Kuwait City

Yes... that is a picture of me in regular clothes... I escaped from Camp Patriot!!!


 I forgot what real clothes were like!

Actually, I was lucky enough to go on a visit to Kuwait City with some other Army people.  We do get to leave sometimes on MWR trips.  We headed out to the city to visit some of the sights for the day.  Plus... it was an awesome excuse to wear real clothes again.  We aren't allowed to wear "civilian clothes" now, which means I get to rotate between sweet PT shorts/t-shirt, ACUs, and my somewhat illegal PJ pants.  Going out in Kuwait City requires that women cover their knees and elbows and men cannot wear any t-shirts with writing.  No head scarves are required for women though.  Men can wear long shorts, but they need to have a collared shirt.  We are usually more conservatively dressed than most of the Kuwaiti people (if you are confused... see the above picture for appropriate attire).

Enough complaining... time to see the sights!!

Kuwait City

One of the most dangerous things you can do here in Kuwait is to get on the road and drive. The drivers here are legitimately crazy without much interest in following traffic laws. Even if you end up getting pulled over by the police and get a ticket, the government pays for it. Whenever we drive around, you see all sorts of interesting things that make the average American driver seem amazing. People have cell phones glued to their hands and heads, texting like crazy, kids not in car seats bouncing all over the car, people reading books and flying down the road, and trucks pretty much doing whatever they want. Speed limits are minimal speed suggested and lanes are just pretty markings on the ground.

Kuwait Towers

After we survived our ride downtown, we first stopped at Kuwait Towers.  They were first built in 1977 (thank you Wikipedia) and the large tower contains a large sphere with a water tank in the bottow half with a restaurant and cafe in the top half.  The smaller sphere is another cafe that supposedly rotates around.  The smaller tower is a water tower.  They have been closed for renovation since March 2012, but were still interesting to look at.






Looks nice... I still can't read it.

We then went to the Tareq Rajab Calligraphy museum.  It opened in 1980 and contains tens of thousands of beautiful calligraphy items, manuscripts, miniatures, ceramics, metalwork, glass, jade, wood, and stone-carvings.  And yes, that it directly stolen from their website.  I can't read arabic, but everything was very nice to look at and makes you appreciate all of the artistic skills that went into making it.



I tried to take this home with me, but it was too big to steal from the museum



Bird made completely out of calligraphy verses from the Qur'an

Pegasus

Lunch was at an amazing Lebanese restaurant Mais Alghanim which overlooked the Arabian Sea.  I don't think I've ever eaten so much or felt so full in my life.  Kebabs, hummus, fresh made Naan bread, and mango juice so thick the straw stood up straight.  Delicious!!!



We then spent the afternoon exploring the Maritime museum which had tons of old ships, pictures, and other sea life adventure things.  It was quite interesting to see the ships which had to bring fresh water to the Kuwaiti people as there was no other drinking water available.

A replica of some old boat

 

The guy on the right is His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.
Not too sure who his friend is, but they are all over Kuwait.

One of the last places we visited was the Al-Hashemi-II, which is the largest wooden ship in the world.  It is a dhow that cost over $30 million to build over 4 years.  Interestingly, it is part of the Radisson Blu hotel and will never sail in the water.  It is a museum, restaurant, and banquet hall that could probably hold over a thousand people.  We were there on a Saturday (the Kuwaiti weekend is Friday/Saturday), so no one was around at all and we were able to explore everywhere.

The last stop of the day was at Starbucks.  And for those of you wondering, Starbucks in Kuwait is way more expensive than even airport Starbucks.  But it was a sweltering 125 degrees outside and a cold drink was well worth the price.

Stay tuned for the next adventure!

 

I wish these were real camels... but supposedly real camels
carry diseases so we aren't allowed to play with them.

Create your own caption.... Sweet mustaches!