Monday was a pretty leisurely day for me. I had a big breakfast, which is pretty western from what I can see. There is some different meat, fruit, and breads, but there are still various cereals, scrambled eggs, sausage, toast, etc.

I enjoyed the pool again for a little while. The water is about 85 degrees, but it felt much cooler than the air temp.

Eventually I went to the airport and checked in for my flight. I was lucky that the excess baggage charge was only about $40 as opposed to in Europe where it can top $120! My checked luggage weighs in at around 41-42 kg, and the usual allowance is only 20kg. :-/

I waited in the airport for quite a while. My Gulf Air flight to Kuwait was delayed almost 1.5 hrs (not sure why).

They gave us some kind of bread roll with some kind of tasteless yellow spread on it. They also had some kind of "milk" in a white bottle, that tasted more like sour yogurt. It was pretty gross.

The arrival process in Kuwait is pretty confusing, much more so than your average international airport. Eventually I figured out where to go to get a visa, and waited for quite a while in a line. The hotel that I am staying at was going to send a driver to pick me up. I figured since my flight was supposed to land quite a while earlier that he would be gone. I came out of the luggage area almost 3 hrs after i was originally supposed to show up, but there he was waiting. I was surprised but very relieved that I wouldn't have to find and pay for another taxi.

My hotel here is pretty average. Kuwait seems like a very large city, right next to the Persian gulf, and also right in the middle of the desert. It is extremely hot, and extremely sunny, always. I have yet to see a cloud in the sky, but it's not pure blue sky sunlight that we are used to. It's more like hazy, gray blue. I think there is a lot of dust pollution or something. It's hard to explain, but even buildings that aren't very far away look very distant and hazy. There are a lot of very large skyscrapers being built here. Clearly Kuwait has some serious cash. Apparently the citizens don't have to pay for electricity, or water. Supposedly most employers give their employees 4 weeks of vacation a year, and also provide a round trip plane ticket to use as well!

Today was interesting. As in Bahrain, Ramadan is going on here still, so the cafe isn't open during the day, giving me a lot of time to spread out the work-flow. I was planning on being there sometime around 8:30ish. I had breakfast at the hotel again, and then had the hotel call me a cab. To make a long story short, the cab driver was an idiot, and had no idea where I needed to go. He proceeded to basically drive around for almost 1.5 hrs. He called people, he asked people in cars, we even stopped so he could ask people on the street. Eventually we found it, and of course, I informed him I wouldn't be paying for the ride since it took so long. he wasn't happy about that, but hey, learn where things are! It's a Hard Rock Cafe...it stands out. And, it had been there for 5 years, so it's not like it was brand new. Maybe he just moved to the city or something, but either way, it was ridiculous.

But once I got to the cafe, the people were nice, at least there was one guy there who spoke enough English that we could converse.

Apparently Kuwait is even stricter about Ramadan. Even though I am a visitor, and not Muslim, it would still be illegal if I was to drink, or eat anything in public. So they gave me a bottle of water, but told me not to drink it in front of the windows in case someone looked inside and saw me. I thought that was hilarious and insane, but I didn't want to get thrown in jail, so I didn't do it in front of the windows....but what a ridiculous rule. And of course, since its Ramadan, nothing is open until about 6pm. Thankfully there is always room service.