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Published: June 23rd 2005
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All roads lead to... em.. some where
These are what most of the main roads/ highways look like in Kuwait. Very american. HUge roads, Huge cars and very high traffic lights. Very differant to the UK. Driving for the faint hearted. em... not advised. haha So here we are. Our lives in London have well and trully been left behind and we are now at the point of nooooo return. How do I feel? well. actually its a strange mixture. I feel scared, excited, aprehensive, expectant, nervous, lost.... and strangely.... at home.
Our contact in Kuwait had arranged an apartment for us. He also bought a few essencials like bed for us, bed for Laila and a cot for Adam. A tv, fridge freezer, cooker, microwave and 2 plastic garden chairs. There were a few bits put into the fridge to tide us over for the morning also. First things first was trying to get the children settled in and try at least to get some clothes unpacked and make this new "home" some what like a home.
A little bit of a shock to us both was the fact that my Husband was required to go to work on our first day, so 9am came and off he went. So there I am, stood in the middle of the lounge, in the middle of a strange country thinking.. oh crapola..... what HAVE I done.. But the feeling sorry for myself didn't last very
What a view. hehehe
This is the View from our lounge window. Some of the villa's here are pure works of art. Like little personal castles. long as Adam and Laila start racing around the apartment like a pair of lunatics. I rolled my sleeves up and got stuck in. I unpacked all the suit cases, sorted the beds and made a huge shopping list. Completely nackered now I sat and had a cup of tea and waited for Gad to get in from work. We all got ready and headed out to get some essencial shopping.
Well off we went to the super market. Well actually it was the local co-op. All areas in Kuwait have what they call a local shopping area. or Jamaya I think they call them. Each small shopping area consists of a mosque, bakers, barbers, tailors, hard ware shop, co-op (small supermarket that has most of your daily essencials), some sort of takeaway like pizza, kebab etc and some have a bank and a few other shops. I was told before I came here that the co-op was the cheapest place to buy your groceries as the prices are maintaned by the government, but later we found that actually the places people told us were expensive actually turned out to be cheaper. Its in every book, blog and little
Laila at Sharq Harbour
This is the harbour at one of our prefered shopping centres. Idea l for food, clothes and a good coffee. (has most of all western shops like body shop, mothercare, beneton, next, diesel, topshop, topman and alot of smaller fashion boutiques)and my fav super market chain Sultan centre. More pics of Sultan centre to follow piece of information about Kuwait that these co-ops are cheaper so maybe its a way of getting people in there to spend. Kuwaiti people actually make money from these co-ops. A little like stocks and shares. Every Kuwaiti is given one and at the end of each bussiness year they get a little back. But, alas we actually prefer to shop else where finding it cheaper, and the variety was excellent compared to that of the co-op. If you can stand the heat and hussle and bussle, markets are even cheaper than any super market. But if your a pre packed cling film freak then only the super market will do.
The area we live in is called Qortuba. Now this is the equivelant to hampstead (for those of you who know London). A very expensive area to live in. And nearly everyone knows everyone. A little staring from the locals and alot of smiles too. I stood out like a sore thumb but hubby and the 2 little ones blended well. I held my head up high and roamed around (hubby close behind me. hehe). We got mostly what we needed and spent a fortune. We actually thought the weather was hot.. but alas, it was actually quite cool compared to what was to come. I guess in mid april the weather was around 30c. We left a cold coutry. It was only 12c in the UK when we left. My first impression of Kuwait. Well pretty friendly really. Everyone was very welcoming and helpful.
We seem to be settling well. The children amazingly havent noticed that much of a change as daddy still goes to work, and we still have fun indoors. Still having dinner together at home and they actually see alot more of daddy here so at the moment fingers crossed things are going well.. Lets hope the future is just as smooth and bright 😊
I have attached here at the bottom a picture of Laila, she standing outside one of my favourite shopping centres. Souk Sharq. Its fairly new and very very modern. Just like or even better than those back in the UK (alot cleaner to be honest). Outside the main shopping centre is a beautiful harbour homing some of the most impresive boats I have ever seen. Souk Sharq also has McDonalds, costa coffee and other various eateries, mostly western. Souk sharq was built around 2-3 years ago and is surrounded by the sea. It has the most beautiful walks along the shore. You will find that a Kuwaiti's favourite past time is shopping. As the country is so hot and all the shopping malls are air conditioned, this is where they spend 90% of their time. Wisely so we found out. 😊 (These diaries are back dated as we had a small problem getting internet access in our apartment. Its not June and the hottest day so far hit 50 degrees in the shade. And they still say its not summer yet and its not hot. July and August are the hottest months. an it really get hotter than 50c ??? surely not.. we will see :s
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KaznSteve
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Good Intro....what now
I enjoyed your intro to Kuwait, similar to how we felt. Would love to know how you're doing now. Has the driving got you down? What useful info have you found? We live in Salwa and, as an alternative to the Sultan Centre at Salmiya we shop occasionally at the City Centre shopping mall near the end of the 5th for variety and to pick up items we can't find in the Sultan Centre like a better range of crackers or Weetabix (which Sultan Centre occasionally don't have). Have you seen the latest British Ladies Society booklet? It's packed with some really useful info for newcomers, including maps which as you probably realise are a nightmare to get hold of.