on our last day in nairobi, we decided to finally venture out into the notorious city center, and see what all the negative hype was all about. we were advised to schedule our day around the "terrible traffic," and leave our hotel around 10am. it took us all of 20 minutes to get into town, leaving us both feeling very confused. was there traffic? was that traffic? we are from cairo, the city that invented traffic...
we visited the national museum which was actually quite impressive- understated, but impressive. it has an incredible collection of human skulls dating as far back as 18 million years ago, accompanied with fascinating exhibits showcasing the evidence of human evolution. life was created there in east africa. they also have displays of practically every animal and bird native to east africa. so it was pretty interesting overall. i don't normally like museums, and i certainly don't like to stand around reading boards all day, but i read every caption, board, comment, and summary. it was so fascinating and worthwhile!
when we asked to sit in the smoking section in a coffee shop, we learned that smoking is prohibited everywhere in public. there are no smoking sections, there are no smoking sidewalks. there are only designated smoking areas which are mostly private, and very depressing actually. kenyans know what they're doing by making you feel like shit about doing something terrible like smoking.
we visited the national museum which was actually quite impressive- understated, but impressive. it has an incredible collection of human skulls dating as far back as 18 million years ago, accompanied with fascinating exhibits showcasing the evidence of human evolution. life was created there in east africa. they also have displays of practically every animal and bird native to east africa. so it was pretty interesting overall. i don't normally like museums, and i certainly don't like to stand around reading boards all day, but i read every caption, board, comment, and summary. it was so fascinating and worthwhile!
i not-so-humbly proclaim to be the queen of directions, and i can navigate my way through any city just by glancing at a map. like most men, bib has the complete opposite of 'sense of direction.' since it was so gorgeous outside, and since we were sick of spending so much damn money on taxis (they're so expensive!!), i was determined to have us walk into the city center, to the city market. we asked the museum guard to point us in the right direction, but he kept insisting that we take a taxi instead. well, i also humbly admit to being extremely stubborn, so we walked anyway. not the best neighborhoods to go through, but we managed just fine.
the city market is located in some dark, grimey atrium full of stalls of souvenirs. we felt very much at home with the, come and see- looking for free, pressure all the vendors were giving us. so we walked past each stall until we eventually found a non-intimidating one to shop from. bib and I almost only speak to each other in english, but while we were traveling, we found it very useful to communicate in arabic. we do from time to time, joke a lot in our super thick, fake egyptian-english accents. while in this shop, we found many of the things that we were looking for, so i told him in arabic that i was going to speak to her in broken english, not with my american accent. well, little did he, nor i, know what to expect. all of the sudden i busted out, "yes miss, i like zeez zings a lot, beleeze tell me how much all zeez zings and we talk brice for all za zings." i literally had to stop in the middle of my sentence to catch myself from laughing out loud, and i could see bib had to turn himself away from me because he was cracking up. it was hysterical! we spent the entire afternoon talking like zat wiz all za beebols, and my god, did we get some great deals! almost all transactions in east africa are made by haggling-- its history is deeply rooted in trade. and so many times, the shopkeepers got so excited to hear that egyptians came to support their african continent by honeymooning in africa, instead of going to europe, so they would offer us special, african-honeymooners prices. they kept telling us that they charge americans way more, and they would never offer them the kinds of prices we were walking away with. i cringed every time they said that! and who knew that in order for bib to haggle, he just had to fake an egyptian accent!? i've teased the man so many times about his sad and weak bargaining tactics, who knew he just had to be a little balady? we couldn't believe ourselves, we high fived all the way to lunch!
we went to lunch at the legendary thorn tree cafe, where the original thorn tree forum was started (where lonely planet got the idea from).
the city market is located in some dark, grimey atrium full of stalls of souvenirs. we felt very much at home with the, come and see- looking for free, pressure all the vendors were giving us. so we walked past each stall until we eventually found a non-intimidating one to shop from. bib and I almost only speak to each other in english, but while we were traveling, we found it very useful to communicate in arabic. we do from time to time, joke a lot in our super thick, fake egyptian-english accents. while in this shop, we found many of the things that we were looking for, so i told him in arabic that i was going to speak to her in broken english, not with my american accent. well, little did he, nor i, know what to expect. all of the sudden i busted out, "yes miss, i like zeez zings a lot, beleeze tell me how much all zeez zings and we talk brice for all za zings." i literally had to stop in the middle of my sentence to catch myself from laughing out loud, and i could see bib had to turn himself away from me because he was cracking up. it was hysterical! we spent the entire afternoon talking like zat wiz all za beebols, and my god, did we get some great deals! almost all transactions in east africa are made by haggling-- its history is deeply rooted in trade. and so many times, the shopkeepers got so excited to hear that egyptians came to support their african continent by honeymooning in africa, instead of going to europe, so they would offer us special, african-honeymooners prices. they kept telling us that they charge americans way more, and they would never offer them the kinds of prices we were walking away with. i cringed every time they said that! and who knew that in order for bib to haggle, he just had to fake an egyptian accent!? i've teased the man so many times about his sad and weak bargaining tactics, who knew he just had to be a little balady? we couldn't believe ourselves, we high fived all the way to lunch!
we went to lunch at the legendary thorn tree cafe, where the original thorn tree forum was started (where lonely planet got the idea from).
when we asked to sit in the smoking section in a coffee shop, we learned that smoking is prohibited everywhere in public. there are no smoking sections, there are no smoking sidewalks. there are only designated smoking areas which are mostly private, and very depressing actually. kenyans know what they're doing by making you feel like shit about doing something terrible like smoking.
back at the camp, exhausted from the adrenalin rush from the afternoon, we didn't feel like going anywhere. so instead, we went there... we went super balady and ORDERED KFC! yeah, we did, we ate it in our tent. but holy goodness was it delicious! unlike any KFC we've ever had. so there you go, our last night in nairobi was romantically spent with a bucket of fried chicken and an iPad movie. that's how much we love kenya.
KFC rules!!! I love their ZINGER chicken. Everywhere I go around the world, if I see ZINGER chicken, I order it and eat it. DANG I wish we had ZINGER chicken KFC here in the USA!
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