America, Kenyan Style

So this post is a bit late, but I thought I'd share a bit about my weekend, and how amazing Saturday was. I woke up and met a friend of mine in my program for breakfast, and then we made our way downtown to meet up with some others before heading to Village Market.

Village Market is a westernized upscale mall that is toward the UN and US Embassy area of Nairobi. Upon walking in, we were greeted by a small waterfall/river thing that ran through the very nice food court area of the mall. We sat down for a few minutes and just took in what we were seeing, America in Kenya. It was a bit overwhelming.

After a soda, we made our way to the pool area. And when I say pool area, I mean the pool area with 5-6 decent waterslides, a kid's pool, a lap pool and a "lazy river" which I will explain why it's in quotes later. I felt like a little kid going to Noah's Ark for the first time. I went down some slides, and proceeded to almost ruin my friends' iPhone as they tried to take pictures of me sliding.

My sliding experience took a little stop when I went down a slide which was closer to the steps than the others were, so when I slipped on the bottom of the pool, I fell thinking I had more room. Unfortunately, I hit my shin pretty hard on the step, so I got to make a little visit to the first aid station. After getting my cut wrapped up pretty well, I made my way down to the lap/regular pool.

We swam for a little while there, and then my friend Maggie and I decided to go down the "lazy river". Ok, this thing was nothing like we're accustomed to in the U.S. We were confused why there was a sign telling us to keep our arms and legs inside the tube, but as soon as we went, we figured out why. The water pressure got us moving fairly quickly, and I had to cross my legs and pull them up to my chest so I wouldn't smash them on the wall. It was fun, but the second time we went, Maggie's tube got under mine and I flipped over, hitting my head on the bottom. Regardless, swimming was amazing!

After swimming, we continued our little day of America by getting some pizza. We had some problems here as we ordered a pizza with just cheese in the crust. Normally they put meat and cheese in the crust, but we specifically asked for just cheese. SO, when they brought out the pizza, what was in the crust? Just meat....think like a hotdog.

After finishing our pizza, we walked around for a little while and then wanted to get some ice cream, building off our American eating fest. Let's just say the ice cream I bought was my best food purchase in this country. I got this dish that went from the top down: whipped cream with chocolate sauce, chocolate ice cream, espresso ice cream, real espresso, whipped cream...THANK YOU!! It was AMAZING and after not having real ice cream for a long time, it was glorious.

Completing our day of American fun, three of us decided to go mini-golfing. The course was actually really nice and fairly challenging. I unfortunately did not win, but still had a great time, feeling a bit like I was on vacation in Florida at Goofy Golf or joking with my friends at Vitense in Madison.

All in all, it was a great day. I got to do a lot of fun stuff for actually really cheap. The slides cost 350 shillings (about $5-6) and the mini-golf cost 200 (about $3-4). Ahh the joy of childhood fun....