Adventures

Ramadan Karim is the appropriate greeting I do believe! Yes, it is the holy month of Ramadan. This is the month that begins when a sliver of the moon is first seen after the new moon around this time of year (or something like that), so the actual day it starts varies every year. Ramadan is an entire month of fasting, in other words, people fast every day for a month from 1 hour before sunrise until after the sun sets that day. That means no eating, drinking (even water), smoking, or chewing (gum is even out), oh, and if you get caught it is punishable by law. It really will not affect me other then the fact I will not be able to have my water bottle with my in the car as I drive to and from work. I’m told that traffic and crazy drivers seem to increase at this time as well, so that may affect me. People have a large feast every day after sunset, so everyone is on the road about the time I am heading home from work. The good news is I don’t live close to downtown, so I should not see the really crazy traffic! Oh, and let’s hope I don’t ever have need to use the services of a hospital, but especially during Ramadan, because hospitals are only open for a set few hours each day during this holy month- nice huh? This week has been extremely humid. A couple weeks ago it was 125+ Degrees Fahrenheit, but it was a dry heat. Now it is only about 110 Degrees Fahrenheit but it is 100% humidity so it feels like it is 130 degrees! I’ve never understood how it could be 100% humidity and not be raining- until now. When you walk outside you are instantly wet, your sunglasses fog up the second you step outside, and the car has water spots on the windshield, yet it is not raining. Kind of crazy! The other morning I bought a breakfast sandwich and when the lady went to rip my receipt from the machine it completely tore at the wrong spot simply because the paper was wet from the humidity. I’ve never lived in a place with so much humidity-Fun! Fun!

Canary's is the restarurant at the bottom right of the picture

So, this week a group of co-workers enjoyed a dinner out. We went to a restaurant called Canary that is extremely cheap. You can get a full meal for less than 1 KD or less than $3.50. Nice! They decided to order it family style so everyone could try a little bit of everything. The grilled hallume (cheese) is yummy and when you put it on a piece on pita bread- delicious! I tried a lot of other food that night, and the cheese and bread is pretty much the only thing I liked!

They have been doing construction on the road that I use to get to the on-ramp to the freeway. Every morning it is a game of which lane will be open and how will I be able to get to work today… it seriously changes daily. Some mornings the lane narrows, yet the freeway entrance is still available. Other mornings the freeway entrance is blocked so I have to go up the road a little ways to catch the other freeway (since both freeways run parallel I knew I could get to work from either). Another morning the freeway entrance for the freeway further up the road was blocked from a left turn entrance- nice! So, I had to go even farther down the road to find the next available place to do a U-turn so I could make the right turn to enter the freeway. Okay, so one particular morning there was a long line of traffic that wasn’t moving. I decided I was not going to wait in line was just going to go around them to head to the other freeway… seemed like a good plan to me. Well, when I got out of that lane I was automatically placed in a lane that was an onramp to the freeway , but I was heading in the wrong direction. Oops! So, here lies my dilemma… do I stay in the far left lane and hope a spot to do a U-turn comes up? Or do I stay in the right lane and chance taking an exit? You see some exits here do not allow you to go left- so it would do me no good in my quest to get heading the right direction again if I simply take any exit. Well, about 7 minutes up the road I finally came across an exit which had an overpass so I was able to eventually get heading the right way. Minor setback! Good times!

Here is an interesting thought… when I go to Subway (which I do frequent for lunch) and get my usual turkey and ham sandwich, I am really getting double turkey because it is turkey and turkey ham here! When I finally realized that a few months back I started to ask for only a turkey sandwich!

Well, best of luck to all who have started school recently or who are going to start school this week! Here is also a shout-out to all who have to go back to work- sorry your summer break is over!