5 hours, we were
fed at 3am a full meal and then the plane was put to sleep including myself,
until we got the wake up to prepare the aircraft for landing. I am glad that they did wake us as I saw the
start of a beautiful sunrise and by the time we had landed at 6.40am the fiery
red ball was just over the airport. Last
time I flew into Nairobi was to catch a connecting flight to Ethiopia in
November 2011 and as we came in to land I saw giraffes and one elephant on the
plains near the airport. How cool but I
didn’t see any of that this time which is a shame.
I HAVE LANDED IN NAIROBI-AFRICA.
It was an overwhelming emotion and I didn’t know whether
to smile or cry and decided to enjoy it for what it was and I smiled from ear
to ear. I was here. Don’t ask me what now as I have no idea, but
I am here none the less. I have visited
Kenya twice before, so I know how the visa process works and how long it takes
as we are not the only aircraft landing and I also know how long it takes to
get your bags as well-both times have taken FOREVER, so I was surprised when we
got to the visa application section there was no-one there at all-so I filled
in my 2 required forms and was one of the first through. If I was going to encounter a problem about
my one way, it would be here, but as I answered her questions that yes I had
been here before, twice, yes I was here for a holiday, yes just 2 weeks and I
was processed and on my way. I wonder
what would have happened if I had of said I was moving here entering on a
tourist visa? I wonder if you are even
allowed to do it? I will send an email
to the Kenya Consulate and see what actually is involved for me to stay
longer. I should do the right thing as
my next entry is going to look suspicious.
The bags also didn’t take long and when I had got to the carousel mine
were there waiting, which was great news that they also made the tight connection
in Doha. Before grabbing my bags I
quickly changed a 100USD into local currency, which I try and always do when I
arrive into a new country and did so with little fuss. So with my free trolley and a question from
the customs lady asking what I had in my bags, a reply of clothes, for yourself,
yes and I got a wave and then I exited looking for my ride in amongst the sea
of black faces. I turned on my phone and
there was a message that my ride had been held up in traffic, so I was to catch
a taxi to the hotel instead. I was okay
with this as I have done it both times I have been here, I know how much it is
and I used the official taxi stand.
From past experience I know that Nairobi traffic is a
shocker and today was no different. We
left the airport at 7.40am and we arrived at the hotel at 9am. I will need to check the mileage, but we are
not talking a 100km, it would be 20km at most and it took us an hour and 20
minutes. There were times that we just
weren’t moving and the driver would turn off the taxi. I am just glad it is a prepaid service of
25USD into town, as the meter thing would just make it so much more unpleasant
as it ticked while we were stopped for so long.
People were walking faster than we were travelling and it was weird as
there would be congestion and then a patch of no cars and everyone would gun it
for about 1km to then catch back up to the congestion again. That is how they literally roll and I am not
sure if I will get a car here yet.
The hotel I am in is right in town. It is the first time I have stayed in town as
I have always been in the suburbs not far from the city. I arrived at 9am and the taxi guy wasn’t
allowed to get out of the taxi, as he would be fined for parking in a no
parking area, so I did take my small backpack and my handbag inside the hotel
first and just hoped that the taxi guy wouldn’t drive off with the rest of my
gear in the boot. I read a story
yesterday that a lady was on her way to Nairobi airport and she had 2 bags on
the back seat with her and her window was down just enough for 2 guys to grab
the bags and run off with her IPod, IPad and camera. So with story fresh in my mind all my bags
went into the boot and my other bags were on the floor of the car and this was
in my mind when I went into the hotel to drop off a bag and back out to the
taxi that was still waiting for me.
Thank goodness. It would NOT have
been funny that I finally got the monster and its extra buddy all the way here
to have it stolen on the first day.
Yeah, not funny. I have checked
in for 3 nights to start with and see how that goes. There was a security guard on the front door
and then there was a security lady in the lift as I was taken up to my room by
the reception lady. Once we were out of
the lift, there was a metal gate, which I had a key for, and that got us to the
rooms to which it had 2 locks to the room.
I thanked the lady, tipped her (not sure if that is the done thing) and
was left in my room, in Nairobi, in AFRICA.
The room is basic but the bed feels comfortable, I have the world’s
smallest bathroom, but there was hot water and there was enough room for all my
crap. I should also be thankful that
they let me into my room at 9am in the morning.
THANKS.
There is Wi-Fi, but only in the restaurant and ground
floor but I was so tired by this point that I decided to just have a shower and
relax and get some sleep. I only slept
for 2 hours on the incoming flight, making it a 22 hour day from leaving my
hotel in Barcelona to getting to my hotel in Nairobi. I did go for a quick walk at 5.30pm to see if
I could find a Kenyan sim card for my phone.
There is a 24 hour shopping centre just behind the hotel. So I just took my purse that I tucked under
my arm and took the 3 minute walk to the centre. There are a lot of men around, mostly they were
young. Some were staring and others that
didn’t look twice. It was a little
surreal to be honest but something I will have to get used to. To enter the shopping centre I had to get
scanned with a hand held scanner, along with everyone else who was going
in. I guess this is my life now. Gates, locks, security guards to get into
shopping centres and then each shop has its own individual security. I wasn’t able to find a sim card. The phone place had run out, so after asking
a few more shops, I figured I will go back in a few days to check again. So that was my little outing for the day and
it was a little liberating if not a little scary. It’s a start.
I will need to find out where the no go zones are, but I guess I will
get that information along the way.
So I am here.
I have arrived.
I will need to work out a game plan over the next few
days and to start making some enquiries, more for accommodation at this point
but holy cow I AM HERE!!!!!!!
WELCOME TO AFRICA-as my new life unfolds.
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