Arrival

Getting off of the plane, we had to wait in lines based on our nationality and if we had a visa. We were able to cheat a little and get in one of the shorter lines (behind a big family with a few little kids!) because we both had visas to enter the country prior to arrival. The officer scanned my finger prints and recorded my passport information. Afterward, we could grab our checked baggage and take it to the lines for the security officers to inspect our belongings. We then went outside and found a gentleman, named Joseph, holding a sign with our names on it. He shook our hands and we loaded our luggage. Phew! We found the right person and we were on the right track.Pulling up to icipe was definitely a surreal moment. It was something I was familiar with! ICIPE, the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (woah, that's a mouthful!), will be my host institution for the next two months-and for the next few days, the headquarters in Nairobi will be the place I call home. It was nice to know that we arrived safely and I was very excited to see the inside of the compound!This is what the luggage cart at the Kenyan Airport looked like. Rico was nice and lugged around my 54 pound suitcase, but the cart made it much easier to handle! America should invest in these things for our airports! I was pleasantly surprised seeing all of the cars outside the airport, I naively didn't even realize that they had 21st century cars and technologies all over Africa. There were many nice cars, but it was very cool to be transported in a "company car" from my home for the summer. Fun fact - the driver sits on the right side, not the left!The highway system was SCARY, no lie. I felt like we were going to get an accident on multiple occasions (Mom, we're fine) but it was so intricate how all of the craziness worked together and no one crashed or displayed road rage. There is little to no regard to the lane lines, people rarely use blinkers, and there aren't many signs that tell you were to go or what to do. Thank goodness I will not be driving here! It was easy to forget about the fear when looking outside the car door. There was a Subway, Pizza Hut, AND KFC - it's like a mini Eldon (we all know Eldon's Subway will always be my #1). There were advertisements for cell phones, refrigerators, and many electrical appliances; I am surprised at how 21st century this modern city in  Kenya is. After the trip, Rico said something along the lines of "we were so close to that car, I was prepared for impact"; joking aside, our driver was fantastic at navigating the road system and got us to our destination safely. It was a roller coaster welcome to Nairobi for sure!First impressions: Africa is nothing like I expected. Granted, it was 10PM something here when we were driving and it's much darker outside than in an American city..but, from what I've seen, I'm in for a shock! More on this tomorrow.It's 2AM here so I need to try and get some sleep, but the first evening was peaceful and hopefully it's a great start to an even better trip.