Blogs from Al Kuwait, Kuwait, Middle East

So, the smooth sailing had to stop at some point, yah? Not that anything bad happened. At all. I have had far greater travel woes. We flew into Kuwait instead of Basrah because it was about half the price. Probably will splurge next time. It started great. We land in Kuwait City and we obtain our visas and skate through customs. We meet with Dr. Rick Wilkerson and Professor Thamer Hamdan. Rick is a sports surgeon in Iowa and Thamer is the Chancellor of the University of Basrah, where he also works as a spine surgeon. He is dressed sharply in a suit and speaks English very well. He is gracious and kind and makes it clear he hopes that I find a second home in Basrah. He is a charmer and carries an air of ... read more

My first destination will be Dubai where I have a brief stop over before continuing on the Persian Gulf state of Kuwait. Kuwait gained independence from the British in 1961 and was invaded by Saddam in 1990 triggering the first Gulf War. Accommodation expensive here but comes with various luxuries including free Wifi and importantly airconditioning because the heat here is extreme. After leaving Adelaide just before 10 pm I finally arrived after 19 uncomfortable hours, I then had to go get a visa which was annoying before passing through customs and stepping out into the furnace. I decided to take a taxi and was surprised when my driver was an Arab, I was expecting an Indian of Pakistani. The man was very pleasant and friendly but drove way to fast relying heavily on his breaks, ... read more

April 9, 2010 Note: You can click on any photo to enlarge it, and then use the numbers at the top to scroll from photo to photo. Be sure to see the photos below the comments on this page and then click on the "page 2" link to see the "extra photos" I've uploaded. : Last Thursday was the weekend and we had arranged for our group to go to Kuwait City, Kuwait for the day, which is about an hour’s drive from where we are in Khafji, Saudi Arabia. Things did not start off well. The driver picked us up at 12:30 pm. There were nine of us including the driver and 8 very narrow seats. The driver, who spoke no English, did not seem surprised or bothered by this. The solution was for one ... read more

This entry never got published. I'm publishing again. (Entry date of February 18, 2010) I’m back in Minnesota, and now my journey has ended. However, there were a few things left to experience since my last blog entry. The Assessment Center concluded successfully despite the Internet going down twice during the last round of testing. I was seconds away from going to “Plan B” which is manual testing (and laborious scoring) when the Internet returned and saved the day. The last evening I invited to dinner three of the client’s people who I worked closely with. I asked them to pick some place where locals would go and we went to a restaurant in Khafji called “The Anchorage.” It was a great meal. In attendance was Edward from India, Mirza from Pakistan, Manny from the Philippines ... read more

It was good to see Rowena and met the son-in-law and the parents in law. Yesterday we went shopping - Rowena wanted/needed a pair of sneakers - her feet are expanding. The mall is like any other one - except there are men and women in Arb dress. It was Sunday equilviant to monday in the western world and the Mall was very quite. We bought the shoes and had a coffee at numerous Starbucks outlet. I have to say there is not much to look at here as Rowena describes it - lots of sand colored building a few tree (all of which are in row due to irrigation) and lots of sand. We had a late lunch at the Seven Seas resturant which is leboneses Resturant. It was fabulous - the courses kept coming ... read more