Monday, February 22.2016

Monday, February 22, 2016

John and I met up at JFK in the Central Diner outside security in Terminal 4.  We were too early to check in (the ticket counter didn’t open until 12:30) so we grabbed a quick bite.  Good chicken salad wrap, the fries were pretty weak.  How can you undercook shoestring French fries?  The answer to that question awaits in the kitchen of the Central Diner.

I should introduce you everyone to John.  We were best friends in high school and have since reunited as though we hadn’t lost any time.  That says a lot about him.  He and I share the same temperament, or lack-thereof – we’re pretty low key.  He has always has a subtle, slightly dry sense of humor so we’ve been laughing quite a bit on this trip, and that bodes very well for the week.  I’m hoping it helps to put him at ease.  That’s a good segue to explain why we’re traveling together.  Long story short, he had to go to Nairobi, I had to go to Nairobi.  Boom!  He’s giving a talk and hosting a booth at a Pharmaceutical Summit in Nairobi.  His expertise is in quality control and compliance in the pharmaceutical production industry.  Yes, it’s a mouthful, but it’s also very interesting stuff.  I continually have to check myself to stop asking questions… I have a tendency to do that when he’s at his busiest.  Tomorrow we’ll be setting up the booth at a beautiful yet ridiculously expensive hotel outside of Nairobi.  We’ll be staying at the Nairobi Hilton and traveling back and forth each day.  Hakuna matata. I think the Safari Park Hotel is 8x as expensive.  Insane.  I’m assuming their doing that to “thin the heard” and ensure they’re getting serious firms to attend.  We’ll keep you posted.   I’ll be sure to take plenty of action photos as he talks to manufacturers and other QC specialists.  If you’re in Nairobi, stop by the Qualicuetics booth!

Anywho, we’ll be in Nairobi for a few days while I act as his roadie, then we head to Maseno/Kakamega for a few days, then we head to Masai Mara for a few days.  Then we come home. 

We’re probably still an hour away from Nairobi (we’ll be landing at 8:10pm), and I’m taking the time to type this now so that I can (hopefully) get a good night’s sleep.  We each slept a few hours as we crossed the Atlantic.  The movie selelction was phenominal, but I still managed to get  a couple hours in.  The plane was empty on the way over, so John got an entire row to himself.  He raised all the armrests and stretched out.  Stupid me passed him several times and never once took a picture! He got some work done while I was engrossed with the screen – Bridge of Spies, Black Mass, Man from UNCLE, Human Ultra, Agent 47 and finally Room.  As you can see, the quality of the films I chose took a serious turn. It became a quantity over quality issue.  The last one was a recommendation from Andrea.  It ran over into the flight from Dubai to Nairobi, but I had to see the ending.  Not what I’d call a “feel good” movie.  She’s reading the book.  If I had to choose one word, it would be “disturbing.”  Now that I’ve made that selection, it’s not a strong enough word.  It wasn’t a horror flick, but the movie was horrifying.  Proceed with caution.  I followed that up with Our Brand is Crisis – Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thorton.  I’m trying to think of a word that combines “eck” with “ugh.”  If you come up with one, “Our Brand is Crisis” would be the definition.  More importantly, Katie, Kevin and Karen will be very jealous when I return.  We head back on March 1^st – that’s the day that Star Wars: The Force Awakens is added to the inflight entertainment (insert wailing and gnashing of teeth here)!

John and I moved our seats again for this last leg, too.  We couldn’t get exit rows assigned for this flight, but they were available.  I sat in my assigned seat, and John was across the isle.  He turned and looked at my legs with my knees about a quarter of an inch away from the seatback in front of me, and he let out a very genuine chuckle.  “That’s not gonna work.”  I’m glad it didn’t and we were able to move to the bulkhead.  There’s an empty seat between us, but that didn’t prevent him from showing me a slide show of his last excursion to a friends cottage during that blistering cold spell that we had a few weeks ago.  The pictures of him smoking from a pipe that Gandolph dropped was pretty funny.

This is how well I fit in a regular seat.
His seat isn't reclined, and I'm not slouching

We’re landing in 30 minutes, so I’ll tell you one more story.  I flew to JFK from Bonita Springs – Fort Myers airport.  I asked the ticketing agent to merge the Jetblue flight with the Emirates flight – they’re partner airlines and that would allow my bags to get checked straight through to Nairobi (which means I don’t have to collect them at JFK then re-check them).  She was about to put the tag on my bags when I said,  “Did they change the call letters for Nairobi in the last 12 hours?”  She said,  “I don’t thing so, why?”  “BECAUSE NAIROBI IS NBO, NOT NRO.” I said calmly.  While she corrected the problem, Google informed me that there is no airport on the planet with the letters NRO.  I wondered where  the bags would have ended up, but the only thing that mattered is that they wouldn’t have ended up in Nairobi.  That would have been very, very bad.  Disaster averted.  The pilot’s come on telling us that we will be landing soon, so I’ll sign off.  I’m sure I’ll have a quick story about the cab ride through the city to the hotel.

I was right, but it wasn’t the car ride to the hotel. It was in the hotel.

John travels a lot and stays in Hilton hotels.  I’m going to take a short interlude here to plug the Hilton chain and their Diamond status.  We're on the top floor (#17).  I'll take a picture of the view when it's light out.  The rooms we were given are enormous.  They each consist of two large rooms, two bathrooms, two desks, chairs sofa, king size bed, 2 closets, flat screen tv and a mini fridge.  This place is awesome!  The British influence is still quite prevalent in this country, and I was expecting your typically small Euro hotel room.  This couldn’t be further from that.  John’s in for the surprise of his life when we get to Maseno.  At this point, I’m just hoping there are seats on the toilets!  Everyone cross your fingers.  We’ll worry about water when we get there.  The food was very good and gave John a good sampling of what he has to look forward to this week.  Again, pictures will be taken/posted when I've got a good night's sleep behind me.
After dropping our bags and cleaning up a bit, we met downstairs for a bite to eat.  That was at 9pm.  I just got back in my room.  It’s 12:30am, Tuesday.  We were doing fine enjoying the buffet and a cold beer when we simultaneously became exhausted.  I looked up at John to see bloodshot, drooping eyes.  He was looking in a mirror.  Speaking of mirrors, this is us in the elevator heading for some shut eye.
Not a lot of pictures today, but we’ll remedy that tomorrow.  Sweet dreams everyone.