The BIG Move

The past year has been quite insane, filled with three moves (involving 3 states and 2 countries), 3 international and 5 domestic trips, two jobs, a grad school application, family crises and celebrations, and clearly a lot of change. As you know, my most recent major life change has been a move to Nairobi, Kenya as a Rotary Global Ambassadorial Scholar. I will be living here, in Nairobi, for the next two years, studying for my Master of Arts in International Relations at USIU.

Since I have gotten off to a pretty bad start of keeping this blog updated, I’ll try to recap the past few weeks. I left for Nairobi on August 24 from my family home in Indianapolis, IN. As expected, getting packed was a pretty heavy lift, but after weeks of preparation, a lot of family and friend support, and a few days of actual packing, I had fit my life into three large bags, a guitar case, and a backpack.

I flew from Indianapolis to Boston, where I met up with my good friend Meg for my 6 hour layover. I will just say here…Meg=hero. After a wonderful lunch and catch up time, I boarded my Delta flight for Amsterdam, where I connected with a KLM flight for Nairobi. I arrived around 8:15pm a day later, quickly moved through immigration (they now give you visa’s upon entry for $25!), and then stood by the baggage belt for about an hour. After clumsily loading my man-sized bags onto a cart I awkwardly balanced my guitar on top, and slowly rolled to the pick up area.

I quickly spotted my very tall and very blond friend John out of the crowd and we made our way into the city. My former colleague, John had agreed to pick me up and let me stay with him until I find an apartment (he also=hero). Before heading home, we picked up another former colleague and friend of mine who happened to be in town, and went out for dinner and a drink. A pretty great way to start your time off half-way around the world.

I then collapsed into bed, not looking forward to my early wake up the next morning for school orientation...