More Adventures

Ok guys, I have a lot of pictures for you that I'll be uploading in a minute. They're of my flat, and the surrounding area.

I'm very proud of myself, I can actually claim now to have been out and about in 120 degree heat. You have to be careful, the warning sign is that your stomach starts to hurt and then you need to go inside.

Just a tip- if you're ever in the Middle east, always score the front seat in a cab. Closest to the air conditioning unit.

All right, some back story. I have been here now for 3 full days. The whole building, some seven floors, is dotted with teachers from my school in various stages of jet lag and arrival. They all seem nice enough, but they're all older. Into their forties and such.

If there is a school event, drivers come around in this vehicle that looks like a VW Bus on steroids and take us all at once. I feel a little off- I'm the youngest except one.

There is a Friday Market, or Souq, that we would call a Flea Market. You can go there and get anything and everything. The condition is, you have to bargain. Lots and lots of teachers wanted to go out to it today, some only arriving the day before. You see, Kuwait has lots and lots of oil and very little of anything else. Anything that we would usually get at a Dollar Store in California goes 12-15 dollars here. So all of us in these new flats are looking for things for cheap. Basic things like measuring cups and paper towels and bathmats.

Yes, there is an Ikea here, but no one has been able to find it yet.

Well, there are only two of us who have been here long enough (or have the balls) to venture out and find the way home, because we really don't have an address. In fact, two months ago the building we are living in wasn't there, but that's a different story. So every time we go more than a block of way it's a crapshoot trying to get back.

Well, only four of us fit in a taxi, and there were some 12 of us going. I got hooked up with two older women (one with a terrible head cold, the other who is still on the plane in almost every sense) and we ended up having to be rescued from a coffee shop because neither of them brought water and the cab driver didn't actually know how to get us home. I've had a busy day.

So I called the Principle, and he came and got us, and I explained the situation, and he and his wife took me and a couple other people back to his house for free wireless and breakfast. Very nice.

Enough. Now for pictures.