Peli Peli Sauce please

Successfully schemed to get bulkhead or economy plus on all three of my legs. Apparently, my line of being an ex-athlete with serious knee problems seems to work with agents. Believe me, this is a big deal when your total flying time is 20 hours.

• On the first flight, I managed to leave a folder with all my directions, copies of passport, and contact information. When coming to my seat, I took out the folder, 3, THREE, books, and my Lonely Planet guide. I thought I would just drink and get a bunch of work done. Of course, on international UA flights, alcohol is not covered and I slept the entire way. Fuck me. Luckily, I was able to recover the folder.
  
  
• Like I mentioned earlier, I had a 5 hour layover in London. I decided to check out the town by myself, and then planned to meet a friend for dinner. It was definitely a déjà vu experience, because I came here 7 years ago with 5 of my boys after college. I hit up Trafalagar square , which was the same first stop in my 2001 trip as well. I was hoping to see 5 young Indian guys to remind me of our old trip, but all I saw were Asian tourists.. I def stopped for a minute to think about how long I had come.. ok who I am kidding. I am still the same person back as I was back then. But in all honestly, I was pretty proud that I was able to figure out the Tube for myself. As many of you know, I suck at directions. Absolutely horrendous. Having no short term memory does not help.
  
  
• Traveling by myself in London was def interesting. It has some perks as you are on your own schedule, but at the same time you definitely miss the company. Besides there are only x amount of times you can ask someone to take a pic of you… I have already started to resort to funny pictures, random pics of hot girls, and random shots (a bunch of Asians sitting on the ground, kinda like Chinatown style).
  
  
• This is really gay , pardon the pun, but I took full advantage of calling people fags, and then motioning to ask for a cigarette.
  
  
• In London, I got to meet up with a college buddy, who I have not seen in years, who incidentally has an incredible pad. We grabbed some dinner and caught up and then spent 30 minutes gossiping on who married who, who had the hot wife, etc. It was great. She dropped me off at the Heathrow Express – somehow I managed to pass out – prolly the wine. Luckily some random kalu woke me up. Fuck my whole trip would have been fucked up had I missed my first connection. No more “you stupid kalu” remarks for me on this trip

Anyhow, I got to Nairobi yesterday – Shashank picked me up. Not only does this cat have a huge SUV, his place is sick. 2 bedrooms, plus a huge office. I am not kidding – I definitely feel like an aristocrat here. The crazy thing is that he says his friends have places with 8 or 9 bedrooms.

We spent the night doing what we always do. Drinking. We ended up going to this amazing joint that is looks like a place in Hollywood. Fine food and fine drinks. The best part was meeting all his crew who were all amazing journalists. One worked for ESPN, one worked for NPR, one was second in command at the LA Times. As one would expect, there stories were 1000x more sexier and interesting than mine. Apparently doing a deal in Mountain View does not compare to traveling to Nigeria and meeting the President there.

I think I must have put back 6 double black on the rocks and a shit load of appetizers.

Its interesting that the drink of choice out here seems to be Bourbon and whiskey, contrary to the states where 75% drink goose.

Anyhow, they had these cheese sticks that were awesome – way better than mozzarella sticks. Of course I had to ask for some hot sauce – they ended up giving me some Tabasco, which is good, but not exotic. Luckily the LA times guy, who was a fellow desi bhai, told me about Peli peli, which is cut up chilis in oil. It was great.

The rest of the night was great. We talked about Lakers (apparently, even expats hate Kobe), Karl Malone and his redneck antics, and oddly enough Keira Knightly, who one commented had too many teeth.

Anyhow, we hit another club after, which was filled with more locals. Luckily, I was told that most of the girls in the bar were hookers – otherwise, I would have thought I had all the game in the world. All in all – a great first night.