The Wedding!!!!

WOW WOW WOW. What an AMAZING day....and an AMAZING weekend. I know I told my sis not to overuse that word in her speech...but it is so appropriate that its hard not to.
The day before the wedding SO many friends and family members were at the venue to help out. Boz and Collin did the wedding on a VERY small budget so a lot of it was DIY. But that just added to the vibe and got everyone involved. Benedikt and I arrived in style in our fancy hired car, along with the photographer (a friend of theirs) and the flowers. It was a fun afternoon. Just SUPER cold. It was a real shock to our systems after coming from this lovely warm country.
That evening Ally, Boz and I stayed together in the honeymoon suite. We stayed up until 1am talking and discussing important issues. We also had a fair amount of champagne :-)
We snuggled and spooned each other in bed that night as it was so cold! It was very special!
Most things went smoothly on the actual day. The things that didnt just ended up being a joke :-) The whole day was filled with SO much emotion, every guest was just SO happy for Mandy and Collin and they couldn't get enough of the celebrations. Mandy and Collin were cheered into the tent with such a noise (and the to the sound of Spirit of a Great heart)... people even stood on their seats. And every speech (including mine) was SO interactive... the audience was just so hungry for entertainment!! Mandy and Collin both said such beautiful speeches too... man it was an AWESOME day.
My sister looked EXQUISITE. And Colon looked SOooooo handsome in his beautiful suit. And get this, EVERYONE dressed up. Her theme was Out of Africa - hats and furs etc and it just created such a vibe right from the beginning.
The two of them are both SUCH good dancers they had every guest enthralled when they took to the floor. The next morning we all had breakfast together at the lodge we stayed at. We had fun decorating their car :-)
Collin and Mandy then went back to venue where everyone helped out with taking the marquee down and tidying up etc. They had a champagne brunch and then they left for honeymoon: 2 weeks away at Mana Pools (Zim/Zambia), just the 2 of them, in the REAL bush and far away from ANY civilisation!

Here are 3 (bad quality) photos from my phone...


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Off to SA tomorrow - v excited for sister's wedding!

So another week down.... and life is still all good here.
We went for a really cool sushi meal last night at a stylish restaurant called Tokyo. Nairobi has some really good places to eat and we plan to get through them all slowly but surely. :-)
I promise not to fill up this blog with cycling photos... its just difficult to resist.... we are cycling in such nice scenery every morning! Although these photos do not do our morning route justice but here you go anyway.

On Monday I hope I’ll have time to put some photos of my sister’s wedding up... we are off to SA for the weekend tomorrow! SOooooooooooooooo excited to be her bridesmaid and to spend the weekend with family from overseas and round the country.
Then my brother and his girlfriend are here next week.... and we’re off to Mombasa! YIPEEEEEEEEE!! Beach time!!

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Fun weekend: Cycling, shopping and eating

We got lots of mountain biking in and lots of shopping done and plenty of yummy eating done this weekend... and we even made it to the gym! (Not that that was fun)

We rode for 4 hours on Saturday and 3 hours on Sunday... in the most amazing scenery EVER. Tea plantations and fields of coffee trees are our new favourite surroundings. The tea in particular, they are SO neat and fresh smelling and neon green and never ending. Benedikt said the fields looked like giant beds. We rode in groups of 5 both days – there are cool (and stylish) cyclists here, just like us! Yippee! And the locals are SO friendly and hospitable. We ride through all sorts of villages and farms. The kids loved to run next to us and were keeping up with me on the hills :-) The trails start just 3kms away from home...we have LOTS of enjoyable riding ahead of us!



Besides from bike cleaning and some bike maintenance (in our lovely big garden) over the weekend we set out to find all the things that I couldn’t find on foot... ie to broaden our shopping horizons beyond my little Nakumatt forays.
We had to go all the way across town to a suburb called Karen for rim tape for Lord Benedikt’s 29er – we were NOT happy campers sitting in the car for 4 hours – it took us a while to find the ONLY bike shop in Nairobi. :-(

Otherwise we found a little supermarket that stocks lots of foreign branded goodies. It does feel wrong not supporting the local market... but you never know what you're going to get if you buy local stuff. We will buy less German/South African/Italian/Chilean brands over time I PROMISE!

We ate at a superb Italian restaurant on Friday evening and had our neighbour over for dinner on Saturday evening. Sunday evening we had supper at 6pm and then basically killed time until we felt we could go to bed! I REALLY missed not having at TV last night. I was really in the mood to veg in front of it.

Big breakfast after our ride: (Check our cool table that our landlords lent us)

Our guest bedroom is now officially ready for our first guests -my brother and his girlfriend are here next week –yay. We got some swamp green curtains made (never realised how much curtains help one sleep at night) and I bought some REALLY awesome zebra tables at the market last week. (WHAT A TOURIST!!) The curtains turned out well, we’re happy with them. Phew, what a relief. I am housewife extraordinaire :-)


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Likes and dislikes so far

So we’ve been here 2 weeks now and have started to get a feel for things....

Things I like
- First of all......I LOVE love love not going to work. ;-> Aren’t you all super envious?!!

- Secondly, the weather. Its always warm. Everyday has been sunny. But it never gets too hot. It has rained about 4 or 5 times in the last 2 weeks. But light, warm, cosy rain which is lovely.

- Its a treat is having our gates opened for us. Whether I arrive on foot, by bike or if we are in the car, the main gates and our gates are immediately opened for us. With a smile nogal! Even if I walk across to my neighbour.... the guard SPRINTS to open my gate.... then sprints to open her gate. Its really funny. Especially if you pretend to go in a 3 other directions ;-)

- Its custom here at restaurants to bring you a steamy, hot white towel to clean your hands with. I love it. And every restaurant does it as soon as you’ve been seated.

- Running. I’ve been doing 5 to 10kms every day.... not much but enough! Its such a cool way to explore. I look at my map and choose new routes and try to observe my surroundings without tripping over the rocks and uneven surfaces. :-) And its nice just running... not training for some stoopid long race like I used to.

- We have OUR VERY OWN forest 2kms from us for mountain biking. We’ve only ridden there once when Benedikt got home early from work (It gets dark by like 6:30pm unfortunately). It felt really adventurous; being in a new area, dodging the traffic and then cycling through the forest alone.... we discovered some nice single track through it. Fun!

- I walk to the shops every day. It’s part of my routine. Its only a 2.5km walk and I enjoy it. The shopping centre has everything we need- hardware, butcher(yuk), health shop, bookstore, curtain shop, a dry cleaners, a food court, a (dodgy) hairdresser and even a Dream Nails where I’ve already been for a wax! Nakumatt is the supermarket and it has almost everything we need. I buy a lot there! It even has Imperial Leather shower gel would you believe Vicky?! Plus it sells my palmers cocoa butter.... and my protein shake – yay!

- The birdlife. I can’t wait for my bird book to arrive so I can actually start identifying them all. I really need to learn about these strange and wonderful calls that I hear too... there are so many unusual sounds that I go and look outside to make sure it’s not someone standing there taking the mickey.

- There are SO many foreigners here. Everywhere we go we hear foreign accents. Lots of Americans. There are lots of UN vehicles on the road- they all have red licence plates. And there are SO many embassies and ambassadorial residences near us. I’d guess about 30 different countries are represented within a 5km radius... I like it. Wanna meet them all! Maybe I should spend a day knocking on all their doors?

- I like Mr Skinny here. Isn't he cool? He lives in the lounge

Things I don’t like

- Not cycling. Its been too dark to go mountain biking in the mornings before Benedikt goes to work (our bike lights are at sea). Its been like 3 years since our last decent training ride. We are both getting grumpy. But let’s see we have 2 long rides planned for this weekend with our new cycling buddies.
Its a very different scene from what we were used to in joburg... we were doing a lot of races and we were training every day.... ie mingling with lots of cyclists. We miss that!

- The total lack of sign posts here. It makes finding your way around that much harder. And the naming of the roads is SO bad and unoriginal.... they have really long roads that are named based on their destination/origin. So there is Mombasa road, Limeru road, Thika road etc. Or the roads are named by what is on them....like United Nations road has on it, the United Nations office would you believe.

- The scary driving! There are many many crazy things that go on on these roads, but the overtaking is the worst habit I think. If a car is going like marginally slower than they want be going then drivers feel they have to overtake. Even if it’s into oncoming traffic or around a blind corner. We have been amazed and flabbergasted at the overtaking that goes on. And not just one car at a time.... 10 will follow suit and they will ALL be going around a blind corner.

- I haven’t found anywhere to go to for German lessons. It looks like I’ll only be able to start in September with a formal course which is a pity. I wanted to get stuck in asap.
So in the mean time I’m doing some online learning and trying to learn random conversation bits from Benedikt. And I’ve also stuck bright pink post it notes on everything in the house with its German name on it. :-)

- I miss my cats. This house is empty with no furniture in it and with just me rattling around in it. I’d love some animal company.

- All the foreigners here are irritating. There are so many blerrie loud yanks ;-)


So I guess you could say I like it here. Yay! Benedikt also does (Although work is currently a nuisance for him.... it will get better).
And I’m not even missing any of you yet!
I guess because we are back in SA next weekend for my sisters wedding... after that I am here for REAL. Then I suspect there will be sad and lonely moments.

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The slave has a slave

I am of course Benedikt’s slave while we are here. He forced me to sign a contract saying that as long as he supports me I am expected to do everything for him. So I wash his clothes... by hand (washing machine is at sea). I run errands for him during the day.... on foot as I have no car. I get up before him so his breakfast is ready after he has showered. I make him a lunch pack each day full of yummy goodies. I’ve been washing the dishes, cleaning the house, doing the garden... and get this.... I’ve been making supper each evening too!

I am joking about the contract :-)
But the rest is kinda true. So far it is fun being a housewife.... but I think the novelty will wear off pretty soon.

So our new housekeeper started today. She is my personal slave. Hah! I have had her scrubbing and polishing all day. So no more broken nails and achy joints for this lady of leisure thanks very much.
This is Lynette:She is going to be coming 3 times a week. Yay! (Labour is a lot cheaper here btw)

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Weekend away in Laikipia

This past weekend we decided to do the last day of a 3 day mtb race that we’d heard about. It gave us something to do as we have no TV, no furniture and no social life... yet. But the real reason was because we were very keen to ride our bikes. It had been 2 weeks since we last cycled and we were missing our babies! Especially being here, with all the single track and beautiful forests in sight....

So we drove there on Saturday, and did the race on Sunday. It was held in the Laikipia area which is HUGE conservation area north of Mt Kenya. We were told that Nanyuki (the nearest town to the race) was only about 2 hours away.... it was 3. And it turned out the race was seriously in the sticks far beyond Nanyuki.

So it meant an extra 70kms of rocky dirt roads....which included river and donga crossings and plenty of drifting as some rain made our journey even more hectic. Luckily we were in Bayer’s KAK vehicle so it handled the abuse we threw at it.

We had elephants crossing the road in front of us which was pretty exciting. Apparently there were like 7000 elephants in the area.... and it wasn’t completely fenced in either?! During the race there were several marshals on elephant guard.... and they were kept very busy keeping the riders safe from being stampeded.

So after our 5 hour epic journey (!!) we arrived and were shown around camp. A tent was erected for us and we got our bikes ready. We met loads of cool people that evening, lots of guys from Nairobi who we will be doing plenty of riding with in the very near future. We also chatted loads to Kinjah, who is Kenya's top cyclist. He has ridden for many pro teams in Europe and he has won stages at the Epic in SA. He is seriously good and does ALOT for Kenyan cycling... he coaches young riders, raises money for bikes, fixes everyones bikes and he captains the Kenyan national cycling team when they compete abroad. He is an interesting guy.
The camp site was VERY basic. There were 2 toilets.... that had no doors!! And people had set up camp right by them???? So needless to say I did not use them. Yuk. Benedikt almost vomited when he had to go in after one guy (he’d unfortunately seen him wiping!!)

So these are Benedikts words to a friend regarding the actual race:
I guess Sarah will update her blog soon reg. our weekend ... but here a short summary:

Sarah won the Ladies (well out of 3 or 4) and I punctured twice! and didnt have my bomb head with me as Princess S. forgot hers at home .. so I gave her mine as she is anyhow behind me. However I waited looong time to get a bomb head ...actually don’t know where I finished but the first 20km were horrible. I couldn’t warm up etc and battled to stay with the front bunch and then lost them! After 25 kms my legs were warm and I caught almost everybody ... well till I punctured ... and then again! and in total it was only a 45km race and flat.

There were actually about 8 ladies excuse me! :-)
It was a LONG way to drive for such an easy, short, uneventful race. But we accomplished our mission of starting off our cycling network. We met everyone we needed too. I even rode the race with a young dude from cape town.... his sister is on the mtn pro team – Mariska Strauss. And Benedikt found a supplier for rim tape for his 29er would you believe!

Some things we saw over the weekend:


We also saw lots of Masai people... well I assumed they were as they all had massive holes in their ear lobes. But I didn't ask any of them if I could take their photo :-)

And next time I'll take a photo of Mt Kenya! Its pretty BIG. And covered in clouds.


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Day One in Rosslyn Valley

The weather here is sublime. I’ve been in shorts and a sun top all week. The sun shines all day but it hasn’t been too hot either – about 25-27 degrees. Apparently it gets ‘cold’ in winter so let’s see when that happens. I believe you Joburgers are freezing your titties off!

We woke up ages before our alarm this morning, the bird life is really loud and it was REALLY bright in our room. We need curtains! And our first night in our new house wasn’t exactly peaceful....we bought cheep cheep pillows which meant it was like sleeping on a cereal box. We were plagued by bugs and mossies.... and at 11pm our doorbell rang. Benedikt went to look and saw 3 police guys outside. So we both went to the front door.... and boy I have never seen such funny outfits. All 3 were wearing these giant black shiny vesper style helmets.... it made them look like worker ants. Their rifles and batons making up the extra limbs. It was quite bizarre.
And you guessed it....they were at the wrong house.
You can imagine how long it took to get back to sleep after that!

So first thing this morning I went for a run... a 5km loop, out one entrance of the estate and in the other.
Then I unpacked all our air freight bags. We packed lots of clothes.... but no useful things like towels or curtains or chairs or even some kitchen stuff would have been nice. And it would have been really good to have our coffee machine right now! Oh well... we’ll have a better idea next time we move countries. Bleh.
Then I walked to our local shopping centre which is a couple of kilometres away. I bought new pillows and lots of bug killers, I ordered some curtains, and had some special South African adapter plugs made up for me. SA plugs are a pain!
Then the dude came to fix up our telephone and internet connections... and I got my new fancy shmancy PC plugged in and up and running. Yay. I even did some web site work this afternoon so my office has officially begun its job.
I went back to the shops 3 more times this afternoon, on my bike though, and ordered a wooden frame for the guest bed. So we can hang the mossie net over it. It will be ready next thursday. Hope it turns out well. (and that it fits!)

My new best flend popped in for well.... nothing. Yesaday she made us delicious coffee and lusks....but I didn’t dare make her our supermaket special koffie. Naoko calls me Sela.
She is from Japan. :-)
She and I are getting on leally well... we are in the same boat. Unemployed and staying at home for the first time in our lives. She also likes to galen and she also can’t cook – yay!! She also drinks wine and she likes to lite. I told her to start a blog too!

Benedikt’s handover at work is a bit PAINFUL. Poor boy.
He is replacing a guy who is due to retire any day now. This dude actually double checks excel. And he does his sums using a pencil and paper! CRAZY. He is very old fashioned and slow and he doesn’t delegate any work to his staff.... Poor Benny boo boo has to sit IN HIS OFFICE with him all day.

Benedikt wants a dog. Nurse Mandy says we are NOT allowed to get one. I agree with her. Quarantine will be awful for it when we leave here. But the thought of a jack russel to keep me company in the day time is a really nice one. Lets see who wins!

Anyway, I’ve got my music blaring in this empty house.... I’m playing the CD I made for some of you (you know who you are, you special bitches) before I left... its quite a good un huh?! All I need now is a G & T and you guys next to me to enjoy this beautiful balmy evening

Our first supper!

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Our new 4 bedroomed, 4 bathroomed AND bike roomed abode!

Before I reveal the photos, please take a moment to sympathise with me as I am writing all of this on a GERMAN lap top.
There are letter keys that are swapped around first of all…. So I have been putting a lot of z’ds in my words. Grrr
Then the punctuation kezs are ALL mixed up. And to do an @ sign zou have to hold down like 500 kezs…. (See this is how mz writing would look if I didn’t fix it up. Lovelz)
The instruction keys all have gibberish on them… like Strg – I think that’s the control key. And Einfg…. Not sure what that one is.
And then trying to operate windows in german is quite hilarious. Drucken this and Achtung that!
I cant wait to be on my own PC again!
I like this thing though: ö

Oh yes, the german man inside here also doesn't check my spelling... and I realise now how much I have come to depend on my PC doing this for me. Its sad.

The following photos were all taken with my phone (Digital camera is at sea) and I clearly had some dirt on the lens... the interior walls of the house have all been freshly painted and are looking pristine.

So here is the front of the house (with some pesky worker in the way :-) )

Side of the house and driveway. Each time we arrive, our gates are opened for us :-)

As you enter the front door (one of the front doors anyway), there is even a tiny cloakroom on the right! I love the archways.Behind Benedikt is the Kitchen

The BIG lounge with its beautiful floors and fireplace. Pretty ne?

The master bedroom (there is a second master bedroom that looks the same, just no balcony. Both have en suites)

The cupboards and door to the en suite bathroom. There are lots of cupboards like that in every room

My office. I have a nice view of the valley

The baby's room ;->

The beginnings of my veggie patch. Will be adding lots more there

The valley we will live in... there are about 10 houses built in the area so its nice and spacious

The swamp at the bottom of the valley :-) Its a bird watchers paradise apparently. Another thing I may get into!

And finally, the road leading up to our house

So you see, we're hardly living in the sticks are we folks?!
And you can also see there is PLENTY of space for you ALL.
If you don't come and visit I will forget all about you... and can you imagine life WITHOUT me???!!!

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The flight over here and the chaos that followed

Benedikt and I were relieved to finally get to the airport last thursday... it had been a busy week with being away for 4 days in Oudtshoorn, then the movers coming and all the tying up of loose ends. And buying and selling of bicycles. Ehem. Benedikt and his bike projects as usual!

Our flight was great as the pilot took a small deviation past that big ass mountain! (Not sure if he was joking about it being a deviation) So we saw the top of Kilamanjaro from our seats... we were SO close to it it felt like we could have jumped out on to it. We could see the surface in detail.... which really just looked like very dark soil wth lots of big craters. It stuck out SO high above the clouds , it was majestic. Was all pretty surreal.

We got through customs after getting our visas etc at 16h15... and got to our hotel which was ONLY 15kms away at 19h45!!
Everyone warned me about the trafic but one can never imagine such choas.
There are just no rules on the roads. And the roads are totally overcrowded with vehicles. We stood still for at least 3 hours!! The taxi itself was a mini bus lite from about the 60s, with a sun roof nogal. We had an excellent driver... he always managed to push his way into the fastest moving lane! He also fixed the engine problem when it gave up on us at one point... he just lifted the front passenger seat up, fiddled around for a bit and we were off again.
So anyway, WHEN you all come and visit us you are to make sure you arrive and depart on a weekend. Apparently traffic is not so bad then.

The hotel we are staying in is divine. Kinda like sun city, its a big village kinda thing, but its not kitch and overboard. (And all the african decor is real) It reminds me of Malawi. And the Cutty Sark in Zim... very relaxed and gin and tonickee. We sleep in a giant four poster bed with mossie nets over us. And we've been wining and dining in fine style each evening.

One of the first things I felt after landing here was that I've returned to my roots. As corny as that sounds, it really feels like I'm in a Rhodesia-equivalent. For us as a family, Rhodesia is a special place, all 3 of us were born there and my parents got married there. We had good times there. Its nice to be back!

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Why princess?

Why princess?
Well apparently, thats what 'Sarah' means.
Alhough I think that is the biblical or the hebrew meaning of my name... neither of which is appropriate really.
My family and boyfriend call me Princess Sarah....which I like as it implies that I am ever so regal and posh and gentle natured.
They tell me, however, that it is because I am a demanding spoilt brat. And that I always get my way. (They also tell me I am like a bull in a china shop)

Anyway its not important how I gained my royal title is it? But I feel it is appropriate that I name my blog as such.

Secondly, 2 of my black friends in South Africa couldnt believe I was moving to DEEP africa. They asked me how I was going to cope. I found this quite amusing.... did they think being a white face would be a scary thing amongst all the black kenyans?
Is that not how South Africa is?
Ok so....SA is 79% black and 9% white..... Kenya is 99.9% black.
But still, why did they think it would be hard for a white face here?
So far it has been REALLY REALLY pleasant. We have been met with non stop smily friendly faces and have had many many enjoyable conversations with black people here.
But this is a topic I would like to elaborate on at a later stage

So welcome to my blog and my first entry since moving to the interesting city of Nairobi!

P.S. Doesn't everyone act differently when you've only got your parents and siblings around, as opposed to friends and peers. Doesnt your family bring out the brat in you?! :-)

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This is me winning SAs and wearing my new SA Jersey, just before I left for Kenya - YIPPEEEE!