Category Archives: Daily Life

Feels a little more like home

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Kuwait has slowly started to feel more like home. There are still days when we think “We live in Kuwait?! Crazy!” But those moments are getting few and far between. Our apartment is still quite bare, but we’re chalking that up to the fact that we’re trying to save money and we’d like to be here for several years…we’ve got time.

On Friday, I got a hair cut. It might seem a little silly, but finding a good salon and hair stylist makes a place feel more like home to me. Eden Salon & Spa was just what I needed 🙂 Mez did a great job of cutting my hair AND I even got my eyebrows threaded! The prices were reasonable and much closer to what I’m used to paying than some places here. For awhile it seemed that all the salons were either extremely overpriced (35KD) or under priced (5KD). Eden is just right (20KD for cut, curly style, threading & tip) and I quite enjoyed my experience! It was a little ‘welcome home’ moment just when I needed it most 🙂

Too many Daves

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Boy do we have a story for you!

October 23rd(ish): Talked to the Middle School principal (Dave B) about getting together to watch one of the World Series games (he is also from Michigan and a Tigers fan). He just got a new iPhone 5.

October 25th: Jeff received a text from an unknown number asking us over for dinner on the 26th. When Jeff asked who it was, the reply was Dave B. Jeff already had a Dave B in his phone, but figured he got a new number with his new phone. We were a little surprised that they would ask us over for dinner, but we’d just talked about the Tigers.

11am October 26th: Lissa texted Dave B to make sure we were still on for dinner and to see if we needed to bring anything. He asked who it was. When I told him he said he thought so. Said we’d just order something in and to come at 7pm.

1pm: Jeff gets a text from Dave B saying dinner is at 7:30pm.

7:20pm: On our walk to dinner, Dave B texts Lissa asking if there was a miscommunication  thought dinner was at 7. We text back saying the last text Jeff got said dinner at 7:30pm. We are thoroughly confused and arrive at their apartment.

7:30pm: At Dave B’s, we start talking about the situation. We realize that Jeff has TWO Dave Bs in his phone. While we are discussing, Jeff gets a text from Dave B…not the one’s house we are at! Jeff calls. We realize that Dave B the high school teacher asked us over for dinner, NOT Dave B the MS principal. We realize that we (basically) invited ourselves over for dinner at our principal’s house. Because food is already on its way, we eat a delicious meal with them. And then head over to Dave B the teacher’s house where our friends are finishing up dinner.

It was one of the craziest, most unbelievable experiences. There were SO many tiny things that could have changed everything. We told our friends at teacher Dave B’s and a good laugh was had by all. Principal Dave B and family were also able to laugh. We were incredibly thankful for friends that go with the flow! Now it’ll be a silly story to tell 🙂

To make things a little more interesting…the next morning we had breakfast at a third Dave’s house…

Update: As Christina just pointed out, there is a poem that goes quite nicely with our story. Enjoy!

Too Many Daves
by Dr. Seuss

Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave
Had twenty-three sons and she named them all Dave?
Well, she did. And that wasn’t a smart thing to do.
You see, when she wants one and calls out, “Yoo-Hoo!
Come into the house, Dave!” she doesn’t get one.
All twenty-three Daves of hers come on the run!
This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves’
As you can imagine, with so many Daves.
And often she wishes that, when they were born,
She had named one of them Bodkin Van Horn
And one of them Hoos-Foos. And one of them Snimm.
And one of them Hot-Shot. And one Sunny Jim.
And one of them Shadrack. And one of them Blinkey.
And one of them Stuffy. And one of them Stinkey.
Another one Putt-Putt. Another one Moon Face.
Another one Marvin O’Gravel Balloon Face.
And one of them Ziggy. And one Soggy Muff.
One Buffalo Bill. And one Biffalo Buff.
And one of them Sneepy. And one Weepy Weed.
And one Paris Garters. And one Harris Tweed.
And one of them Sir Michael Carmichael Zutt
And one of them Oliver Boliver Butt
And one of them Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate …
But she didn’t do it. And now it’s too late.

5 times a day, 7 days a week

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When Jeff and I were living on campus at Hope College (our awesome alma mater), trains pass through town on a regular basis. During the day, in the middle of the night…all.the.time. Because it was downtown and there were lots of cross streets, we got quite used to the sound of train horns. By senior year, they no longer woke me up in the middle of the night.

When I lived in France, there were lots of churches. I remember my first couple days in Paris…the sound of church bells made me really realize I wasn’t in the States anymore. Eventually, the beautiful bells just became background noise and I barely noticed them.

In Kuwait, we’re (very) slowly getting used to something new. Muslims pray 5 times a day. For each of these prayers, all the mosques have a call to prayer sung by the Muezzin and played on loudspeakers. We have at least 3 mosques in a 1-mile radius of our apartment with one practically attached to our school. Even though we hear the call 5 times a day, it’s still interesting to me. Fridays are the holy day of the week for Muslims. Today, on our walk back from the gym, there were 2 simultaneous calls to prayer and 1 Friday sermon for the city to hear. Men in dishdashas (and a few women) flocked to the mosque next to our school to pray. The majority of Muslims in Kuwait are Sunni and 30% are Shi’a. Each mosque has an Imam who leads formal prayer. My goal is to make time this weekend to blog about the Grand Mosque tour we went on in September. 🙂

Here is a very short clip of the call to prayer of the mosque across from Al Corniche that I took a few weeks ago. If you want to see a longer one from the mosque in Kuwait City, click here (we didn’t take this one).

Walking with Lissa

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I wrote this post on Friday and then had technical difficulties with the video 🙂 You will now see why I posted a password protected post (see end of post).

Last night at the Halloween party Jeff and I drank very responsibility (i.e. nothing). We may or may not have eaten some very tasty desserts though 😉 That allowed us to wake up quite refreshed this morning! After an hour of lounging, I got myself motivated, made my green smoothie and headed out the door to the gym! We were busy with Halloween festivities so we skipped working out Wednesday and Thursday and I was determined to get my sweat on. I felt quite accomplished after attending BodyAttack 🙂 After the gym, I had a very important mission – buy an eyebrow ring! Mine completely feel out and was lost early last week. My 10-year old piercing was slowly getting closing up and I was having none of that. So…I headed to the mall (~20 min walk from the Corniche). I was successful in buying a pack of eyebrow rings…they are too big & ugly, but something is better than nothing! I also stopped at Bath & Body Works to check out their 3 candles for 12KD special.

It was quite successful, but I also ended up meeting a fellow American! When I walked in one of the employees was speaking with a very familiar accent. I think she heard my accent too and came over to talk to me. I smelled hundreds of candles (at least it felt like it) and had a pretty great convo with her! She has lived in Chicago for the last 6 years and is currently traveling the world visiting Bath & Body Works stores for the company. She is in Kuwait for 2 weeks by way of 3 weeks in Poland and several other cool places (I don’t remember them all). I can’t exactly put into words exactly what she does, but what I understood is that she visits stores outside the US and helps them do business more like the stores in the US. She said it’s been really interesting to visit different countries and see how different it is (culture, business, the stores). She also had good things to say about Kuwait which was good to hear! I think she’s most likely here to help with the opening of the new Bath & Body Works in Phase 3 of the Avenues. It opens next week and we’ll be eager to explore it once the hype dies down. The Kuwaitis love their malls!

The point of this post is that I made a video as I was walking around (from the gym to the mall, in the mall and back home).  I hope you enjoy sharing my walk!

Info:
Total Trip Distance: 2km + 3.3km = 5.3km (not including getting to the gym or my workout)
Total Trip Time: 2 hours (ditto to above)
Some things to watch for: fancy cars, the surprising (to me) number of motorcycles, crazy drivers, stores signs in Arabic (both outside and in the mall), our typical walk home from school…

Click here for the password you will need to watch the video. Click here to watch the video. Sorry for making you work…I want to share my walk but I also want to keep a certain level of privacy 😉

A day of firsts

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We are currently enjoying our first vacation. Eid Al Adha was yesterday…so we have a total of 5 days off school! We go back Tuesday 🙂 We took a day trip on Thursday and will share soon.

This morning we woke up to clouds…lots of them! Today was the first day since we’ve been here (9 weeks & 1 day!) that the weather has been mostly cloudy for most of the day! We had waffles and watched old-school morning cartoons with some friends downstairs – fun! I went to the gym for some yoga. When I walked out the door an hour later (1:15pm), I heard thunder for the first time since arriving. A couple minutes, the sky opened up for the first time and it rained! It rained hard for a solid 30 seconds and I got fairly wet… I couldn’t help but smile! It sprinkled and continued to thunder on and off on my way home, but I was mostly dry by the time I got back to our apartment. The day stayed cloudy with random sprinkles, thunder…and Jeff saw lightning – another first! Update: It’s 6:30pm and there is tons of lightning and thunder! That’s 5 firsts in one day…dang! 🙂

We’re really hoping that the rest of the day in the US goes well – we’d love to wake up tomorrow morning to a Tiger win over the Giants, a Notre Dame win over Oklahoma and a UofM win over Nebraska! Here’s hoping! Love & kisses to all 🙂

The crazy clouds that stayed the whole day!

The thunderstorm came…and went.

Daily Routine

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Surprisingly, we’ve had a lot of questions regarding what it is we do all day/every day.

The secret is…. about the same thing we did in the States. But slightly different.

Similarities:

– We get up at the same time and go to work at about the same time
– After work we go to the gym, cook & eat dinner, maybe have something special to do (Arabic classes), and go to bed. The order in which we do these things differs on a nightly basis.
– On weekends we get things done around our apartment, work out, go shopping, etc.
– We wear fairly similar clothes as we would in the states, though I don’t wear shorts very often and Lissa dresses more modestly. The only times Lissa has worn an Abaya or Hijab has been during a cultural event where increased sensitivity has been asked of us.

Differences:

– We grocery shop more often. Produce goes bad quicker here and fresher is better in regards to unprocessed foods.
– We walk almost everywhere.
– The scenery is pretty drab 😦
– Compared to where I’ve lived before, the streets are dirtier and less kept than I’m used to. Holland does, after all, keep their streets pretty clean.

Like I said, it’s basically the same. In fact, we live in a more developed area here than we did in South Carolina.  I’d post a map with where we go, but that sort of thing isn’t a good idea even in the US 😉 We walk 5 minutes to work, 15 minutes to the gym and 10 minutes to the grocery store. It’s pretty normal stuff.

Some cultural experiences

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One of the things that we’ve learned teaching, traveling and living outside our comfort zone is that life is what you make of it. When we came to Kuwait, we did not want to be seen as transplanted Americans. Our goal was (and is) to be open-minded and immerse ourselves in a new culture. We think this mind-set has helped a lot with our “culture shock” (or lack thereof). Recently, we’ve had some time to take advantage of some of the many opportunities offered to us. Here are just a few!

One of the first things we had the opportunity to do once we got settled was to go on a tour of the Grand Mosque in Kuwait City. The AWARE center hosts a tour on the second Saturday of each month (plan your visits accordingly!). It was a great experience that we will post more about in the near future.

One of our favorite experiences here so far was hanging out at the Hussain & Ali’s after going to the Old Souq and getting to hear about everything carpet. Fascinating!

Three weeks ago, we attended an orientation to Kuwait hosted by the AWARE Center. It was great information and great food. After hearing about their values, we signed up for memberships on the spot!

AWARE is guided by Arab and Islamic humanitarian values which advocate peaceful co-existence between cultures and civilizations.  Among key values AWARE promotes are tolerance, better understanding and mutual respect between the westerners and Arab/Islamic world. source

Last Monday, I attended the world premier of a documentary made by United Productions Foundation at the DAR in our neighborhood.

The  mission of Unity Productions Foundation (UPF) is to create peace through the media. A nonprofit organization founded in 1999, UPF produces documentary films for both television broadcast, online viewing, and theatrical release, and implements long-term educational campaigns aimed at increasing understanding between people of different faiths and cultures, especially between Muslims and other faiths. We are convinced of the power of media to empower citizens with greater understanding and to nourish pluralism in America. source

Daniel Tutt was on hand to introduce the film. He discussed the education piece of the organization – many Americans have never had contact with a Muslim, yet judge Arabs and Islam based on what they hear in the media. One of the goals of the organization is to get people talking. I love the idea!

The video they were showing was called “Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World.” It was narrated by Susan Sarandon and was originally shown on PBS in the US in June. The premier that I attended was the first time the film had been shown outside the US…pretty cool huh?! It was an eye-opening film, beautiful in every way. You can see the trailer below, “like” their page on Facebook, and see more of their videos.

The next night Jeff and I went back to the AWARE center for a diwaniya hosted by our our neighbor at school, Bryn Barnard. I read his book earlier this year and was excited to hear him talk about it! He both wrote and illustrated it – the artwork is gorgeous and I learned a ton. His talk was just as interesting and was a GREAT compliment to the movie the night before. If you’re interested in the history of Islam and don’t want heavy reading, it’s a must buy! My iPod Touch died during his presentation and I wasn’t able to get any pictures 😦

Our most recent foray into Arabic culture is taking Arabic classes at the AWARE center! We’ve been eagerly awaiting this learning experience and had our first class on Monday. For the Introductory class, we will go every Monday & Wednesday for 6 weeks (a total of 12 hours of class). After two classes, we’ve learned to read, write & pronounce 16 letters of the Arabic abjad. Most have 3 different ways to pronounce them and 2 different ways to write them (depending on where they are in the word). Yesterday we took a quiz where we had to match words written using the English alphabet to words written with the abjad. Jeff and I both got them all right and were awarded stars! You know they will be going on the fridge for sure 🙂

We both got stars!!

We’ve heard that Arabic is incredibly hard to learn and many people here don’t find it necessary to know the language. We’re eager to be able to exchange pleasantries with Arabic speakers and expand our world view through learning a new language!

Food Lately

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**This post has taken me countless hours to write because of many technical difficulties (among other things). The pictures still look funny when published for some reason. Sorry..you’re going to have to deal with it! I’m going to bed 🙂 I really, truly hope you enjoy!!

For being such lovers of food, we haven’t posted a lot about what we’ve been eating…so today I’m here to make you jealous! There are lots of American restaurants in Kuwait (McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Ruby Tuesday, Chili’s, Applebee’s, P.F. Chang, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway…I could go on). We’ve only patronized two Western places so far…Starbucks and Shake Shack, both at The Avenues. Instead of eating at places we’re familiar with, we’ve been making our own food (comme toujours) and going to small, local ‘restaurants.’ Jeff has two rules for you when you come visit…one of them is that you eat whatever we tell you to eat! Enjoy!

First, some of the meals we’ve bought…

Swedish meatballs from one of our early Ikea excursions.

Once a week we pay 1.5 KD for a rotisserie chicken (chicken machine) from a Lebanese place between the school & our apt. It lasts us 2 meals and the first night is usually pulled chicken over salad. Sometimes we splurge and get a schawarma too!

A true staple in our diet. This particular bread we bought fresh out of the oven for pennies! It was so hot Jeff needed more than the newspaper to carry it home 🙂

The (literal) hole in the wall where our bread was made!

When we went to the Friday Market (on a Thursday), we ate at an Indian place there. We paid 800 Fils for all this yumminess…two chicken wraps of some sort, fried veggies, & a sambosa!

We love the two Lebanese restaurants between our apt and school! Bread & hummus from one, falafel wrap from the other…all for less than 1KD!

The Shack Shake in The Avenues is amazing…expensive, but my caramel shake was totally worth it!

Some friends introduced us to the soup place. We ask for 4 containers of green soup with onions & lemon and hand over 1.5KD. These 4 containers (with bread as spoons) will last 4 meals for both of us!

Our green soup came in the one with the towel. There’s other soup too…we were advised against trying them though 😉

And here are some of the meals we’ve made…

We found a Madras curry paste that we’ve fallen in love with! So far, we’ve had a curry stir-fry about once a week. We vary up the veggies and have added Kuwaiti shrimp a few times too!

This is one of the ways that we used pulled chicken machine…with green beans over couscous. More delicious that we thought it would be!

Yet another meal using pulled chicken machine…this time pasta! It started off as a creamy sauce and ended as a cheesy sauce. Basically spicy mac n’ cheese w/ artichokes, tomatoes & mushrooms…again better than expected!

Another weekly staple – pizza using Iranian bread (we can get 5 pieces for 100-250 Fils). We’ve been using sun-dried tomato pesto, whatever veggies we have and sliced mozzarella. We also make garlic cheese bread with the ‘fluffy garlic’ sauce that we get with our chicken machine.

We love us some Iranian bread! For wraps, Jeff roasted chickpeas in cumin and we ate them with moutabel, cucumbers & lettuce.

Another concoction with Egyptian bread 🙂 We were recently introduced to labneh – a cheesy sour cream yogurt spread. Delish!

Jeff had the amazing idea to make a Niçoise Salad. It was simple, filling and healthy…yum. We also found a new bread – Egyptian bread sold at the Sultan Center. Kind of like a thick pita and it comes in white or brown.

I found a pumpkin pancake & waffle mix at the Sultan Center! If you didn’t know, I ❤ pancakes…seriously. We’ve made these the last two Saturdays. We put out tons of toppings (butter, PB, almond butter, cocoa, honey, pecans, banana…) and eat up! This morning I added oatmeal to the batter for the last couple…tasty and SO filling!

We hope you’ve enjoyed a peak into our culinary lives! Are you ready to come visit yet?! We are loving the food here so far and have had a lot of fun being adventurous. We’ve heard that there are a lot of great restaurants so we are eager to find & try them! Enjoy the rest of your weekend 🙂

Al Corniche – worth it? You bet!

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One of the options during our first week here was to tour Al Corniche Resort & Spa. We had heard that many teachers joined the ‘resort & spa’ for a variety of reasons including access to the gym and private beach. We were pretty confident we were going to join, but we were taken aback by the price. AND our athletic director got us a pretty good deal (I advice against doing the math, I about choked) – 950KD for a couple for a 1 year membership with the possibility to put it hold for up to 2 months. This price probably sounds exorbitant to you (and it did to me too after belonging to Gold’s for $30/month). I won’t even talk about all the extra services that you pay for (spa, restaurants, cabanas, premium membership, guest passes…). But…let me tell you about it and maybe I can change your mind like mine was 🙂

Al Corniche is a 15-20 minute walk from our apartment. On our way, we pass our favorite grocery store so we often hit the store on the way back if needed. When we get to the parking lot, we routinely walk past fabulous & beautiful cars – Porsche, Ferrari, Mazarati, Aston Martin (who needs BMW & Mercedes?). Going in the front doors, we walk on glass over water – their own private moat! I’ve never once touched the front door as there is always a security guard who holds it open for us. After scanning our membership cards, the lobby has shopping, restaurants (frozen yogurt, a cafe, sit-down), the entrance to the spa (Jeff received a free massage w/ membership and I’ll get a facial) and comfy couches where you can hang out in the AC and use the Wi-Fi. Last week Jeff signed up with Porsche to attend a test drive event coming up soon. You can go outside to the pool (31 C all year round with a lap pool), ‘cold’ tub (like a hot tub but cold water!), beach, green-space, cabanas and kiddy pool (did I mention there is wi-fi outside too?). From the lobby you can also go down to the squash & tennis courts (members can play anytime). The locker rooms are downstairs and can be accessed from the pool as well. There are lockers, showers, a sauna. Upstairs is the gym with 2 rooms for classes and a large space with all the equipment you could need. Although personal trainers are extra, you do get a ‘Meet the Trainer’ session with a fitness trainer to talk about your goals, do all your measurements and help create a plan. I’ve loved classes for the last couple of years, but this place takes it to a whole new level. There are multiple classes a day that I wish I had time to go to (including Les Mills classes!). In the bigger of the two rooms, both outside walls are floor to ceiling glass so you can look out over the Gulf and Kuwait city while you sweat. The outside walls of the main gym are also glass so you can look out over the pool, Gulf & City while you get your aerobic & weights on.

Jeff and I have been members for 16 days. Of those 16 days, we’ve gone to the gym 14 of them. Although there are quite a few teachers from AIS that belong, it’s also nice to see some different faces. We thought about joining a different gym, but there are no other gyms within walking distance (read: pay for taxi) and they aren’t much cheaper either. Al Corniche just went through some significant renovations (so don’t look at too many of the pictures on their website) and is beautiful!

Lastly, between working out, eating better and not drinking on a daily basis, Jeff and I have lost a combined 14lbs in the 3.5 weeks since we’ve moved here. We’ve really enjoyed having somewhere to go besides school and our (mostly) empty apartment. Here’s a quick video I took while walking on the treadmill the other day…

 

Update: Al Corniche posted some pictures on their Facebook page…thought you’d enjoy seeing where we spend a lot of our time 😉