Almost two months!

We get a few days off next week and the week after, so I will be heading to Sri Lanka for a few days of R and R.

Some more thoughts on Kuwait.

So I’ve been here for coming up on two months soon. There are many oddities here compared to Canada, or other western countries, but many good things as well.

There are a few things I am missing about Canada.

1.    Clouds. I have yet to see a single cloud in the sky. Not one. Every day is sunny and hot, though we are down to 36 in the daytime now. Mornings are nice at 24. Apparently we can get down to the 0 mark at night time come winter.

2.    It would be nice to get some rain! The whole place is covered in dust. Every morning foreign labourers are out with buckets and rags washing the dust off of cars. A few nice rain storms would clean the place up substantially.

3.    Traffic here can be ridiculous. Horn honking is an art form here. They honk if they want in, if they think you are too close, if a cute woman walks by, if they just feel like it. In Canada if you here a horn, it means something serious is happening, here it is normal. I hate walking anywhere because all you hear is constant honking.

4.    Traffic continued. No one here knows how to drive, there are no road signs, there is minimal enforcement of any traffic laws. Seeing 3 or 4 cars making a left or right turn into one lane is very, very common, all taking place while the other three directions are doing the same thing! You don’t yield, you force your way in.

5.    Unless you own a car, you need to take taxis everywhere. As soon as they see a white person some of them try to extort more money than they normally would. I know the prices from my routine destinations, so they get nothing extra from me. I have told cabs to pull over and let me out because I refused to pay what they wanted.

6.    Indian and Bangladeshi men make up almost all the labourers here. Indian and Pilipino woman make up the service staff. It’s odd, everyone treats them all like the 19 century British mentality of servants. It can be quite sad.

7.    The Arabs are actually very friendly, once you are a regular at a restruant or in a cab, you had better make sure you talk to the people you know there when you are nearby. If you walk by the cab without stopping and saying hello and the driver sees you, they will be most unhappy.

8.    Things I miss about Canada. SOS pads, they don’t have them, or anything close. Jos Louis’s and Ah Carmel’s, these need no explanation. Butter tarts. I have tea from home, but in a month or so, Red Rose tea. Steak, there is a good steak house at the mall, but I have yet to find it, I need charred cow very soon. Harveys hamburger.

That’s about it for now folks, take care.