The one where Tim has short hair

Jambo! - That's it - that's all the swahili we've learnt. Shocking. 


So a brief update cos nothing amusing water-based has happened :o)


We flew to Nairobi - picked up by a man called Emmanuel Bush (he likes to be referred to as Mr President) and driven to the Africa Inland Mission guest house. 3 meals a day and comfortable accommodation with a-mazing wi-fi! In truth we've slept a lot and mooched and been online planning the next stages of our adventure.


Sunday we did go to church, actually we went to one service after another as we enjoyed the first so much.  The pastor was playing air-bass-guitar. THATS how great it was.


Ventured into Nairobi today and didn't get robbed - yippee! Glad we went but prob won't go again - not really anything exciting there. Except a bar that we found...

View from bar

Short haired Timmy!

Local brew 'Tusker'
£1.30 for half a litre. So we had 2. (1 each that is - I mean we are missionaries in training sort of...)

So that's us for the mo...let me bullet point further plans (if you so feel inclined do pray for the following...if not, please think good, happy thoughts for us instead!)

• Visiting Kibera tomorrow - Nairobi's largest slum, 2nd largest in Africa, where Tim helped build a church 13 years ago seeing if we can get involved in local projects for a couple of weeks...however we are homeless by Friday so prayers welcome for cheap and safe accommodation for the next coupla weeks!
  
• Needing to learn Swahili so going to a language school...turns out they're all in Zanzibar (squeals of delight from me!) however it will be malaria-tastic and 1 person every 5 years gets eaten by a shark - apparently that happened just recently so we're not too worried. We think we'll go for the last week or so of July.
  
• Hoping to spend August with friends from Perranporth beach mission, in Iringa, Tanzania.  They're setting up and running a guest house staffed by deaf people! Hope we can help somehow...

So that's us - plans may keep changing but all we know so far is that there is so much ahead of us I'm in that 99% excited 1% scared (or possibly vice versa!)

TTFN

Tic Toc xxx

Around the 7,000 mile mark...

Guten Tag!  

Why am I greeting you in German, you might be asking yourself... Well we are currently in Dutch Pennsylvania...and in fact it was named 'Dutch' Pennsylvania because those that came here were from Switzerland actually spoke Deutch and everyone misheard, thus it is now 'Dutch'.  There's some new knowledge for you, because lets face facts, you ain't gonna learn much from our photos!

It dawned on me that a picture of our route might be helpful...so since the last blog, this is what we have done...

We last met when we went to Six Flags in San Antonio - just getting over that motion sickness...now lets go onwards and eastwards

AUSTIN, TEXAS

Megs in the Capitol building in the capital of Texas, Austin.
Sorry I made you look like a 5 year old sitting on the floor but I felt you were the only one who could get away with being 'related' to Texas....

I kinda feel like Ty from Extreme Home Makeover was involved in the building of the new Capitol... 

Before...

After...

Every city seem to have Segway tours....genius... 


Out and about for the nightlife - Megs was confident we'd do some two-stepping...

Tim and John talking about good times... 

John and I two-stepping!

Side-saddle Rodeo...

Tim went swimming with water-moccasins (snakes) and nutria (water rat)

Meanwhile, Megs and I did an America's Next Top Model photo shoot...

 

We said goodbye to Megs until New York City and moved onto the next state...

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA 

Odds and Ends got together to make schweet music...

Street performers

Our local hang out...

 To be fully immersed in the Jazz scene we thought we should indulge in a cigar...just so our parents can't blame one for leading the other astray, here we both are having a puff!

Swamp tour!!

Tim seated next to the 'captain' of the air boat

They enticed alligators to us with marshmallows...hmmm...not exactly what we had in mind...

Baby gator!

 NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI

Treated ourselves to staying at a plantation...as you do....

Closest we've come to sighting a real bear...sad times for Timmy

Just south of Memphis is Clarksdale, the 'birthplace of the blues'.  This is Morgan Freeman's bar.  He wasn't there...gutted.

OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI

The moment just before the real Judge of the court came in - oops!  He was taller than Tim, but mighty impressed we were from the real Oxford so was very pleasant...!

 I spotted a car graveyard whilst driving...

Arkansas is the only state that we drove into just for the sake of saying that we were there...we've stayed in every other state for at least 2 nights!

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

Of course there's a replica Parthenon with a 42ft statue of Athena in Nashville....why wouldn't there be....
(Fact: This location was used in Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief)

 The Grand Ole Opry is the longest running radio show in the world, starting in 1925 - 2 hours of varied country music - twas ace.

Check the bass player's tie - yes it's a cactus.

 SOUTH CAROLINA, NORTH CAROLINA, VIRGINIA...

Blue Ridge Parkway

Constant singing of 'Teddy Bear's Picnic' and 'Bare Necessities' did not produce any bears.

Bear hunting...

Zero visibility

 Sadly 80% of our drive was fog covered...however it meant that the animals weren't expecting us!  We saw a dozen deer and a young cougar.

WASHINGTON D.C.

The United States Capitol Building

Inside the Capitol

Suburbs were basically Fulham-esq!

D.C. Metro

Hostess with the mostest, Shona (friend from uni) had us to stay and let us tag along to Saturday night out in D.C.

Lincoln Memorial is MAHUSIVE

Turns out we were here during cherry blossom season!  This is the Tidal Basin and the Washington Memorial on the right...

Jefferson Memorial.
We know pretty much all of the American history.  Test us.

 LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA

 So we've come to Amish country to rest up before New York...3 nights surrounded by horse and carts, handmade quilts, cheese, beards and black hats...very peaceful...

We're back on 14th April - so look out for real blogging in the form of cups of coffee and dinner parties (if you're inviting, that'd be ace as we're living with the rentals...)

TTFN

Tic Toc xxx