The restaurants here are many and wonderful....and there is a strong cafe culture too.... We fix an omelet every morning in our room, with toast and coffee. We then stop and have another coffee somewhere a few hours later. Since Italy is a great influence here, the usual is an espresso with milk. Most cafes serve water, a few cookies, or other treat with the coffee, or you pay a bit more and get the mediaslunas, or small croissants that are on every menu. The restaurants often open for dinner around 8:00 pm, but it is easy to find food at any hour. Last night we went to an Italian restaurant near our hotel, that Bill had spotted the night before. We were the first there at 8:30 pm! It was jammed at midnight the night ... read more

We spent today walking from our hotel in Recoleta to the Recolta Cemetery (where Eva Peron and many other people are buried), and then the street market outside.....then on to the National Museum of Bellas Artes (free and full of works by renown Europeans)....through the "hip" Palermo neighborhood (seemed a little like the Ballard of BA) to the shopping area....and tonight, all the way back! On the way, we found bars that became clothing shops on the weekends, beautiful old homes, graffitti, cold beer, and an inexpensive dinner. We had planned to go out tonight, but everything seems to start after midnight at the earliest, so we are now in the internet cafe instead of dancing in a disco! (Later: we left the internet place at 12:40am and there were crowds in the streets and in ... read more

Hello everyone.... We had no trouble getting our flights to DC and then on to Buenos Aires...where it is warm (around 80 this afternoon) and mostly sunny...We had first class to DC... and then the extended coach seats to BA...got some sleep even.. We are staying in a residence hotel, right in Recoleta....a high end area of the city. Bill is enjoying the view of the pool and bikinis....We took a nap and a shower and have just stepped out for the first time...architecture is amazing wherever you look! There is a Dora Bahrenburg here in the phone book...relation? Anyone know? We will finish email, walk around, get $$, go to a cafe....go shopping for water and wine...and see what happens next.... Thanks to Karl, Vicki and Geoff, Walter and Cindy, and Tom and Diane who ... read more

Vicki and I arrived in Nairobi on Tuesday afternoon, thanks to the driver and van provided by the school. Mary, a teacher and our across-the-hall neighbor, came along to deal with text books for the school. We first went back to to the Sarit Center (http://www.saritcentre.com/about_us.htm), the shopping mall where we had bought supplies when we arrived in Nairobi, so that Mary could go to the Textbook Center, and I bought a small rolling pin and round board for making chapatis at home. Then we were dropped off at our hotel (the beautiful Fairview), where we checked and then met two friends of Vicki's who were former teachers at the school. We sat by the pool and had dinner, entertained by a very loud cat.... The next day, we relaxed by the same pool, swam, and ... read more

Vicki and I were treated to a night at Mountain Lodge, on the flanks of Mt Kenya, as a thank you from the school to Vicki for all her hard work here. We were driven up to the Lodge by an employee of the school on Saturday afternoon. We drove on a beautifully paved road, after we turned off at the village of Chaka. I t is well paved since the president has a vacation home on the road! It was strange to have no potholes to bump over on the whole trip. Mountain Lodge is about a 30 minute drive up Mt Kenya from the school. We passed through farmland, across small rivers and then through a village, where there were very primitive looking wood buildings along the road. The driver told us that these ... read more