Home for the Holidays!!

Well the day has finally arrived!! I departed Kuwait at the delightful hour of 1:15 am aboard Lufthansa 637. A nice flight and we managed to land in Frankfurt 10 minutes early at 5:07 am local time (2 hours behind Kuwait time). The only problem is that I managed to hit my leg against the luggage cart as I maneuvered the contraption up the moving escalator. It rammed against my leg causing a small (3 cm sized) abrasion. Fortunately I recovered and avoided being knocked down the escalator! I then checked in to the Sheraton at 5:50 am and thankfully they had a room for yours truly so I crawled into bed for some badly needed rest. As I type this post, it is 1:55 pm local time. Just had a nice meal and I'm watching the sky outside. It was snowing this morning. Yes, seeing snow is a nice contrast to the sands of Kuwait .... BUT I only hope that tomorrow's weather does not cause any delay in my flight to home sweet home!!

One little bit of information: because of our early arrival, our pilot indicated that our flight was actually one of the FIRST planes to land at Frankfurt Airport this morning as the entire airport is under a nighttime curfew that ends at 5 am (presumably for noise control).


I will make this a brief posting but before I go I will share a few photos from my last day in Kuwait. Ta ta for now (yawn) ....

Finally a camel picture!! And may I say it's about time! I managed to go the entire trip this time without a single camel picture to share with yawll (that's Texas-speak for "you all"). Well, on my commute to work for my last day (December 2), I came upon a Kuwaiti-style traffic jam so to speak. Had to wait for this guy to cross the street!!

On my last day in the office in Wafra, our waiter made me a cappuccino. Nice!

"Part 1" of the long journey home - my flight from Kuwait to Frankfurt departed Kuwait at the delightful hour of 1:15 am!! I'll give Lufthansa credit - they left ON TIME!!

Fourth Weekend in Kuwait (November 28 and 29) A Meal With the Air Force

On Friday, I had the pleasure of being invited to participate in a Thanksgiving Day meal at a friend's villa in our camp in Al Zour. As has been the tradition in years past, we had two busloads of US troops in our camp. This year we had only members of the US Air Force who are stationed in a Kuwaiti air base in the northern part of Kuwait. Nature cooperated by providing some really FINE weather - sunny and cool (25 deg C). The airmen/women played volleyball a while and then we all dove in to the turkey dinner and desserts!!

Members of the US Air Force stationed in Kuwait playing volleyball.

The water was excellent and the weather perfect!!!

And the high point of the day was turkey dinner with all the fixings!!

A perfect day for someone far away from home.

Saturday was reserved for a few chores: my monthly haircut in the nearby town of Fahaheel and then home to cook my own meal. One complaint: the Starbucks at the Hilton Hotel in Mangaf was out of decaffeinated coffee!! Can you believe that??!!

Today - Sunday, November 30 - it's back to work here in our office in Wonderful Wafra!! Only a few days to go before I fly to home sweet home for some badly needed vacation and Christmas shopping!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY!!!

Well, here I am in Kuwait working away on what would normally be a day off from work on Thanksgiving Day - a BIG holiday in the USA. Just wanted to wish all my loyal followers and readers and everyone else in the USA a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

As for me, the plan is to go to one of my neighbor's villa tomorrow (Friday) and have a turkey dinner along with about a dozen or so US service men and women. In prior years, our company has a tradition of inviting over about two (2) busloads full of United States troops (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force) who are stationed here in Kuwait at the nearby Camp Arifjan. The troops are typically divided up amongst several families who feed the troops at their villa a home-cooked meal. Hopefully I will have a few pictures to share with my Loyal Followers a few days from now.

Third Weekend in Kuwait (November 21 and 22)

I managed to enjoy another fine weekend here in Kuwait. On Friday, I travelled north from Al Zour along Hwy 30 into Salmiya. Along the way, I passed many fine looking villas - some more elaborate than others! Many of the homes here are built from cement - not like the cheap wood-framed structures that most American homes are constructed. The concrete structures shown here can no doubt withstand hurricanes (wish we had these in Houston for Hurricane Ike!!)

(My favorite home!! Not a clue as to who lives in this fine place!)

A simple but thoroughly fine home sweet home!

Following my weekly grocery stop at The Sultan Center in Salmiya, I went to the new Movenpick Hotel and Resort situated along the Gulf Road (Hwy #25), in-between the 5th and 6th Ring Roads. Allegedly this place has been here for 1 year & 3 months. I have no idea how I could have missed this place but I am sure glad I finally came by today!! Next to the Movenpick are several fine restaurants: Chili's, Tumbleweeds, Starbucks (naturally!), Costa Coffee and at least a dozen more places whose names I can't remember. All are as new as the Movenpick. A selection of the photos I took during this lunch stop are shown below:

A camel all set for a ride by the tourists at the Movenpick Hotel's beach area.

I had the Friday Buffet meal which includes a chicken schwarma (shown above). Total cost for the buffet meal was 15.4 KD or $57 USD or 45 Euros. As always, I waddled home fully stuffed.

The poolside area at the Movenpick Hotel in Salmiya, Kuwait.

The front view of the Movenpick Hotel entrance and adjoining Chili's restaurant and many other fine eating places. Well worth a weekend visit!

FYI: The weather this time of year in Kuwait is excellent: 20 - 25 deg C (68 - 75 deg F) with blue skies.

Arabic Calligraphy

Calligraphy: (a): artistic, stylized, or elegant handwriting or lettering; (b): the art of producing such writing.

Above are just a few examples of Arabic calligraphy - one of my favorite art forms. I have no idea what these say but they look GREAT!! All were taken from greeting cards received during the recent Eid Holiday following Ramadan.

LATEST UPDATE (Nov. 24) on Starbucks Closure in Al Zour - Kuwait

Just a short update to advise everyone on the recent closure of the new Starbucks in Al Zour (Kuwait). As you can see from the above photo, a temporary wooden door has been erected over the existing glass door entryway. There are absolutely NO signs anywhere explaining what is going on leaving us to depend upon any hear-say/scuttlebutt that we can run across. A colleague says he actually talked to the Kuwaiti owner of the franchise and this owner alleges the store was closed because some critical paperwork had not been filed and / or that certain "considerations" had not been paid to the appropriate people. My colleague says he hopes to visit the owner during this weekend and maybe obtain more details about the closure. Naturally, all of us expats in the immediate vicinity are hoping this store's closure is temporary. Again, I am sure many folks who read this posting are likely to laugh and say "just get over it". Still, when one is far away from home, one needs as many comforts of home as possible and the loss of any such "comfort" is always upsetting ... and a great incentive for us expats to speculate and come up with all sorts of "explanations" and theories. Stay tuned ....


LATEST UPDATE (November 24th - Monday): It's confirmed that the reason for the closure is a simple licensing fee! Some licensing paperwork (and fee) needs to be processed and - hopefully - our little lovely local Starbucks is supposed to reopen "in a week".

Ron - a loyal follower from Canada - asks if there is a Tim Horton's coffee shop here in Kuwait. Sadly, I have NOT encountered any such coffee places, Ron! However, there are several Costa Coffee, Second Cup and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf stores around the area here ... in addition to the dozens of Starbucks.

A Little Information Please

Having made many postings from Wonderful Wafra, I thought I'd better include a map showing the exact location of where I am working. The red star shown in the above map image indicates that we are in southern Kuwait, a short distance (just a few kilometers) north of the Saudi-Kuwait border. Our oilfield is in what is termed the "Partitioned Neutral Zone". Basically, since Saudi Arabia and Kuwait could not decide exactly where their mutual border was situated, they simply decided to split the oil production 50% / 50% from that area. The US-based company for which I work is the official contractor to the Saudi government and as such we are in charge of producing the Saudi share of the oil from the PNZ.

People ask me what's it like to work over here and I simply respond that as an American living in the Middle East, Kuwait is probably the second best area within this part of the world (the best being Dubai, of course) where an American can ever hope to be assigned. At least the people over here don't hate us as much as may be the case in other Middle Eastern countries (whose names I shall withhold for obvious reasons!). Furthermore, the infrastructure is sound - the water is safe to drink, the power is on 99% of the time, I can get CNN, BBC and Orbit News, a few newsstands sell The International Herald Tribune (THE American expat's favorite newspaper when away from home), and there are many fine hotels where we can eat a very decent meal and relax on the weekends. Alcohol is illegal in the country but I don't care as I don't drink that much anyway. Christians and other non-Muslims can worship as they please and there is a huge Catholic cathedral in downtown Kuwait City with a big cross out front. Overall, I find this a very tolerant country. Not as liberal as Dubai but still a nice place in which to work.

In the interest of shedding a little bit of light on an area of the Middle East with which many folks (particularly Americans) may not be aware, I will try to answer any questions posed by readers about this part of the world.