Had a luke warm shower, but it allowed me to wash my hair atleast without giving myself a brain freeze. Got packed up..."Go day" today... Had our hot breakfast which is included in the $27/cdn per room! I guess for the price I shouldn't complain.
Paul picked us up at 10am so we could get to the airport in time. Said our goodbyes to Paul. He was a great driver and took good care of us. Something really important when travelling in Kenya. I would hire him again. He is also very knowledgeable of Kenya and safaris. The funniest thing though is he thought I was quiet. He kept asking if I was always this quiet.... oh my husband would totally disagree. But both Hillie and Denise are very animated (which is great) and know him better so they were very talkative. So I kind of took a back seat in the talking department...I know a shock for my friends.... this time atleast!
Virgin Atlantic is now oversold and we are on standby except for Hillie. Plan A was if only 1 could get on it would be me. Two reasons: 1 the hotel reservation was in my name in London, and 2 Denise knows Kenya better and more people in Kenya. She could get Paul to come back and get her. Plan B was if neither got on, Hillie would have to stay in London until we got there! We were hoping to use BA but we had not purchased backup tickets on them (ZED fares). Sitting and waiting till noon was painful. The ground manager spoke with us, so nice and so concerned. We assured him after 21 years of flying standby we knew the drill and we were prepared for the worst.
Well at noon he called us over and we got the last seats on the aircraft! Yay! We were all split up but I didn't care. Denise got Economy plus, I got an aisle. Just happy to be on!
Crew again were so nice and they were so happy to hear our stories. Andrew was one of them and he is originally from Toronto! He gave us special parting gifts!!! So nice.
Food was good again... chicken schnitzel. Talked at the back galley with the crew again and they poured us some camping drinks.
Only bad news: We are having some problems with Ndwiga who is to deliver the donated mattresses. He wants us to pay for the gas to get them from Nairobi to Embu. We want him to donate the gas as his brother is the pastor that is associated with Toto Love and we found out about Toto Love thru Ndwiga. Gas money takes away from the money to build them a new orphanage too. We shall see, we didn't send anything.
Didn't really sleep on the flight. But watched a few movies instead. 9 hour flight to London, we landed around 7pm. Headed to hotel, bit of confusion getting there as we took a free bus, but went to the wrong Sheraton and ended up taking a taxi to the correct one ($30 later) would have been cheaper and easier to take a taxi or hopper bus from the airport! Next time.
Good to have a hotel with hot water, blowdryer, electricity!!! Hotel is about $110/night for airline employees. Though Ryan from Virgin knows a cheaper hotel for next time. Hotel guests also get 45 mins of free internet. Had a bath and when Hillie got back to the room, after booking her Edmonton-Grande Prairie ticket, we decided we were hungry and went to the bar for a chicken burger and chips! Went back onto the internet to email Doug and friends.
Crawled into bed after midnight~
