This morning we woke up to craziness outside our windows. Check out this blog post to see what our morning walk to school looked like. We thought it was dust at first but then we were very happy to learn that it was, in fact, fog. HEAVY fog.
Here’s what it looked like from above the clouds. Glad we didn’t have to drive!!
You know my sister is here substitute teaching. But there’s more! She signed a contract today to teach Pre-K for the next 2 years! We’re PUMPED to have her here with us! She accepted the position on Thursday and we (of course) celebrated! Abby and I got in comfy weekend clothes and then went for cheap pedicures ($14 w/ tip)! Afterwards, we celebrated with Jeff…
We’ve already made plans to go to Greece in late February (while Kuwait is celebrating the 22nd anniversary of their liberation) and we’re currently making plans to go to Thailand for Spring Break in April. We’re so excited for the next couple years and can’t wait to explore the world with our sister 🙂 All you family members now have one more reason to come visit!
We had another great weekend! Abby joined the YA lit book club that I participate in with a group of teachers from our school. We have meetings once a month where we eat food, talk about life and discuss the book we read. That evening we hung out with friends at a BBQ on one of the rooftops. Abby got to meet a bunch of new people and we made lots of yummy food (4 dishes for our two events!).
Yesterday was a day for the record books. We left the apartment about 12:30pm to meet up with a friend, do a little geo-caching, eat some bread and shop at Marina Crescent and Mall, check out a Co-Op and find a craft store (we found yarn!). Jeff left during the shopping to play frisbee. Abby and I got home about 7:30pm. Except for the time we spent eating bread and ice cream, we were on our feet the entire 7 hours! We were really interested in how far we walked and were shocked when we figured it out. Aren’t we awesome?!
Did you know that Abby (my awesome sister) is here?! She’s living with us (we have 2 bedrooms) for the semester and substitute teaching in the elementary. Since she got here we’ve been trying to show her around Kuwait and go about our normal lives. Her first weekend here we…
…ate at a Turkish restaurant.
…drank yummy lemon mint.
…experienced our first shisha.
…celebrated the engagement of our friends with an authentic Sri Lankan meal.
Having family here makes us miss home just a little less. We’re looking forward to the rest of the semester! 🙂
Last night Jeff and I didn’t feel like cooking. On our walk back from the grocery store we decided to call and order Indian to get delivered to our apartment. Normally we don’t like eating out because it’s expensive and we can usually cook something better at home. Luckily in Kuwait there are lots of small, cheap, quality restaurants! After we got home we waited a few minutes and the call came that our food was in the lobby. When we got the food up to our apartment we realized there was a miscommunication on the phone…we’re not really sure everything that we got but we do know it was all tasty! And it was only 4kd with tip for all of it! We had enough food for dinner for 2, lunch for 3 AND there were leftovers!
Have we mentioned our favorite cab driver before? His name is Mohamed and he’s awesome. Here are a few other fun facts about Mohamed;
* He has a college education in Religious Studies (rough translation) from a university in Egypt.
* He’s from Egypt.
* He primarily drives teachers from our school and makes so much money during the school year that he takes the summers off.
* During the school year he’s available 24/7, with the exception of Mosque.
* He taught himself English, and speaks it somewhat fluently.
And a short story;
Yesterday we were coming home from the vet and Mohamed stops outside of our apartment. Before we can pay him and get out, a police car with two officers stops next to us and they get out and start speaking with Mohamed. (It should be worth pointing out that all Arabic sounds angry, even if the topic being chatted about is fluffy bunnies or how much you love your mother). They ask for Mohamed’s civil ID and then they ask for ours. At this point, we’re getting a little freaked out because we have no idea what’s going on and they look like they’re taking our names down. They eventually give us our civil ID’s back and Mohamed, who has been speaking with the first officer, asks us “how much you want to give me?” in a way that makes us feel like our answer could very well determine whether or not he gets deported. We tell him “5KD” and he starts laughing along with the police officer. The officer gets back into the car, drives off and Mohamed comes back into the taxi and smiles. He tells us that the police officers wanted to make sure he wasn’t ripping us off and that everything was OK. What ended up actually happening was us being scared out of our wits.
(Not to be confused with “getting sick of abroad.” Sorry mom.)
Private school certainly has its perks.
For one, money gets spent on little stuff that makes life as a teacher that much easier; there’s always coffee brewing in multiple places around the campus, we have no limit on copying (color or black/white) and when you visit the nurse’s office she can shove all sorts of medication your way without any sort of payment.
As to who passed this particularly annoying ailment my way, I do not know. Several family members have apologized, but it’s more than likely the inordinate amount of time I spent outside geocaching when the temperature was single digits than some sort of airborne transmission by a loved one. Who knows.
Anyway, I’m on the way to feeling better thanks to a healthy dose of antihistamines, cold & flu relief, cough syrup, and nasal spray – all provided by the school nurse. For free.
Perks, man. Perks.
We made it to Istanbul safely! It was a very early morning and I only slept 30 minutes…but I’m all caught up on Grey’s Anatomy 🙂
Breakfast on the plane was delish…that’s what red wine does to a meal!
Today we went to the dentist for a routine teeth cleaning. Although our school does not offer dental insurance, one the owners is a dentist. In partnership with the school, you can get a discount on dental services. Our teeth … Continue reading
I found two videos today.
This one proves that Kuwait really is beautiful.
This music video (Arabs in Paris, remake of N* in Paris) was made in Kuwait and is pretty awesome 🙂
Can’t wait til Saturday!!
Living in Laymans' Terms 