Long time, no blog . . .

I know, where has Melissa gone for the past 2 months? Well, between work and travel, I have simply not made the time to write anything on my blog. But, since I am waiting on my taxi to come pick me up to take me out to the bars tonight, I thought I would put some pen to paper (figuratively), and get some thoughts out there.

It has been a crazy couple of months. After Bangkok, I spent a week in Melbourne for work. Australia is an interesting place, sort of like the US in that it is a very young country (so not too many old buildings), people are a nicer, stranger sounding version of Americans. The city itself was great, lots of sushi (which I ate every day), good food in general, very friendly, easy to walk. Not too many major sights, which was good since I was not going to have too much free time. I did manage to get out to the wineries on the weekend, and also got to see some native animals - I even pet a kangaroo! And of course, some grocery shopping for goods I cannot get in Nairobi - brown sugar and chocolate chips for baking. Not sure Australia is at the top of my list for an immediate return, but it was a good time.

After that I spent a week in Nairobi and on the weekend stayed in Kenya to go to Nakuru and Crater Lake, two parks relatively close to Nairobi that can be done in your own car. So a group of us Accenture folks (Steve, Jessica, Salvador, Rob) rented a car and headed off for our own mini safari. The whole driving on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road was strange, not that I hadn't done it before, but the way people drive here, it is total insanity. I managed to get us out of the city without killing anyone, and we safely arrived in Nakuru for an afternoon game drive. It was great to be in total control over where we went. In hindsight I wish I had a 4x4, because some of our little off road adventures in the regular car were a bit over the top. There were loads of buffalo, rhino, rhino with baby, giraffe, zebra. And flamingos by Lake Nakuru. And baboons, not a huge fan I must admit, they stole a boxed drink from Salvador, which was pretty funny, but in general, ni fu ni fa. We stayed at a Kenya Wildlife Services guest house, which was nice enough, but no food services. So in the middle of the night in the park we drove over to a lodge, where we had a fine meal, but got a flat tire on the way back. We debated changing the tire in the middle of the park, but instead went back to the lodge for help. Alls well that ends well. The highlight of Nakuru - I almost ran into a giraffe. How many times will I be able to write that down?

Next day we headed back towards Nairobi to Crater Lake, which was a beautiful park, but we are sort of dumb. The car was given to us with no gas, so we were not super incented to fill it all the way up. Just trying to put in enough gas to get there and back without leaving any for the car. Which meant that on our way we ended up running out of gas, and we had to buy it from some shady characters on the side of the road. We were not even sure it was gas, but oh well. In the park you can get around and walk on foot, which is a great experience because you feel closer to the animals. No predators there, just zebra, giraffe, gazelles, etc. We did get to see giraffe foreplay, which was very entertaining.

So I thought that this post would catch me up, but only up to September 14th! Oh well, it will leave more for another day.