First Aid Station: Atlantis Dubai

October 8, 2014Posted By: RachelAtlantis, Dubai, Expat Life, Travelthemightaswellers View all 10 comments

I have always been a klutz. I am clumsy and don’t pay near enough attention to what I am doing. I once stabbed myself with my own ice skate and ended up in the emergency room with stitches. In college I broken my foot while ….WALKING. Mitch and I once got into an argument because he believed I was being too “Rachel” while standing near the edge of the Grand Canyon. Yesterday, I continued the streak . . . I ended up at the first aid station at a water park!

While here in Dubai, we decided to spend a day at one of the coolest water parks in the world: Aquaventure at the Atlantis Resort. We smartly arrived 10 minutes before it opened, so that we could strategize what would be our first ride of the day. We quickly came to the decision that we had to go big right away. Our first slide of the day would be the Leap of Faith. The Leap of Faith is a 60 foot near vertical drop followed by speeding through a clear acrylic tube that goes through a shark tank. Yes, our first water slide of the day would be the “shark slide!”

We excitedly power walked (we couldn’t be part of the crazies who ran through the park) across the park to the tower that housed the Leap of Faith. We climbed the bazillion stairs to get to the top, and realized that we were the first customers of the day. With no time to think or get nervous, our friend Jooles quickly jumped in the tube and off she went, with only her screams to fill us in on what we were in store for.

I decided to go next. I stepped into the water slide, SLIPPED, and immediately fell. I barely caught myself on the handle bar saving myself from a trip over the edge, before my arms and legs were crossed, and inevitably the world’s worst wedgie ever. A sigh of relief came out of Mitch, myself, and the water slide attendant, who humorously reminded me “be careful, it’s wet.”

As I giggled about my clumsiness, I pushed myself over the slides edge and screamed the whole way to the bottom. (PS…apparently if you are screaming and have your eyes squeezed shut it, it’s really hard to see the sharks on the shark slide) As I splashed into the pool at the bottom of the slide I realized I didn’t possess the same gracefulness that my fellow sliders were apparently born with. Every other person came off of the water slide by gently lifting their legs, and splashed bum first into the pool. I however decided to go about it a different way. I kept my feet crossed, locked my knees, and lifted my shoulders and head up off the waterside, which created a dismount that was more of a tumble rather than a plop. The result: bleeding from 6 different locations!

To the First Aid station we went, where the kind medics informed me I was lucky customer number 1 for the day. They were also pretty impressed, because they had never heard of anyone hurting themselves while sliding into a pool of water before. In fact the medic asked me on numerous occasions if I was sure I hadn’t been running on the wet pool deck. Once I was all bandaged up, I thanked the medics and began walking out of the first aid station. As I was getting up from my chair, I stepped in a bit of water, SLIPPED, and barely caught my fall on the door handle. One of the medics looked at his other medic buddy, and just said “Oh, she’ll be back.”

Hello….from Dubai!

October 6, 2014Posted By: RachelDubai, Expat Lifethemightaswellers View all 3 comments

Just stopping in for a quick hello from Dubai! We are having a fabulous vacation and totally falling in love with the all the awesomeness that is Dubai. I will be back later to spill all the details of our trip, but for now, I just wanted to leave you with a quick look at the view we have outside our bedroom window.

Eid Vacation Plans

October 3, 2014Posted By: MitchAbu Dhabi, Dubai, Expat Life, Travel, United Arab Emiratesthemightaswellers View all 3 comments

One of the reasons we decided to move to the other side of the world, were the endless opportunities to explore and vacation to other countries, that are hardly practical to reach from the United States. It costs thousands of dollars to travel from North America to other continents, and sometimes days to reach your destination. One of the draws to moving to the Middle East, was the close proximity and affordibility to so many cool places in Europe, Africa, and Asia. We are so excited to be taking our first vacation, since moving to Kuwait, next week during Eid break!

You’re probably wondering . . . “What is Eid break?” Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure either. All I knew was that it was a Muslim holiday, and we got 9 days off of work! Therefore, I did a quick “google” search, and here is what I found:

Eid-al-Adha is the second and final Eid celebration of the year. It commemorates the completion of the Hajj, (pilgrimage to Mecca). Although only the people who take pilgrimage participate in the Hajj fully, Muslims around the world join them in celebrating Eid Al-Adha. For more information on Eid Al-Adha, click here.

Since we signed our employment contracts last winter, we have been looking forward to taking advantage of this week-long break in the school calendar. However we weren’t able to book a trip until about a week ago, because we didn’t have our passports! The minute we arrived to Kuwait about a month and a half ago, School Administrators had to collect everyone’s passports at the airport so they could finalize the visa process and apply for everyone’s Civilian IDs. They told us they were going to try their best to speed the application process up, however they couldn’t guarantee that they would be back in time for Eid. Thus they told everyone not to book a trip because they probably wouldn’t be back in time. We were bummed, but knew we had to respect the process, and just kept our fingers crossed.

We were super surprised last week when we got an email from the school informing us they had our passports back! We were so excited, however we suddenly felt panicked, because we only had a week to book a trip! We frantically searched for flights to just about everywhere in the world. We were totally open to going anywhere new, that was reasonably priced. Unfortunately though, because it was so last minute, our options were limited due to high prices for flights. After an exhaustive day of searching, we found a great deal on airfare to Dubai!

Photo courtesy of hdwallpaperfresh.com

Dubai is a futuristic city and perhaps one of the flashiest. It is home to the tallest building in the world (Burj Khalifa) and the largest mall in the world (Dubai Mall). I’m sorry my fellow Minnesotans, but Mall of America is nowhere near the size. The Dubai Mall is 12.1 million square feet compared to the Mall of America that is 5.62 million square feet, so its more than double the size! Dubai also features amazing artificial islands and some of the best beaches around.

Photo courtesy of Dave Anthony

Dubai is home to some of the most incredible (and expensive) resorts in the world. For our accommodations, we actually decided to rent an apartment right in the heart of Dubai, near the marina. We used a website called AirBnB.com (click here for a free $25 credit on airbnb.com) which is a website where you can rent a couch, a bedroom, or an entire house. Since we are going with a few friends from Kuwait, we decided to rent an entire apartment.

Dubai has a ton of fun things to do! We have been spending the last few days putting an itinerary together, and here’s what we have planned thus far:

Atlantis the Palm Aquaventure Waterpark

This waterpark has been named one of the top waterparks in the whole world, and has been featured on multiple TV shows, magazines, etc. We are super excited to go on their slide called The Tower of Neptune. You fall over 9 stories in a mere second before you find yourself speeding through a clear acrylic tube surrounded by Great White Sharks and sting rays!

Photo courtesy of atlantisthepalm.com

Desert Safari

We have fun evening planned with a tour company where we go on a baja ride through the sand dunes of Dubai in a 4×4 jeep.

Photo courtesy of arabizhorizons.com

Burq Khalifa

As I mentioned earlier, Dubai is home of the Burq Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. We are excited to take a tour to the top of the 2,722 ft. building (163 floors). This building is twice the size of the Empire State Building!

Photo courtesy of blogs.atrapalo.com

We have also decided to spend a few nights in Abu Dhabi next week, which is only about an hour or two from Dubai. Abu Dhabi is also a very futuristic and flashy city. As part of her research for this trip Rachel decided that this week was the perfect time to rewatch Sex and the City 2!

Photo courtesy of theguardian.com

We’ll be in Abu Dhabi on my birthday and found something super fun to do . . . . . we are going to an international soccer game between Australia & United Arab Emirates! I’m a sports junky who loves visiting professional stadiums, so I’m super pumped to go. I’ve never been to one before and can’t wait to experience the excitement, the crowds, the chants, and everything that an international soccer match has to offer! Definitely fulfilling an item on my “Bucket List.”

Al Jazira Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium – Photo courtesy of http://www.jc.ae

We also plan on taking a tour of the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi, which is said to be the most expensive hotel ever built at over 3 billion dollars!

Photo courtesy of proudlyarabian.com

Since we are going to be on vacation all of next week, I’m not sure if we are going to be able to post any new blogs. We will try to post a quick update, otherwise you can follow along with us on Twitter: @mightaswellers. When we return from our trip, we’ll be sure to post a bunch of photos.

Cheers & Eid Mubarak!

Al Khiran Beach

October 1, 2014Posted By: Rachel, Uncategorizedthemightaswellers One comment

Last weekend we enjoyed the sweet taste of FREEEEEEDOOOOOMMMMMM (make sure you yell that like William Wallace’s Braveheart voice). Since moving to Kuwait we have been car-less. Kuwaiti law is that you cannot purchase a vehicle until you have a Civil ID, so as our paperwork is being processed, we have been bus and taxi people. It is super awesome that our school provides free transportation to and from school everyday, however relying on taxis to take us to the grocery store or to find some entertainment has been….kinda sucky. We love being able to just jump in the car and go, and that has been striped from us for the last month and a half, so last weekend we rented a car!

I knew that the number one thing on my weekend to do list, after the car was in our possession, was head to the beach. We have heard from our Kuwaiti veteran friends that if we headed south towards Saudi, we would run into some awesome private beaches that we could spend our day enjoying.

Al Khiran is a resort town, where they dug out tons of channels to create more beaches and space for chalets on the water. This is a google map view of the area.

We woke up early on Friday morning, piled the vehicle full of our friends and headed south. As we drove through the desert I spotted something strange off in the distance. As we pulled closer we realized it was a wild herd (flock, school, pack, I guess I don’t know the proper terminology) of camels!….yes you read that right, FRICKEN CAMELS! We realized in that moment we were in for a stellar day.

We pulled into the Al Khiran area, which is where many Kuwaiti’s have their weekend chalets, which is like their weekend lake home to us. Now let me tell you something, these were MANSIONS, not like any cabin I had ever seen before. These places were the opposite of the outhouse using, lake shower taking, generator using cabins we are used to. Al Khiran doesn’t have any public beaches but we were ~~easily~~ able to climb a ditch and jump over a concrete barrier to reach the beach just fine. Once we made it to the beach we were in Heaven. We had the whole place to ourselves. We laid in the sun, splashed in the water, and talked about how amazingly happy we were to be having this day. The only thing we wished as we had our lazy sun day was that someone would ask us to house sit for them at the Kuwaiti version of a cabin. So if you happen to be reading this post and own a Kuwaiti chalet, and are looking for someone to housesit…I’m your girl. Al Khiran, we will be back again, very, very soon!

Lots & Lots of Deodorant

September 29, 2014Posted By: Mitch, UncategorizedKuwaitthemightaswellers View all 3 comments

I think we have published about 30 or so posts thus far, and you have probably noticed a common theme among all of them by now . . . . . it’s hot in Kuwait! With the heat comes sweat, yuck! I’m proud to be a natural born sweater. I think about heat, and I swear that I will break out in a sweat. With sweat, comes the need for deodorant, lots and lots of deodorant!

Some of you already now that I’m not to keen on “change.” Sure, I can quit my job, sell our house and change our lifestyle, however the thought of changing the little things in my life freaks me out! For example, I order the same exact things at every restaurant we ever go to. For as long as I can remember, I have ordered the same exact sandwich at Subway. When we go to Chipolte, sure I look at all of the choices of toppings for my burrito, but I always order the same exact thing. Another thing that I could never change is the type of deodorant I use. For as long as I can remember, I have used Old Spice – Sweat Defense: Pure Sport. Before we left Minnesota, my plan was to buy about a dozen of them so I could survive the intense heat and sweating in Kuwait. For whatever reason though, life got busy before we left and I totally forgot to stock up!

Once we arrived in Kuwait, and after using about 20 “clicks” of D.O. per day, I quickly realized that I should have sent a freight container of deodorant with us! When we went on our first grocery store run here, I took a look and realized that they didn’t have any Old Spice deodorant! I had a minor meltdown in the D.O. aisle before settling on another brand. I was crushed that my loyalty with Old Spice was over, and I was forced to make a change. For about the next two weeks, every time we would go to a store, I would go straight to the deodorant aisle to see if they had my kind. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it at any stores, until one day, I stumbled upon it!

I was at a new branch of the Sultan Center (a grocery store chain here) searching the deodorant aisle for my treasure. Just like the other four stores I checked, I was unsuccessful. As I was walking out of the aisle, I happened to take a glance at the section of toothpaste when SUDDENLY my eye caught something! In the middle of the display featuring all of the toothpaste, brushes, floss, etc. was my deodorant! I wanted to shout with glee, but instead gave a double fist-pump. Knowing how hard it was to find, I grabbed every single stick of deodorant that they had . . . . . all five of them! With the other groceries in my hands, I couldn’t even grab all of them so I had to go and find a basket to carry everything. The good news is I found my favorite deodorant, the bad news is that it will probably only last about 2 weeks before I’m on another wild goose chase trying to find another stash of them!

The best deodorant ever! This supply should last me about 2 weeks or so.

For some of you, you are probably thinking right now, ” I can’t believe I just wasted 5 minutes of my day reading about how crazy O.C.D. Mitch is when it comes to his deodorant.” However the rest of you are probably thinking, “dude, I feel your pain. I use the same deodorant all the time too!”

-Cheers, have a great “sweat less” day!

Kuwaiti Wedding

September 24, 2014Uncategorizedthemightaswellers View all 3 comments

I did something this weekend I only dreamed would happen during our time in Kuwait, I attended a Kuwaiti wedding. It was such a beautiful and special event full of so much tradition. There is no way I will be able to paint a picture with my words of how extraordinary it was but I know if I don’t try I will complete regret not sharing some of this amazing event.

How we got invited: Kuwaitis are known for being very hospitable but it still took me by complete surprise that on Thursday when my friend Jooles meet the mother of one of her students that she invited her to her daughters wedding….scheduled for the following evening! Jooles of course did the polite midwestern thing and politely declined. The Mom followed up with Jooles on Friday morning telling her how she really would love to show her a traditional Kuwaiti celebration and told her that she was more than welcome to invite a few friends, enter Niamh and Rachel!

What to wear: When Jooles texted on the morning of the wedding and asked if I wanted to go with her, I of course had a typical girl melt down, what do I wear?

Jen is a returning expat and has become our own personal Kuwaiti Encycoldia, she has been unbelievable helpful so if Jen says go fancy, we have to go fancy!

I knew I needed to put together a fancy outfit but here in lies the problem, I just moved to the desert to teach, and only had clothes that were suitable for circle time and recess duty. If teachers are nothing else though they are resourceful so somehow in my stash of cardigans and denim jumpers covered in apple appliqués I found a black dress, black heels, some tights, and a black scarf to cover my hair and shoulders if I needed to be more conservative.

Driver: The fabulous Kuwaiti hospitality jumped into affect once again as it was time to leave for the wedding. The mother of the bride sent a driver for us (as if she didn’t have anything else to think about, on the day her daughter was getting married.) Having a driver is a pretty typical thing here in Kuwait, Mitch and I have a driver in fact, his name is Abdul and he drives a white and yellow taxi cab. The driver who came to pick us up for the wedding wasn’t in a white and yellow taxi, they were in a black Mercedes. We didn’t realize it at the time but we were his main responsibility for the evening. He came and picked us up, dropped us off at the wedding and then stood outside and waited for us to be ready to go home…..for 6 hours.

Arrival: We arrived at the wedding at about 8:15 p.m. for a wedding start time of 8:30. 15 minutes early is very typical of how I would arrive to a wedding in the US, but clearly that wasn’t protocol at this Kuwaiti wedding. We were one of the first to arrive and guests continued to arrived for the next two and half hours. The bride made her first appearance at 11:00 p.m.

The Fashion: I followed Jen’s advice and went fancy with my clothes (or as fancy as I could scrounge up out of my wardrobe that almost exclusively has clothes from Target in it) however; I was not prepared at all for how significantly under dressed I would be. As the women arrived at the wedding they were wearing their hijabs and abayas but once they entered the ballroom (where it was exclusively women all the men were in a different ballroom having their own party) they uncovered to reveal the most amazing collection of gowns I have ever seen. There was gold, sequin, hot pink, diamonds, tight dresses, and cleavage. This party was clearly more than a wedding, it was a fashion show, and the guests were the models. Every women who walked through the door looked as if she was just about to walk across the stage at the Oscars.

Dancing: I didn’t expect to see any dancing at a Kuwaiti wedding because my understanding was that dancing was against Islamic beliefs, however; the ballroom was arranged with stadium seating couches on either side of the ballroom with the middle of the room left open for dancing. After some reading online it sounds like it is against Islamic beliefs to dance at mixed gender gatherings, since it was only women at this party we got our groove on. It was discovered that I have two left feet on both sides of the Atlantic.

Bride’s Entrance: At 11:00 p.m. we got our first sighting of the bride. Her grand entrance consisted of her walking across the runway shaped dance floor to the opposite side of the room where a stage was set up with a large couch situated for her to sit on. Once the bride made her entrance she never moved from that couch again. People were allowed to walk up to her and get their picture taken with her but she didn’t move again until she exited the party 2 hours later.

Groom’s Entrance: As I mentioned earlier this was a segregated party. All the men were in one ballroom and all the women were in another. There was however one part in the evening where some of the men were allowed to enter into the women’s party. As we were all dancing and have a great time an announcement was made in Arabic, which clearly meant that we didn’t have a clue what was going on, which caused all the women to scurry back to their seats and go from the glitter and glam that was the night to once again fully covered in the black that is their abayas and hijabs. I still don’t know what the announcement was but I assume it was something along the lines of “quick, cover up….the men are coming!” Once everyone was covered the double doors opened to a groom in his white dishdasha with the biggest smile you have ever seen spread across his face. Entering with him was both the brides and the grooms immediately family and the band whom we had been listing to all night but whom we had never seen. These men would be the only men allowed into the women’s party the entire evening. Upon entering the groom walked toward his bride who was still sitting on the couch in the front of the room kissed her on the forehead and then hugged and accepted congratulations from the men in their families. The men in the groom’s family had to immediately exit however the brides male relatives remained long enough to take family picture.

Food: At this point it was 1:00 in the morning when an announcement was made in Arabic and everyone began to stand up and move about. We foolishly assumed that this meant the wedding was over so we gathered our things and began to make our way to the door. The mother of the bride saw us heading in that direction and informed us that it was time for dinner and that everyone was just moving to a different ballroom where the buffet was set up.

We walked into the room with the buffet and were blown away with the amount of food that was being presented to us.

We proceeded to stuff ourselves on chicken, prime rib, sushi and shrimp. We could have eaten there for a month and never be able to taste all the options. IMG_0050_2

The Cake…..MY GOSH, LOOK AT THAT THING!!!!

The Bride and Groom even cut a piece out of it.

All in all in was a fabulous night. I feel extremely fortunate to have been included in such an amazing opportunity to learn more about the Kuwaiti culture, and Jooles if you are ever looking for another plus one, count me in!

Please note, as fabulous as this event and the people were on this night we respected local custom and privacy by not taking pictures of the women while they were out of their hijabs and abayas. Sorry that the only pictures you get are of three very happy American girls!

Tweet Tweet – We’re on Twitter!

September 23, 2014Posted By: Mitchblogging, Kuwait, Travelthemightaswellers Leave a comment

Photo Credit: http://www.sharkreviews.com

For all of you Tweeter-dees and Tweeter-dos, The Might as Wellers are now on Twitter! You can follow us at @mightaswellers or visit our page at here. We are going to continue blogging a few times per week, but Twitter is just another great way to follow our daily adventures in Kuwait. It’s a great way for us to share a quick photo of something cool we see, tell a funny story (in 140 characters or less), share travel advice and other awesome stuff. Sometimes it’s easier to throw something on Twitter rather than writing up an entire post for the blog. Soon, we’ll have a link to our Twitter page on our website, however we are still working our a few technical difficulties with the setup, but hopefully you will see it soon. If you don’t want to be a Tweeter on Twitter, you can always just be a Stalker on Twitter! I think you still need an account though to view our Twitter page, but you can register for free here.

Best Present Ever

September 22, 2014Posted By: MitchFamily, Minnesotathemightaswellers Leave a comment

In Rachel’s post of ‘The Things She’ll Miss Most‘ and in my ‘Things I’m going to Miss Most‘ we both mentioned how much we are going to miss our little triplet nieces and nephew! When we left in August they were about 6 months old, and will be about 15 months old the next time we see them in person. Babies change so fast, especially at this age. We are going to miss fun milestones like rolling over, crawling, standing, walking, and talking. We are also going to miss things like their first Christmas and Birthday party! It rips our heart knowing that we can’t be a larger part of their life right now, or be there to help support their parents. In today’s technological world, we are lucky to stay in touch with them through things like FaceTime, Email, Skype, and apps like WhatsApp and Viber. Before we departed to Kuwait, we received one of the coolest going away gifts ever from the Triplets (thanks to their parents who were thoughtful enough to think to buy us a gift in the middle of some pretty intense sleep depravation). They bought us one of those electronic picture frames that scrolls through hundreds of pictures. The cool thing with this frame though, is that its connected to our wifi network and has its own email address. That way whenever the triplet’s parents snap a cool picture of them with their iPhones, they simply email it to the designated email address and it automatically pops up on our picture frame! There have been so many times that we will wake up to a whole slew of new photos. We have even been sitting in our living room watching a movie or something, and all of a sudden one of us notices we have a bunch of new photos on the frame! The frame is a great size, about the size of our iPad. It’s super clear and a ton of fun! The frame is from a company called Pix-Star and you can visit their website here. Here are a few of our favorite photos we have received on the frame thus far:

It’s fun to walk into the living room and see this happy face on the picture frame!

When you think babies can’t get any cuter, just add sunglasses

Nothing better than a baby just after bath time

Look who’s standing!!!! With a little bit of help 😉

The Friday Market

September 19, 2014Posted By: Mitch, UncategorizedExpat Life, Friday Market, Kuwaitthemightaswellers View all 3 comments

The other day a group of us headed to one of the oldest and most popular markets in Kuwait City called Souk al Jumma, or commonly know as The Friday Market. This place is a HUGE open-air market that is only open on the weekends. There are hundreds of vendors who sell just about anything you can imagine, including clothing, rugs, electronics, furniture, toys, antiques, tools, plants, and apparently even animals! (We didn’t make it to the animal section, but apparently it is not a place for the faint of heart) You would need an entire weekend to walk through the whole place, and it’s highly likely that you would still miss something!

This is the view inside one of the shelters. There was over a dozen of them, and each one is bigger than a football field!

It’s an outdoor market, and even though all of the vendors are covered by sun shelters, it was an ~~extremely hot~~ typical day in Kuwait when we went. Our plan was to walk through as many vendors as possible, then when we started feeling light headed, just before we thought we were going to pass out from the heat, we would run inside the adjacent grocery store and cool off in their air conditioning. We would continue this cycle as many times as possible, before we would surrender to the intense heat. We didn’t have a “To Buy List” in mind for the market, we just wanted to do a bit of exploring and experience as much of the Friday Market as possible (except the animal section!) Perhaps the coolest thing about The Friday Market is that all of the prices were super reasonable, and bartering is not only recommended, but extremely encouraged. There’s not many things that I love more than a good deal, so I was super pumped to do some “wheelin & dealin”

It wasn’t long into our exploration of The Friday Market before my eye caught something familiar . . . . a Minnesota Vikings jersey! As one of the Vikings’ biggest fans, I was super pumped about my find! I walked a bit closer and realized it was a #84 – Randy Moss jersey. The guy hasn’t played for the Vikings since 2004 (besides that weird stint in 2010) but he’s always been one of my favorite players. In fact, I still remember my 16th birthday present in 1998, when my parent’s bought me a Randy Moss jersey during his rookie season. I don’t know what ever happened to that jersey from 15 years ago, so I knew it was time for me to get a new one. Plus – I realized I needed something to wear during the Viking games. I really wanted this jersey, so I began executing Stage 1 of my ‘wheeling & dealin’ plan!

Look what I found!!!

Stage 1 – Don’t Act Excited

Even though I was super excited about my find, you never want the salesman to see it because then he knows you will pay any price for it. Therefore I pretended to look at the other merchandise he had for sale, and then “stumbled” into the jersey.

Stage 2 – Laugh at the Price

I asked the vendor how much the jersey was, and he told me 3.000KD, which is equivalent to about $10.50 in the U.S. I laughed-out-loud at the price and told him I would give 1.000 KD ($3.50). In broken english he responded with “No, no, sir, I cannot do that. They worth lots of money in your country.”

Stage 3 – Put it Down & Walk Away

I immediately put it down and started walking away. Before I could even leave his small 10′ x 10′ area, he yelled out, “Ok, 2.000KD ($7.00)” I knew things were going in the right direction but I told him I wasn’t paying more then 1.000KD ($3.50) and continued walking away. I knew I would be back, so I took special note of where he was located.

Stage 4 – The Return Trip

About 30 minutes later, on our way to the grocery store to cool off in the air conditioning, I decided to purposefully walk by the jersey again. I reminded the guy that I would pay 1.000KD ($3.50) for it, but he said no, so we just kept walking.

Stage 5 – Money Talks

About an hour or so later, I did another one of my purposeful “walk byes.” This time though, I just held up 1.000KD in cash and kept on walking. I made eye contact with the guy, but he never initiateded conversation with me. All I could think was, “damn, this guy is good.” It was time to break out Stage 6.

Stage 6 – The Hail Mary

Usually Step 5 seals the deal, so I was bit nervous during this stage based on my inexperience at this level. I knew I had the guy wrapped around my finger though, so we could get the deal done. I went back for a THIRD time, and approached the vendor with cash in hand. I decided to up my offer to 1.500KD ($5.00) and explained to him that this was my final offer. He said the lowest he could do was 1.750KD ($6.00). We were within $1.00 for the jersey, but I was not going any higher! After a brief discussion, we both realized that neither of us was going to budge on our offers. With that being said, I decided to walk away WITHOUT the jersey!

The final negotiations during Stage 6 – The Hail Mary

As much as I wanted the jersey, I wanted to win the negotiating battle even more! I love the thrill of the hunt and in this case I lost the prize. He was the more experienced negotiator, or perhaps he knew there was someone else in Kuwait who would buy the vintage Randy Moss jersey from him. When we go back in a few weeks, maybe he will still be there trying to sell the jersey!

Throughout this whole process, we had a ton of fun at The Friday Market. We can’t wait to go back later this winter when the weather cools down, and we can explore the market without sweat running into our eyes, causing an uncomfortable burning sensation! It was fun to just look at the wide variety of merchandise that people were selling, and watching all of the wheelin’ and dealin’ that was going on!

This vendor was selling various tools, and hundreds of sockets! Could you imagine digging through that pile looking for a 7/16″ socket!

The Scientific Center of Kuwait

September 17, 2014Posted By: RachelExpat Life, Kuwaitthemightaswellers View all 2 comments

In case we haven’t sufficiently told you how unbearably hot it has been here in Kuwait, let me tell you one more time: we live in a sauna, a sauna where a hair dryer is constantly blowing on you. This climate has lead me to discover something new about myself: I turn into a crabby, crazy person in the heat.

In order to save my husband from feeling as if he has married the spawn of Freddy Krueger and Naomi Campbell, I started to look for indoor activities for us to explore in Kuwait. Enter: The Scientific Center of Kuwait.

The Scientific Center of Kuwait has a small Kid’s Discovery Zone with some science based experiments, a huge iMax Theatre, and a great aquarium. It also met our top 3 requirements to do last weekend:

1. It looked like fun

2. It was indoors

3. It was indoors

One of our co-worker’s husband was the architect who designed this building!

Unfortunately you can’t ride your bike, walk your dog or smoke your hookah outside the Scientific Center.

The Scientific Center was located right on the PersianGulf. If it hadn’t have been 263 degrees outside, I would have gone down and enjoyed the beach.

BREAKING NEWS: We found Nemo!

I think this picture does a great job of showing how huge the fish tanks were. It kind of looks like Mitch is standing inside the tank with the sharks.