guyphenix.com: Callums Birthday Weekend

Well this weekend the boys decided to come up for Callums birthday, but word spread and suddenly now there was about seven of the project trust people coming up for the weekend. As I waited on the Friday lunch time the medical nurse Lindsay came in and asked me if I wanted to go food tasting at the Sheraton Hotel for the Caladonial(something sottish) St.Andrews celebration, it was a free lunch so of course I wasn’t going to be rude and say no so off we pottered to the the Sheraton Hotel which is one of Kampala’s better hotels. We arrived and Lindsays friend Eric who I have mentioned in earlier blogs and another member of the board where already there so we soon got organized and sat down to “taste” some food thinking we might get a few small nibbles of various possible meals. For starters smoked nile perch was produced with salad and a cucumber hollowed out with chives and onion mayonnaise style sauce which was delicious. We thought that may be it but as bread was produced we realised we were being served the full meal. Next beef wellington individually wrapped with patte and mushrooms surrounded in a port sauce with roast potatoes and vegtables, my mouth is actually watering thinking about it now…mmmm…so gewd! After we discussed the pro’s and con’s regarding the beef wellington and I pretended to give some usefull feedback. Next we had some chocolate cake with a strawberry and white chocolate sauce, of course chocolate cake isnt really a gewd enough dessert so we asked for a different option and so Vanilla cheesecake with passion fruit was brought down which tasted amazing but when chatting to the chef afterwards we questioned about her using a sponge for cheesecake but she said she wasn’t able to make a hard base, aint to sure why but even I can do that. The meal tasted great but the fact it was free and I was helping some scots seemed to make it taste even better.
As I had been away for so long Callum and Roddy had arrived and so had headed to my local takeaway Chillies with Anwer for some chips and chicken not quite the same as my meal but I didn’t rub that in. Well our big plan for the weekend was to buy Callum a suit in Owino market as he had been talking about getting one for a while and also Roddy and I fancied suits and also gave me a chance to show them the spectical that is Owino. Unfortunetly a theme for the weekend began which was rain and lots of it! We instead headed home and watched a film.
We soon were hungry and decided to keep with tradition and head to ranchers. We got a mytatu into town, we got dropped off and were about to get bodabodas to gardencity when the dazzling lights of some small strange popcorn smelling market caught our eyes and so did some fetching sunglasses which you can see in the photo below. We headed on with our quest for steak after having a look around the market and after I stood in about 4 puddle’s and had a rather wet foot. I managed to get the below photos of Callum and Roddy in front of me on BodaBoda’s, do not worry mum I was wearing a helmet…
We arrived and had our steaks….more of a tradition than a necessary and then met up with the rest of the Project trust which has come. We headed to alleygators where we had had the Microcare company party a few weeks back, there are pool tables and arcade machines here so we spent a while here. We went to Bubbles O’learys which is the local Irish pub, legend has it that it previously was in Ireland and was terrible and not doing well so they took everything out and opened it up in Kampala. We finally got home on some more boda boda’s which was great fun as we got one so all three of us and the driver squished on so was a male bonding experience and saved us a lot of Shs.
We had a quick nap and then got up nice and early to go and meet the project trust people at their place, Backpackers. Its nice enough and I got myself some pancakes with pineapple and banana which was really gewd. We then headed to DiDi’s world as to let everyone experience it, unfortunately there was a load of people there and it was really busy which sort of spoiled the strange eerie atmosphere from last time but we enjoyed it non the less until it started to rain…heavily and of course it had to wait till we were had all just got strapped into the pirate ship just as it started to move off for its 30minute ride of terror. After getting ridiculously wet we headed to the arcade area where we played some classic games. Callum and I then had a best of 3 air hockey game which became really intense well not really intense, but pretty intense and we even got a crowd of about 12 kids which actually distracted me and also we managed to hit one of them with the puck! Well after I pulled a muscle in my finger it was an easy win for Callum as I had to go easy and a 2-1 victory was enjoyed by the geordie lass. Callum and I then decided to head to Owino to do some fun shopping as the rest of the project trust decided to head back to backpackers for lunch. We headed to the general area of smell and rubbish that is nicknamed Owino Market and headed for the clothes as retro T shirts was what we were aiming for…if not….SUITS!! Roddy had told us to get him a thsirt as he had no clean ones left so we had a long look through the tightest and strangest tshirts and finally pulled out a classic, Boston World War Museum with a large Panzer tank on the front with its make and number, Roddy would just love it! We both then got other tshirts that were a little less strange and slightly offensive and headed out, on our way however we noticed a hat stand and decided to delve into the deep wooden boxes of endless hats and I manged to pull out with my left hand a strange green trucker hat as you can see in the photo and a nice soviet union hat for Roddy to go with his panzer t shirt. We paid about £1.20 for the two hats, Callum also got himself a trendy hat as you can see in the photo below. We then headed back to my place to relax and look at our spoils from our day of shopping and to show Matt my house mate. We then headed into garden city to meet up with the project trust ones and we went to the food court to get ourselves something tasty from one of the many restaurants, the food court really is something to behold as you walk in and sit down and then about 20 waiters run towards you with menus and try and convince you to buy from them all at the same time and this is quite an experience.
Sunday morning and we didn’t make it to church…we stayed at mine until late on in the day, I made some nice pasta with melted cheese and pesto mum you would be so very proud, we sat and watched films as it was doing the usual Ugandan thing of raining very heavily. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed the food court last night so we headed back there again to eat before going to see a film, the film wasn’t on till another 45minutes so we headed on down to Aroma and we had some coffee, it ain't great but it makes us feel European :D. We went to see Stardust which a rather strange fairytale kids story with humor thrown in for fun. Robert De Niro is a gay pirate which we all found hilarious but the Ugandans didn’t get it at all due to homosexuality being illegal and all that sort of stuff leaving them culturally unaware and I am sure quite confused. We then parted ways and off we headed home.
Monday morning and it is the start of CHOGM hell, the Ugandan police now see it as their right to stick on their sirens whenever they like to do whatever they like and have decided to just instead of making places secure just stop anybody entering them instead. As the weekend gets closer the less roads that will be open but I am happy to announce I will not be in Kampala this weekend. Anwer, Wilbrod and I are heading to Kisoro way down on the Rwandan boarder. We are going there to sort out some computer networking problem and he needs my help but also it’s a nice excuse for a trip and also to get away for CHOGM as it seems mostly everybody else is currently doing it as well. I will also be heading through Kisiizi as we are delivering some things to the Boys down there, I look forward to meeting their pig Pickens who I might add is likely not to be slaughter and spit roasted as wished as somebody has grown way to attached to her L ahh well maybe some other time. I also will get to meet the chicken which they have called guy in honor of me :D oh how proud I am, also on a lesser note I will get to meet Roddy and Callum as I havent seen them in over two days L.
Well on Monday I headed to rugby as per usual and due to the fact that all schools in Kampala are off for CHOGM the few boys who are younger than me that I play rugby with had some time to themselves and headed to Owino to purchase some distractingly bright short shorts and dark purple knee high socks Dungannon would be proud of. They definitely brought some class to the match as handling errors made for a rather disappointing game where I didn’t even score once.
Well I feel I should rap this up as I have know written a lot and photos have to be put in as well.
I hope all is well at home and you are getting excited for Christmas and are nice and cold as I sun bath through the Christmas holidays.
Love to all
Guy
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