Happy Monday Everyone!

I’m super excited right now, because tomorrow we leave for Egypt!  We are traveling with a few friends for a 4-day weekend to Cairo.  We plan on relaxing, seeing the Pyramids and Sphinx, and drinking beer!  Lots of beer!  We are so thankful for our new life and the opportunities it provides us to see the world!  After this trip, Rachel will be able to add Africa to her list of continents she has visited, and tied with me at 5 of the 7.  I’m not sure what the internet accessibility will be like in Egypt, so you probably won’t hear from us on here until next Monday for our weekly Happy Hour.  Until then, here’s what we’ve been up to:

• Since we arrived in Kuwait, we’ve experienced a few sandstorms.  However, none compare to the one we had last Friday afternoon.  It was a beautiful sunny day outside, when suddenly all of the buzz here online, was about a fast approaching sandstorm.  In the horizon, you could slowly see it moving towards the city, like something you would see in a sci-fi movie.  Within minutes, in completely engulfed us!  You could barely see across the street, and you could hear the sound of sand tinging against our windows.  It started to clear up later in the evening, but it takes a few days for the visibility to return to normal.  The worst part though, is the thin layer of dust you find in your apartment.  Luckily for us though, our maid comes today!

Here’s a picture from our roof top, with the sandstorm fast approaching on the horizon.

The sandstorm has arrived!

• One thing that has been hard getting used to here in Kuwait, is the lack of seat belt use in automobiles.  Adults hardly ever use them, and kids don’t either!  Apparently there aren’t laws that require them, so it is rare to see a child in a restraint system.  Even babies who are only a few months old, are usually just sitting on an adults lap.  Often times, they are sitting on the driver’s lap!  As the kids get older, they have free rein around the car.  It is not uncommon to see kids hanging out windows or sunroofs as the car is speeding down the highway in excess of 65mph.  It is hard to watch, especially for how many accidents we see on a daily basis.

Nothing like driving behind a car with a kid hanging out the sunroof. You see it all of the time!

• I love drinking coffee! I like it strong and black.  I never add milk, cream, sugar, or any other junk to it.  Here in Kuwait though, I often have to proceed with caution.  The coffee here is served in tiny little glasses, similar to the size of a shot glass (just a few ounces).  The first time I was offered a cup at a friends house, I thought to myself . . . . “could I have a bigger glass? This is going to be gone in about 2 seconds!”  However when I tasted it, it packed a punch!  There was enough caffeine in there, to shoot a tingling sensation up my spine.  Apparently they don’t mess around with the watered down crap that I’m use to back in America.  Instead, they put the equivalent of about 10 cups of coffee into a 3 ounce glass.  Every time I drink it, it still makes me pucker!

My 3 ounce shot of coffee.

We hope everyone is doing well, until next time!

-Mitch

Happy Monday Everyone!

We are back to work today after enjoying a busy, fun, and exciting 3-day weekend!  It was our first long weekend in a long time, so an extra day off to sleep in was much appreciated. On Friday afternoon, we found out that school would be closed on Sunday, due to the death of the Saudi Arabian King Abdullah.  The Kuwaiti Government announced 3 days of mourning, so all government offices (including schools) were closed Friday-Sunday. This was perhaps the busiest weekend we have had since being in Kuwait and it made us so thankful that we had a car. We probably put a couple of hundred miles on as we traversed the city/country.  Here’s what we are up to:

• On Friday, a few of us took a road trip to the highest point in Kuwait, Mutla Ridge.  It was about an hour drive from Kuwait City towards the Iraqi border.  It is out in the middle of the desert, and there were quite a few people camping, having picnics, dune bashing and four-wheeling.  We drove the ol’ Durango to the top, enjoyed the sights, and took a little walk around. It was so nice to be out in nature and just chill outside.  After awhile, we were going to take off, when we found a guy renting four-wheelers on the side of the road. Of course we had to do it!  So we went ripping around the desert for an hour and had a blast. We took some fun pictures with our nice camera, so we’ll post those at another time, but here is a quick one that I took with my iPhone.

Rachel ripping around at Mutla Ridge

• After our time in the desert, we stopped at Street Fest.  It was a big block party in downtown Kuwait City, with different vendors selling all sorts of food, merchandise, clothing, jewelry, food, etc.  We got some dinner from one of the food trucks and enjoyed walking around and checking everything out.  I love festivals like this and it was super nice. Here’s a crappy iPhone pic I took:

Street Fest 2015

• On Sunday, I spent my day off at the golf course.  Me and a buddy tried our luck at one of the sand courses here called Ahmadi Golf Club.  Your are basically playing a round of golf in the middle of the desert, without any grass!  They give you a little piece of fake grass that you put your ball on before each shot.  I’ll post some more pics and share some of the funny stories another time, but here is a pic of my buddy in the middle of the fairway on hole #1.

Fore!!!!!!!

• I ran to the Ace Hardware last week to pick a few things up when I saw something strange . . . . an entire section of ice scrapers!!! I laughed to myself and thought, “why in the heck do they have ice scrapers here?”  Then I realized that most people who walk past them, probably have no idea what they actually are. Maybe people buy them to scrape stickers off windows? Or maybe they buy them to use as back scratchers?  When I first found out that they had an Ace Hardware here, someone described the store as, “they literally picked up an Ace Hardware from Minnesota, and dropped it in Kuwait.”  They even sell humming bird feeders (there’s no hummingbirds here), riding lawnmowers (there is no grass here), and tons of other super weird things. Without a doubt though, the ice scrapers are the craziest I’ve seen yet!

Such a nice variety of ice scrapers at the Kuwait City Ace Hardware!