The Weekend Vacation – Part 1, Planning day
When you have to work for 5 days a week and you love travelling, you have to squeeze in travel on the weekends. Have a little weekend vacation. That is what I did. So Marc and I had been planning to travel during the first three months of 2018. We had not specified where or when.
A week and a half ago, we were at our karaoke spot on Thursday with two of our friends, let us call them Jay and Nathan. We casually mentioned the vacation plan. Jay said that he had actually been planning to travel to the coast as well. So after two minutes or so of debating, we decided that we would go to the south coast during the next weekend but one. What I like about this plan is that it was completely spontaneous. Jay would look for a plus one (he didn’t have a girlfriend at the time). PS. He has a girlfriend now. The fourth guy said that January had his pocket humbled so he couldn’t make it this time around.
Official plans started on Monday where yours truly booked the SGR train tickets and searched for a nice apartment on booking.com. There is an entire article about the nightmare apartment I found, and the awesome bargain we got after the first option fell through. I booked the Friday morning train that leaves Nairobi at 8.00 am and arrives at Mombasa terminus at around 2.00 pm.
I was so excited about the mini-vacation that I spent Monday through Thursday in a daze. The days moved too slow, the nights were not long enough(they never are). By Thursday, my mind had already travelled to the beach. Needless to say, I will have to review that day’s lecture as I got nothing.
Thursday evening, as usual, is karaoke night and there was no way in hell we were going to miss it. We went to karaoke, sang our hearts out. I sang touch by Little Mix and I must say I rather enjoyed it. I will sing it again for sure. Nate is our resident musician. He is a rapper and belts Kendrick Ramar’s King Kunta lines as if they were second nature. Jay also invited his plus one (girlfriend??) to the Karaoke. Afterwards, at around 3.00 am, we left the club and went to Marc’s house. It is a few meters from the club hence the most convenient place to wait for the morning.
Once we got to the house, we put on the Matrix, the movie to watch because sleep was not an option. We were all a little tipsy and we knew that if we slept we wouldn’t have made it to the train on time. Quater way through the movie, all the three except me were asleep. At this point, it was around a quarter to 4.00 am so I decided to take an extra long shower to avoid falling into the temptations that everyone else had fallen into.
After my shower, I woke up the gang who sleepily prepared themselves and we left. We got to the train station an hour and a half before departure time which has to be a record for me and my African timing nature (am working on it).
Nairobi Terminus Front Entrance
I had never been to the Nairobi SGR Terminus before so I was delightfully surprised at how good it looks. That marked the beginning of an awesome weekend.
This is the first part of the weekend vacation series, next The Weekend Vacation – Part 2, The Train Ride
