The Coolest Thing in Kuwait: Talabat!

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One of the most frequently asked questions we hear from our friends and family back home is: “What’s it like in Kuwait?”  Well, when it comes to ordering food . . . . it’s awesome!

There is a website here called Talabat, where you can order food, and have it delivered, from any restaurant in Kuwait City.  The delivery fee is only like $1.00 with a minimum order of only about $2.00!  It is so convenient to order dinner from your computer as you sit on your couch, knowing that you can order food from hundreds of restaurants!  You can order things like pizza, pasta, cheeseburgers, or even a fancy multi-course dinner.  We’ve had friends order a dozen chocolate chip cookies from one restaurant and then a dish of ice cream from a different restaurant!  Last week, I tried ordering Taco Bell and it was delivered in about 15 minutes.  It is such a nice service they have here, but definitely dangerous on my waste line!

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In Kuwait Taco Bell is open until like 4am . . . and they deliver!

 

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Even the hot sauce packets from Taco Bell have Arabic jokes on them. The one on the left is translated to: “What do you want with ketchup? I am much better.” The sauce packet on the right translates to: “They say the weather outside is pleasant? Please let me know.”

 

Just about every restaurant here delivers, including the major chain restaurants like McDonalds, Subway, Smash Burger, KFC, and even Caribou Coffee!  Even sit-down restaurants like Olive Garden, TGI Fridays, Applebees, and Mais Alghanim deliver.

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Here’s a pic of the Meat Tray I ordered one night from a Lebanese restaurant called Mais Alghanim. For just a couple of bucks you get multiple beef, chicken, and lamb kabobs and tons of pita bread with three different kinds of hummus!

 

Mitch’s Monday Happy Hour

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Greetings All,

You’ve probably noticed that our blog posting has slowed down a bit the last couple of weeks. For our diehard readers, who check for new posts everyday, we apologize to you!  Now that we have been in Kuwait for a couple of months, we have started to settle into our routines and have been super busy with work and life.  As a result, we have struggled to find free time to keep in touch with everyone on our blog. We are definitely going to try harder to add a couple of new posts every week.

To keep everyone in the loop of our daily happenings, I’ve decided to dabble into a new segment I’ll call: “Mitch’s Monday Happy Hour.”  I want to kind of spin it as if we were getting together with you on a Monday evening for a Happy Hour. A great way to catch up with friends and to touch base with what’s going on in life.  So without further a due, I present to you . . . . our first segment of  . . . . . . Mitch’s Monday Happy Hour!

  • We’ve been spending a lot of time lately looking for a car!  We are looking to purchase a used SUV and have found a couple that we were interested in. There were two of them that we were ready to buy, however after a final check on the background of the vehicle, we found out that the odometer had been turned back over 100,000 km on both of them! We are still continuing our search, and putting an even stronger emphasis on doing our research before buying.
  • My favorite food in Kuwait is called a shawarma. It is a wrap, with shaved chicken (or you can get beef) served inside of a flatbread with vegetables and a garlic dressing. Each vendor prepares them differently, and the vegetables could be cucumber, onion, tomato, pickles, egg plant, or even french fries. They are sooooo good, and less than $1.00 each.  I found an awesome little food stand, about a 10 minute walk from our apartment, that has the BEST shawarma yet!  This week,  I went there 3 days in-a-row for dinner!  The owner speaks about 5 words of english, so we just speak through hand signals. When he sees me walking toward him, he greets me with a huge smile and holds up 2 fingers. I confirm with a slight head nod, and within minutes, I’m devouring two shawarma. He’s a Syrian guy named Khalil, and I’ll definitely be keeping him in business while we live here!
  • Rachel has been adding a few things to our apartment to make it feel like “home.”  She bought a few picture frames and had some photos printed for them. We got them hung up this weekend, which is an awesome addition to our place. She has started a short “honey-do-list” with various other tasks she wants to do, so we’ll slowly chip away at that.
  • We’ve also been busy planning our Christmas trip to Sri Lanka and the Maldives.  We bought our plane tickets a couple of months ago, but just started booking our accommodations this week. We booked this awesome house for our first few nights, in a jungle of Sri Lanka, only about 4 minutes from the beach.  It looks so peaceful and a great place for us to unwind over the holidays. We can’t wait to share photos of our trip with everyone once we return.

Well that wraps up our first Monday Happy Hour together! Let’s do it again next week, cheers!

You might be in the Middle east if

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We have all seen the lists before:

You might be a redneck if….

You might be a Minnesotan if….

You might be a child of the 90’s if….

Well I am beginning a totally new list and it is going to be titled: You might be in the Middle East if….

  • You might be in the Middle East if a 6 year old has said to you “You should really go on Arab Idol.” (p.s. I referred this poor child for a hearing check)
  • You might be in the Middle East if you ask a group of children who they think the people are in the picture with Little Critter and the child you call on answers, “his sister, his nanny, and his driver.”unnamed
  • You might be in the Middle East if your security guard is wearing a scarf and a winter hat when you walk out to the bus in the morning while it is 75 degrees outside.
  • You spend more inside the gas station on snacks then you do outside filling up your gas tank.

Camels and a Guilty Conscious

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When we decided we were moving to the Middle East, I very quickly told Mitch, “I don’t care what we do over there, but I am riding on a camel.”
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While were in Dubai last month for our Eid vacation, I did exactly that!  We went on one of the famous ‘Desert Safaris,’ where all of the tourists gather, to enjoy a variety of desert adventures.  Some of the options are: going bashing through the sand dunes in a 4×4, sand boarding, four-wheeler rides, riding camels and a bunch of other stuff.  I was so excited for my first camel ride!

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When it was our turn, we climbed up on the huge creature, (seriously, these dudes were twice the size of any horse I have ever ridden on) put on my brave face (see below . . . it doesn’t look very brave) and rode a camel with my hubby!

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We smiled for the camera, laughed, and enjoyed our short 1 minute and 36 second camel ride.

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At the end of our ride, we had to prepare for the awkward dismount.  To get off the camel, it would drop to it’s knees, and eventually sit on the ground.

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The ride was extremely short, but here I am 5 weeks later still thinking about it, feeling guilty about it.

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I made the decision to ride this camel in the name of a fun picture.  Would I ride an elephant at the circus in the name of a good picture? No, I would refuse to participate in the mistreatment of animals.    I was a part of the problem, I participated in the mistreatment of these camels.     Instead of dealing with the situation with my moral compass strongly in place, I twisted my thought process around into “I might never have a chance to do this again,”  “it will make great pictures” and “you are in the desert, you have to ride a camel.”

So as you travel the world and have the opportunity to experience new and interesting adventures, I encourage you to keep your moral compass strongly in place.  I regret that I allowed mine to slip up a bit, but have definitely learned from this and hope that others can too.

So there it is a major Debbie Downer of a post all about my regrets and the lessons I learn by making mistakes along the way.

Tim Tams and Apple Juice

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We have been crazy busy lately.  We have been working our regular jobs during the day and then at night we have both been running from one side job to the next.  This has resulted in a couple of things:

1. lack of blog posting

2. lack of clean underwear

2. lack of seeing each other

Fortunately when you come home to see this….

welcome home

it makes it easier to scramble to get a load of laundry done so you will hopefully have clean and dry underwear in the morning.

 

 

It’s a Big World Out There, But Yet Small Too

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You often hear the phrase, “what a small world.”  Usually you hear it when you meet a friend-of-a-friend or a similar situation.  In all actuality, the world is HUGE!  There are so many cool places out there and so many interesting people to meet.  After just a couple of months in Kuwait, we are quickly realizing that the world is even larger than we ever imagined it.  We work with people from every continent in the world (except Antarctica) and they have all been to so many far corners of the world.  Well today, for the first time since we’ve been in Kuwait, I had a “wow, what a small world” moment.

I’ve started umpiring for the local Little League Baseball Association here, and we had our first games of the season today (I had a ton of fun, and will definitely share more details about my experiences in a future blog post).  Before the game, I introduced myself to my field ump for the game.  He was a nice young man, about 15 years old, named Mohammed.  We got to chatting, and I started asking him all sorts of questions. During our conversation he mentioned that he has lived in Kuwait his entire life, but his mother is from America. I asked him, “where in America?” and he replied, “a state called Minnesota.”  I thought to myself, awesome!  Our conversation continued like this:

  • Me: “No kidding, thats where i’m from!”
    • His eyes got big and the look on his face said “really?”
  • Him: “Have you ever heard of a town called Minneapolis?”
    • I chuckled
  • Me: “Ya, that’s where I live”
  • Him: “Reallllly? Have you ever heard of Coon Rapids?”

We shared a laugh and I informed him that I had family from Coon Rapids (shoutout to the Barnes Family!) and that I have spent  lots of time in Coon Rapids.  I told him I lived in a suburb called Minnetonka, and he about hit the floor.  He told me he bought his new baseball bat at the Dick’s Sporting Goods in Minnetonka last summer, and that it was his favorite store in the entire world (literally)!  He was in complete disbelief that I frequently shop at the same store, and that I would leave the city that has the coolest sporting goods store (in the world) to move to Kuwait!  It sounds like he goes back to Minnesota every other year to visit his family there.  He was a great kid, and I look forward to umpiring some more games with him in the future.

My second “what a small world” moment came a few hours later, after I was done umpiring my game.  I stopped over at the t-ball field to watch one of my 1st grade students play in his first game.  I quickly spotted his parents, and introduced myself.  His family was wonderful and we had a great conversation.  During our chat, when I informed his father that I was from Minnesota, he replied with “oh cool, I’ve been there.”  He went on and told me that he worked for a company called Emerson Process Management (shoutout to the Vacek boys!) located in a city called Chanhassen.  I laughed-out-loud and told him that is the same city that I worked in for the last 6 years.  We shared some fun stories about the area, like what our favorite restaurants to eat at were in Chanhassen.  The highlight of my day though was when my little first grader noticed me after the game was over.  He had the biggest smile you have ever seen, and called out, “Mr. Mitch, what are you doing here!?!” He followed it up with a monstrous high-five, and made my day!

It was a great day at the ballpark, and I’m fortunate to have made a few new friends there.  Ultimately though, it just proves that when you travel halfway around the world, submersed in a new culture, you will still find people with things in common. Like shopping at the HUGE Dick’s Sporting Goods in Minnetonka, Minnesota or eating at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Chanhassen, Minnesota!

Our First Sand Storm

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Growing up in the midwest, both Rachel and I have been through some pretty crazy weather in our lives. We’ve endured our fair share of snowstorms, tornados, thunderstorms, brutal hot days, and even wind chills -40 degrees. We even survived the epic Halloween Blizzard of 1991!  Well earlier this week, we experienced a new kind of weather phenomenon . . . . . . a sand storm . . . . and it was nasty!

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One of our friends took this photo from our apartment building.

About 12 pm, the wind started to pick up (maybe about 15-20 miles per hour).  Within an hour or so, the entire sky and everything outside had a bright orange tint to it. The color was the result of the sun shining on the tiny sand/dust particles in the air. It was super eeeerry looking, almost like we lived on another planet or something. When you went outside, you couldn’t really “taste” the sand or “feel” it hitting your skin, but you could definitely notice it accumulating in your eyes.  After about 5 minutes outside, my eyes were full of sand. It kind of felt like when you wake up in the morning, and you have to pick all of the eye boogers out that Mr. Sandman left you while you were sleeping.

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Another one of our friend’s took this photo. Notice the crazy orange tint to the air!

It was fun listening to all of the people gasp and talk about the sand storm.  From what I understand, it sounds like they are pretty rare during the fall.  They are more prevalent in the spring, and some can get bad enough where the visibility is so bad that it is nearly a “blackout,” which forces the closure of schools, government buildings, businesses, etc. Some locals here said this sand storm was a pretty minor one, so we are a bit intrigued to see what the “severe” storms are like. Probably the worst part about a sand storm, is the mess it leaves behind! The airborne sand finds a way to penetrate through the smallest of cracks around the windows in your apartment, resulting in a thin layer of sand over EVERYTHING! We were fortunate enough and had all of our curtains closed, which helped reduce the mess in our apartment.  People also recommend always closing your closet doors and dresser drawers to keep the sand from getting in all of your clothes. Usually my clothes are scattered in random piles on the floor, so it wouldn’t matter if my drawers were closed or not!     IMG_1585     Check out the crazy orange tint in these photos!  Keep in mind that none of them have been edited. They kind of look like someone added a filter to them in Instagram or something, but these are the real deal. Crazy eh? The best part about the sand storm is definitely how some people handled it. There were so many people walking around wearing those protective masks, like the one your doctor wears while he performs your knee surgery.  Some people even wrapped toilet paper around their faces and mouths, to protect themselves from the sand.  They were just walking around looking like bodiless mummies the week before Halloween!  Although everyone probably thought I was the crazy one, because I was just walking around inhaling all of the sand into my lungs.

It was neat to experience our first sand storm, and it was a nice reminder of why we moved to the Middle East . . . . to experience new things!  Let it be known that I would much rather experience a 4 hour sand storm than the 5 months of  a cold/snowy winter that our family and friends are having back home!

Our First كرة القدم Game (soccer)

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We had a blast during our vacation last week to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The trip was full of great times, new adventures, and lasting memories.  One of the highlights of our trip (for us me) was attending a soccer match between the United Arab Emirates and Australia!

Before our trip, I was pumped when I found out about the match.  It was just a friendly match between the two countries, as they both prepared to play in the upcoming Asia Cup in January.  I was excited to experience the atmosphere, huge crowds, team chants, and the pride the crowd had for their home countries. Needless to say, it wasn’t like that at all.  The atmosphere was more like a high school soccer game.

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Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium

When we arrived to the stadium, I was a bit confused to find out that you didn’t even need a ticket for the game. It was FREE to attend!  We tried entering the first gate we saw, but were denied entry by the security guards. They pointed further down the plaza, so I assumed we were just at the wrong gate. We then realized that even though we weren’t from Australia, we were being ushered down to the visitors entrance.  The security guards just assumed that since we were caucasian, we were rooting for the Aussies. No worries though, we were visitors in another country, so we just followed along.

When we made it into the stadium, I was surprised to see so many fans from Australia. Their designated “visitors” section was completely packed, and we struggled to find 2 empty seats. Eventually they had to open up additional sections for the Aussie fans because there were so many of them! I thought it was funny that they were restricted to their seat choices, because the entire stadium was empty! I think the capacity for the stadium was about 40,000 fans, however there was only about 1,500 people in the entire place! I would say about 3/4 of the people there were rooting for Australia, hardly any UAE fans were there.

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A panoramic photo take from my iPhone. Rachel wore her sunglasses during the entire game because the stadium lights were blasting us in the face.

Since the stadium was so empty, the atmosphere was pretty lame. Here you had this huge stadium, but you could hear a pin drop because it was so quiet. Once-in-while the Aussie fans would chant, “Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oye Oye Oye.” I chuckled and participated since I was an adopted Aussie fan for the game. I blame the nonexistence of booze at the game for the boring atmosphere. There weren’t any other team chants or singing. The game was also a 0-0 draw, so no cheering after a goal was scored. However, we did see a bunch of guys take a “dive” and fake an injury!!! We actually made a drinking game out of it! Every time someone would fake an injury, we had to “drink.” However, since there was no booze there we decided to save our drinks for next summer when we return to the states for a few months. If we buy about 3 cases of beer, we should have enough to take a drink for each of the fake injuries!

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We had great seats and it was so nice to see GREEN GRASS!

I also got a chuckle out of the concession stand at the stadium. Any drink you ordered, they would pour it into a tiny plastic cup, and it only costs like $0.25 (for water, pop, juice, etc.) If you wanted to order a snack, it was always a roll of the dice on what they would have. The first time we went up there, they didn’t have any snacks. Then like 20 minutes later we saw people walking around with popcorn. However by the time we got to the concession stand, they were sold out. Then a little while later they were selling small bags of sunflower seeds (unsalted, yuck!). Then about a half an hour later they were selling little bags of potato chips. I have no idea where they were coming up with this food, but it almost seemed like some dude was running back-and-forth from the grocery store buying whatever he could find. It was absolutely hilarious! I kept waiting for him to show up with a stick of bacon or sausage, but he never did.

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Trying to “zoom in” with my crappy iPhone 4s.

Overall though, we had a great night at the game celebrating my birthday! We were able to cross something off my “sports fan bucket list” by attending an international soccer game. I’d still like to attend a big match in Europe or ultimately a World Cup game to experience the true atmosphere of a game.

Sounds of Home

Posted By: Rachel, View all 2 comments

I grew up in a house that was located right near train tracks. I remember when we first moved into the house, waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of the train horn as the train crossed from Canada into the US.  I remember thinking I would never sleep a full nights sleep ever again.  However; something changed, I soon became used to the sound of the train and it shifted from an annoyance that woke me up to a comforting sound of home.  When I moved into my very first apartment on my own it was a selling point for me that it was located close enough to the train tracks to hear them rumble by at night.  Trains were my nighty lullaby.

Upon moving to the Middle East I was nervous about the call to prayer that broadcasts through speakers from each mosque five times a day. I thought the call to prayer would wake me up early in the morning or bother me in some way.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

What is the call to prayer?:

Within the Islamic faith Muslim people pray 5 times a day. Muslims pray at dawn, midday, afternoon, evening, and night, the times vary based on the times of sunrise and sunset.  The call to prayer is sung live 5 times a day, 35 times a week and 150 times a month. When I first moved to Kuwait I thought that each Mosque just had a recording of the call to prayer that they scheduled to play at regular intervals.  It wasn’t until I was in Kuwait for a month that I learned that each of Kuwait’s 630 Mosques had someone signing live at each of the 150 calls to prayer in any given month. The call to prayer is a reminder of what times Muslims are to be praying.

It was amazing to me how quickly I have learned to love the call to prayer.  The call to prayer is such a beautiful sound.   It reminds me that many, many people in the world are taking this exact moment to focus on their faith.

The call to prayer is my new train, it is the sound of home.

The Holiday Hangover

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We are in the midst of the worst part of travel . . . . the dreaded Holiday Hangover.

We arrived back in Kuwait, from Dubai, on Saturday evening. We were back to work and in our typically routine on Sunday morning when our alarm clock went off at 4:30 a.m.  Boo, hiss, yuck!  We had lots of fun on our vacation that lead to late nights and sleeping in until “normal people” sleeping times, like the sun was already up when we woke up.  It was glorious, but it lead to an even rougher Holiday Hangover once we made it back home.

After I struggled through the work day yesterday, I foolishly agreed to go and tutor (dumb mistake #1) when I really just wanted to go home, crawl into my bed, and watch trashy reality t.v. I waited at school for the driver to come pick me up and bring me to tutor, but because of a random police check-point (to check on people’s drivers licenses) he was an hour late to pick me up.   I tutored for about an hour and a half, but then found out that the driver was once again stuck at the police check-point.  He was going to be a while before he made it back to bring me home, so I called my trusty taxi driver Abdul.  Dumb mistake #2, clearly Abdul was going to get stuck at the same police check-point.  Abdul finally made it to me about an hour later. Unfortunately though, by the time he arrived, a shift change had occurred at the guard station outside of the home I was tutoring at, and the new guard wouldn’t allow him onto the grounds to pick me up.  So . . . . I packed up my bag and walked across the grounds towards the gate, which you are probably thinking is not that a big of a deal, unless you knew how unbelievably huge these grounds were!

Throughout this event, which will forever be known as “the longest tutor session ever,” Mitch was in the midst of another terrible part of the Holiday Hangover . . . the trip to the grocery store!  The following is the text messages that we exchanged throughout this entire process…

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As I walked towards the taxi, a bird literally took a deuce on my arm!  It was just enough to snap me out of my Holiday Hangover, as I burst into uncontrollable giggles over the series of unfortunate events. I was then reminded how grateful I was to live a life where I have the ability to travel, even if it causes the Holiday Hangover.

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On the car ride home, I chatted the entire way with the taxi driver Abdul.  I feel fortunate that I have had the chance to meet people who come from completely different walks of life and are willing to share stories of their countries, their families, and their religions.  I walked into my apartment grateful to have a husband who does the grocery shopping and even more grateful for the box of cereal and milk that he came home with, so I could eat dinner without having to cook.  I poured myself a huge bowl of cereal, took a big bite of the most sour milk I have ever tasted!