Substance!

[scarlettina]

Good, productive day, even though the work portion was frustrating. (Web production kvetch: Why oh why can't content management systems retain the user-friendly names attached to files rather than assigning random number combinations to them? Random number combinations 20 characters long? It makes everything harder. ::sigh::)

Came home and decided that I was going to give that last wall in the small room its third coat of paint. Spanky and Merlin supervised. I think they were fascinated by the sight of me get up on a chair to paint the top of the wall, getting down to refresh the roller, and launching myself upward again. Anyway, the room now has three coats on every wall. I'll be leaving the paint to cure until Sunday, at which point the tops of the walls will be taped so I can paint the ceiling. Don't know how many coats that will take, but I hope not more than one. I want my room! While all this was going on, I also got some much-needed laundry done. Oh, the glamor!

Lastly, I got word from the visa agency that they received my paperwork yesterday and that it would be processed by Friday and Fed-Exed back to me. Yay! Also, plans for kitty care have been launched into motion. And now I know it's all real, because I received e-mail from one of my teammates tonight trying to find out who would be arriving at the hotel in Nairobi when, and who wanted to meet for dinner. I, of course, won't be getting to the hotel until somewhere around 9:30-10ish PM, so I won't meet anyone until the morning we depart for the wild. ::sigh:: But...it's coming!

Comments

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

Three coats of paint? Yikes! What color was it, and what have you changed it to? And aren't you supposed to work top to bottom, so drips and splashes from ceilings don't end up on already finished walls? (Apologies for not suggesting that before you started.)

Congrats on the good news from the visa agency. When we went to Kenya we got our visas on entry. Are the rules different now, or does ordering the visa in advance just expedite the process?

When we got to Kenya, I stood in the long (but fortunately fast-moving) line for US citizens, and paid $20, and all was taken care of. A fair share of our group stood in a shorter line for non-US citizens, and paid similar fees. My wife got VIP treatment – because of her Norway passport, she didn't have to pay at all, which the Kenyan official explained was Kenya's thanks to Norway for its foreign aid, which was the most generous in the world at the time, according to the Kenyan.

For Zanzibar and Madagascar, an immigration official came aboard the ship, and collected all the passports at the ship's shore excursion desk for processing. The Zanzibar official took the fees and stamped everyone's passport – except my wife, who was in free again. At Madagascar, they used full-page stickers instead of stamps, and everyone paid the same fee – no free ride for my wife that time.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

Re: paint: The room was originally white, and now it's a deep cranberry red. Red paint tends to be pretty translucent so it will often require quite a bit of coverage. Now, if I'd thought about it, I might have primed the room, which might have cut down on the painting, but this was fine. It went quickly and I enjoyed it.

Re: visa: I just want to have it and not worry about it when I arrive. I'll be getting in after something like 20 hours of flying, and the fewer road bumps I hit when I get to this completely unfamiliar place, the better. Surely, your way was less expensive, but my way, hopefully, I'll cruise on through. Fingers crossed.

My Egyptian visa took up a whole page in my passport: rubber stamps, paper stamps and a signature. It looks like a little collage. Every other mark in my old passport is a rubber stamp. I'm looking forward to seeing what the Kenyan visa looks like.

Norwegians get into Kenya free? Cool! International goodwill does make a difference. I wish the president would figure that out.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

And re: painting the ceiling: the original theory was that I wasn't going to paint the ceiling, which is why we went straight to the walls. Unfortunately, exhaustion got the better of me on more than one occasion, so there are red splotches all around the wall's edge. Believe me, I would have preferred to avoid the extra delay, especially since, prior to the painting, the ceiling was pristine. Ah well.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Woohoo! So exciting!