By Bob Van Leer

  (NAIROBI, KENYA - Feb. 4, 1995) - We arrived at our hotel, the Inter-Continental, about midnight Saturday after a flight that started Thursday night in Portland.

  Betty and I left Gold Beach Wednesday for an overnight stay in Salem and Thursday was the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association Government Affairs Conference. At this we meet with government officials to get a feeling on how the session is going. It is off to a fast start. Our lobbyist said bills that would normally not be taken up until February have already passed.

  Betty and I left the sessions early and stopped in Portland to see our newest grandson, Jon Douglas Bornemeier, born Jan. 24 to our daughter Amy. Then we went to the Portland airport for a night flight to Newark, New Jersey, our overseas jumping off point.

  After a few hours rest in a day room, we boarded a Monarch Airlines charter flight. The plane was an Airbus 300-600, a European-built plane that is Boeing's principal competitor.

  The flight left at 7:14 p.m. for Nairobi with stops at Manchester, England, and Athens, Greece, for refueling and cleanup. The total flight time was 14-15 hours, and with the airport stopping time, was probably close to 20 hours. The plane was our home for a day, and in practice, it seemed longer than that.

  On meal service, we started with dinner, had breakfast and lunch on the plane, and were served a second dinner on our last leg to Nairobi. That many hours on the same plane is hard on the seat.

  The trip we are on is not one of our usual newspaper group tours. We are on our own. The trip is basically a cruise, but starts with a four day safari in Kenya after which we will board a small cruise ship at Mombasa, Kenya, for a 10-day cruise of islands in the Indian Ocean. The cruise ship, Rennaisance 5, holds only 114 passengers tops, compared to the "Love Boat" style of cruise ship that can accommodate thousands. The small size enables the ship to get close to small islands and enter small ports.
By now, we have bad cases of jet lag. We are 11 hours ahead of Gold Beach time. As I write this, it is almost 2:00 a.m., but at home it is 3:00 p.m. yesterday. And add to this the fact we crossed the equator and are now in the southern hemisphere, so the seasons are reversed. It is summer down here. All of this leaves us rather disoriented. But tonight we get to sleep in beds, rather than an airplane seat and tomorrow night we should be pretty well acclimated. We will start tomorrow with a tour of Nairobi.