Africa Day 2

I still don't have my cables to get my pictures from my camera. Soon hopefully, I've got 600.

We arrived in London around noon on february 4th. Yes, an eight hoor flight from Chicago and a loss of six hours to the time zones. But we were flying high on energy and actually slept quite a bit of the Chicago to London flight. Now Travis probably didn't sleep as much due to his inopportune seating assignment.

We jumped through customs quickly. We checked our carry on bags with a luggage holder for the day. We changed some pocket change for British pounds at the currency exchance, the dollar is actually pretty weak against the pound, so we walked away feeling a little lighter in our wallets.

One picture, which I'll try and post tomorrow with this thread, shows us jumping into a London cab and heading to Leicester Square. Steiner had a little dog-eared map of London and we pointed to the square and the cabbie said "Ok mates." $100 dollars later and an hour tour of the city's highlights we were on Leicester Square looking like stark raving tourists. Now, what to do in London on a seven hour layover? We sent emails to our wives on Travis' phone to say "we're in London." We walked around marveling at the theater district and little China. Then, what to do ... what to do? Oh maybe we could go to a London pub and have a pint?

Of course that was the plan all along. We jumped right way into an average pub had a pint while seated on a couch in the back corner. At the time a soccer (football) match was on the tele and the crowd was pretty sedated. It just wasnt what we had hoped for in a British pub experience. So, we left, on our Cheers expedition (you know, "wanna go, where everybody knows your name") and hopped into and out of a couple more pubs. In search of the pub experience.

Finally, we found it. A small indescript pub, ordered fish and chips and a Guiness (actually we ordered three different brews so we could try new stuff) and maneuvered our way to the back area where there was a small pool table. You'll see pictures of this pool table, but it was a small pub game of pool with wacky rules. I think the Mayor pushed 10 pounds into the game before he realized it. We played three hours and debated and cajoled and basically did the bonding that is necessary to take on a ten day trip away from our family and businesses. That was the key of course, on a hunt and gather trip, the hunters have to bond and trust each other early.

Before we knew it, we needed to get back to the airport and get on that plane to Kenya. I sent an email on Travee's phone to Lionel to say "prepare the natives, a typhoon of activity is on it's way." We grabbed a cab and hurried back to the airport for a small wait before we got in the air. Oh yeah Danny and I did buy some Cubans for the trip too. Hey George W, drop the ban on economic activity with Cuba, it isn't working. Trade with em, that'll crush the communists faster than anything! Just an aside.

So, day two, drastically reduced in hours due to six hours removed by time zones. But we hit the air on the way to Nairobi a team, bonded a bit, some trash talking as is requisite, ready to see our pals the Youngs. Two meals and a little sleep on our way to Nairobi, eh?

More tomorrow in the third edition, and hopefully some pix too.