Second Weekend in Kuwait (November 14 & 15)

Friday:

We made the 90 km drive into downtown Kuwait City (about 60 mins.). After making my usual stop at The Sultan Center for my weekly supply of groceries, it was on to Starbucks at the Sharq Mall (see above photo). Thank goodness THIS Starbucks has not been closed down!!

Final stop was at the Sheraton Hotel where I had lunch at Riccardo's - an Italian themed restaurant. Fancy place with excellent food - see the photo of my salmon lunch.

Total expense: 15 KD (about $55 USD); expensive but darn well worth it!! Mmm - mmm good!!!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Saturday:

Lunch today was a more restrained affair. Hardly gourmet dining! We stopped at the local Pizza Hut. The only high point of the day was a mini-crisis that transpired right outside my house. A pair of kittens were chased up a tree in front of my residence by a barking dog. Both kittens were meowing all morning and looking down at me with a sad look that seemed to say "What do we do now?"

The Mother cat was off to the side (with another one of her kitties) looking on and presumably coaxing them to just get over their reluctance to jump out or climb down from the tree!

Finally - after about 5 hours - they were all gone so I shall presume that Mother and kitties have been reunited and all is well again in Kuwait!! Now if I can only get my local Starbucks to reopen ....

Al Zour Starbucks Store Closed by Kuwait Authorities ??

Today is Thursday (November 13th). Normally I'd be in a happy mood since Thursdays over here in Kuwait are the last day of the work week (sorta like Fridays back home). However, as we pulled into the parking lot by the new Starbucks store near our camp in Al Zour, we were shocked to see the entire store closed and the front door blocked by furniture and covered over by several red-colored strips of paper. I took the above picture and shared this with two Saudi and Kuwaiti colleagues. They explained that the red sashes pasted over the entrance door were from the Kuwait health department and that this means the store was closed because of some alleged health-related problem (dirty conditions of some sort). I have my doubts since this is a brand new store (opened September 27) but folks assure me this is not a "political" action. I'll keep everyone posted. I fully realize many readers will shrug and say "so what" but when you are an expat working in a place far away from home and one of your favorite hangouts is closed under mysterious circumstances, well, the event raises a lot of questions. Hopefully this setback is just a simple event and not something more nefarious.

Sunrise Over the Arabian Gulf

The exact moment the sun peered over the horizon at precisely 6:05 am. I may have adjusted the colors and brightness incorrectly when using Photoshop Elements to edit the raw JPG file but this view is about as good as it gets. A nice scene to wake up to every morning!

PS: A loyal follower, John, asks: Is the sand on the beach clean? The sea (or rather, gulf) looks calm. Does it ever get rough? ANSWERS: (a) The sand is very clean! However, I wear waterproof "beachshoes" to avoid cutting my feet on sharp shells; (b) The Arabian Gulf is generally quite calm. On a windy day, the waves may get as high as one foot (30 cm). During the summer, the water temperature is a most pleasant 80 - 85 deg F (30 deg C).

First Weekend in Kuwait (November 7 & 8)

Water Towers: In some sense, water is more valuable than oil. And the design and painting of these towers is always pleasant to view. The above towers are on the Sixth Ring road.

After running my weekly grocery run to The Sultan Center, I had a fabulous seafood buffet at the Al Noukhaza seafood restaurant in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in the Farwaniyah section of town. The restaurant is in the center of the above photo at the top of the staircase. Cost for the meal (with drink and tip) is about 12 KD (@$3.70 USD/KD, that's about $45 USD or 35 Euros). Excellent meal as always. I went home well fed.

The Crowne Plaza Hotel (near the intersection of Highway 55 and the Sixth Ring Road). About an hour north of my company's camp in Al Zour.

My "Home-Sweet-Home" in Kuwait

The house to which I have been assigned for the next few weeks. The place comes with a house keeper who makes the beds, does the laundry, takes out the trash and irons my shirts. What more can I ask for??

Sunrise early this morning (6:15 am) as viewed from my living room window.

My house is located right on the Arabian Gulf and offers excellent views of the beach. Terrific swimming in the summertime.

Toilet With a View at 39,000 Feet!!

Apologies to anyone who may be offended by this subject but I couldn't resist sharing this with my readers!

On board the Lufthansa Airbus cabin, the business class toilets come with a window located right over the toilet seat!! Although modesty almost forced me to close the window shade, I decided it wasn't worth the effort. After all, who would be outside looking in at 39,000 feet while we were flying at 580 MPH? Even a bird couldn't keep up with our aircraft!

Greetings from a Rainy Kuwait

I arrived on time Monday evening aboard Lufthansa 628. A decent flight to be sure but I'll only give Lufthansa an "average" rating in terms of service and food quality. My one gripe: no overhead storage bins were installed over the center row seats!!! See the above picture. Only those seats by the windows had storage compartments!

Anyway, I arrived on time at 8:07 pm Kuwait time (Houston + 9 hours). My colleague and I rented our vehicle and we were on our way to Mina Al-Zour (a one hour drive south of the airport) where our company has its main camp site. After unpacking, I got to bed late at around midnight. Sadly, I only managed a little sleep and so Tuesday dragged quite a bit. Thankfully, last night was better so this morning I celebrated a bit by stopping by the new Starbucks shop along the road side by the Al Zour turn-off from Highway 30. According to the employee, this store opened September 27 just in time for the Eid Holiday. (For me, the arrival of a Starbucks signals the approach of 'civilzation' to an area!!)

It's now 7:25 am on a very rainy Wednesday morning here in my office in Wafra. Wafra is a modest-sized oil field located in what is termed the Partitioned Neutral Zone (PNZ) - a strip of territory between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait where each contry has agreed to split the oil production 50%/50%. (My company manages the Saudi half of the oil production from Wafra Field.) Time to get to work and so I'll sign off for now and probably wait for the weekend until I make additional postings. In the meantime, I'll let the news of Obama's election victory sink in. Although I have not been a major supporter of Obama, I do like his promise to get out of Iraq in 16 months. I just hope Obama sticks to that promise and withdraws from Iraq as planned!!

After a rainy night, Wafra becomes Mud City!!

Too much mud to walk around in!!

The meal served onboard my Lufthansa flight last Monday (Nov. 3).