Bahrain

The 14th involved another round of the US Embassy Marine Party. The party was rocking early, however the all of a sudden the place died at like 11:15. We were the only ones left along with some Marines while we sat on the porch and waited for our driver who was supposed to pick us up at 12:00. Oh well…the next day felt better.

Our EMS Director had a small get together before the big Marine Bash. I would have stayed at that party all night, but we were meeting Pittsburgh people at the Embassy. It was a nice time with Nog (no where near as good as the Weyen version), a selection of food, etc. She is not the pre-planner, which is odd since she works EMS. She forgot to put to meat in the oven until the beginning of the party. Needless to say, I didn’t get to eat any food there. It was good hanging out with all the Australian Medics and people from work and around. These Australian and South African guys must really have the mojo. There wives were amazingly beautiful, seemed way out of their league. If you wanted to put it in perspective, like Cam marrying Jennifer Aniston, would be a good example.

As a small thought, do you ever realize that with all the Celebrating we do, everything that is related to Christmas and the holidays, is related to the Middle East? Camels, wise men, Mary and Joseph (who are wearing traditional desert dress…which I see everyday), sand, starry nights, etc. So, we think about the desert every year. Isn’t it funny how the cradle of civilization is contested? Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, etc…it just amazes me. The funny thing is, much of the middle east does not celebrate Christmas, it sure does not feel like it over here. A few of my supervisors called me today to wish me Merry Christmas, but none even turned a head when I came in to work Christmas day. They think it is odd that I am working when it’s the Eid holiday, not because it is Christmas. By the way, its 65-70 degrees and sunny, with a slight wind. Not Christmas-y weather.

So, Last weekend Carol and I headed to Bahrain. I needed a travel partner, and I think I picked a good one. The first story will probably give you all the proof you need.

So, instead of coming the night before and having to spend another night in a hotel, we got up early and took the 8:30 flight to Bahrain. It was a whopping 26 minute flight, and we were out of the airport by 9:15. We had just carry on bags, so it was smooth sailing.
We headed to the hotel and neither her or my room was ready. We knew it was a long shot, but we thought we would ask anyway. She told us that check in time was 1:00, but that if wanted, she could have us both our rooms by 11:00am. Since it was only about an hour away, we thought we would wait and decide on a gameplan for the day/weekend.

We headed to the lounge and the waitress came around. I was looking at the menu thinking about getting a diet coke and a snack. The waitress asked Carol first what she would like, and she asked what they had on tap. I dropped my menu and looked at her in disbelief. She smiled and said “We are on vacation, let’s act like it”. I immediately put down my menu and ordered a beer as well. I knew this was going to be a great weekend with a good friend.

After a couple of beers our rooms were ready. We with the cheap option, so both her and my room had 2 twin beds in it (twin, not double), very European. We stayed at a Movenpick, which is a Swiss hotel and the room had that feel. It was a 5 star place, but really nice and affordable. All the amenities. I was a little disappointed by the TV selection, because they have the same TV I have at home. I was hoping to have some Sportscenter to watch live instead of on my computer. Oh well, we didn’t spend much time in the rooms anyway.

After moving into our rooms, and our couple of drinks, what better way to pass the time than to head to the Grand Mosque? This is a HUGE Mosque in the center of town where over 7000 people can pray at once. It was huge and beautiful. Unlike other Mosques, they are open to non-Muslims and actually give tours. You have to dress conservative as a man, (pants, shirt, etc.) but as a woman you have to cover completely. This is part of the reason that I wanted to go there, just to make Carol put on a complete Abaya with Hijab. You also have to take off your shoes when you go in, and the tour guide gave us a look around, answered questions, talked about the prayer times, what they do when they pray, facing MECCA, all the good stuff. The even give you informational brochures when you leave (I would call it propaganda). These praying rituals are just about as bad as the Catholics…way too much exercise in a service.

After the Mosque we headed to the Hard Rock. Since we came on one of the first days of the Eid Holiday, certain things were hit and miss to be open. The Hard Rock was so we went to have a late lunch and of course some more tasty beverages. Service was good, you would be surprised at the amount of Military guys in there, but this is “Vegas” of the Middle East.

After our lunch, we were going to head to the Souqs, which we were assured were open. After driving around them and seeing nobody with a shop open, we decided to head back to the hotel. We both needed to take a quick nap, especially since I had to get up so early to get to the airport. I am not used to a 5:00-5:30am wake up. We headed off to our rooms and planned to meet up a little while later for dinner. After about an hour and a half we decided to head to the restaurant bar/lounge. We had dinner and then a small band was setting up. Since we had no luck anywhere else today, and cabs were expensive. We decided to just drink in the Hotel bar and try our luck the next day. We stayed out till about 10:30 – 11:00. I fell quickly asleep that night.

The next morning she calls me as she is getting ready for breakfast. As I was dressing, there was a knock at the door. It was Carol. I am not used to traveling with a girl that gets ready as fast or faster than I do. Then I remembered that she is ex/current military, so quick showers and efficiency must come second nature to her. I quickly dressed and was out the door in a couple of minutes. We ate at the hotel’s lunch buffet which had a good selection of European food (cold cuts, etc.) and made to order waffles and omelets. Pretty good start.

Since cabs were so expensive. We found a deal where we could have exclusive rights to a driver for 3 hours for about $60 bucks. So we planned our days after that in 3 hour bursts and bar stops in between.

So we headed out of town about 20km to head to the Harley Shop. I am destined to find some cool destination stuff wherever I go now. However, once again, it was closed. They would be open tomorrow, so not all was lost. We then headed to “The Tree of Life”. It was about 20 km out of town the other way and our driver had no idea of how to get there. We were able to help him with our map and guide book and we did find it. It was one of those feelings that you just cannot explain. On one hand, here is this tree over 400 years old growing in the middle of the desert with no known water source. Then as you get closer it looks like a high school hang out. Graffiti everywhere, branches torn off, there is a small fence around it, but there are kids climbing all over it, trash everywhere. It is really sad. We were able to get some good pictures, but still not as exciting as I would have hoped. Stuff like that really makes you appreciate things like the park service and the national register of historic places. I am glad I got a picture of it, cause I know one day I will see on MSNBC that the tree of life has suddenly died…due to overuse or contamination. I did get some cool pictures of a herd of camels that was near the tree. (Is that what they are called?)

After that, we decided to head back to the Souqs. Well, guess what. Closed. Again. We decided that it was not in the cards for us to hit the souqs this trip, so we would just deal with not experiencing them.

Thanks to a colleague from Pittsburgh, she recommended a GREAT Mexican restaurant that WAS open. Thank goodness. We got there at 2:30, however they were closing at 3 and opening again at 6:30. They did tell us to come in, eat and stay as long as we wanted. Well, 2 pitchers later and after dinner, it was just our waiter left and the night shift was showing up to work when we left. He got a great tip. Senor Paco’s if you are ever in the area. Great place. This is sad, but it made me think of Mom…you all know why.

Afterwards, we headed to the Sheraton because it was supposed to be the party place. They had a 6 piece band and they did pretty well with American and International songs. It was rocking. We stayed and had a great time till about 11:00 or 12:00.

The next morning we decided to move our flight up from 9:30pm till 4:00pm. We had a new staff member coming to town and Carol told her that she would meet her when she got here. Luckily, we have a good staff so they met her and we were going to head back early so she could spend the evening with her.

We were still trying to find the illustrious Pork so thanks finding a Restaurant that we also have here in Doha that serves just about a good a breakfast as you can get without pork, we headed there. We were like kids at Christmas looking at the menu. I ordered Eggs, Bacon, Sausage, and Sausage Gravy. I was in heaven. It was so good. I can’t wait to have mom cook some when I get home.

Afterwards, we headed to the Harley Shop which was open this time and was able to get a few mementos and items. They only had 2 bikes to sell, all of their other just arrived models were sold. These Gulf Arabs and their money….it burns a hole in the pocket of their thobe.

After getting our fill, we still had enough time to spend a few hours at the Bahrain National Museum. It was not the best place on earth, but pretty impressive when you understand how they do things in this part of the world. It had to be set up by a westerner, that is for sure. They had a lot of things in there about death, dying, the burial sites, how the bodies were found. Also…Arab culture and history, traditions, just to name a few. Some of the displays and the flow of the place did not seem to make sense at times, but we got through it all and I enjoyed it.

We headed back to the hotel, grabbed our bags and headed to the airport. We breezed through security and immigration, so we did what anyone else would have done, headed to the restaurant. We had small lunch with of course a tasty beverage. The flight back was so much longer, I mean 28 minutes…that is crazy.

It was definitely an experience, probably not somewhere I will go back to. Since I was here, I had to see it especially since it is only a hop, skip, and a jump away.
I will update you on my Christmas soon!