Dust in the wind

While walking to the car I looked at the light poles and the light was shimmery and strange, the air a bit heavy and the cars in the distance were not clearly visible. The mysterious air condition remained unsolved until the next morning. Once again, the light was somewhat different, no clear skies (which I've for 99% of the time so far), and visibility was not more than a couple kilometers (even the big buildings were behind this changed air layer). I know this from back home with fog, but then, humidity is like maximum 20 % here...
Well, it turns out it was dust in the air, blown into the city from the desert :)

Kuwait pics

So finally, here are the new pictures of the very busy, interesting, multifaceted, exciting and still quite warm ;) weeks (the best of the over 1'500 pics taken in Oman and Dubai last week, will follow in the next couple of days):

Flagged streets in honor of the State Visit from Switzerland	In the waiting room at the Palace
Cover at the reception lunch at the Palace Skyline	The dining room in the Palace In the car of the Hungarian Ambassador ;)
The odometer of my rental car stands at 17km!!! (probably will never ever have such a new car) Ghost city under construction	Shark attack Ghost city 2
Chill-out room in the Arab Fund Building	Arab Fund Building (conference center)
Conference room in the Arab Fund Building	Gasoline price tag/liter (0.060 KWD= ca. 0.21$)
Dates at the Souq	Road to nowhere (in the desert)
from the roof	Taxi USA? there is also taxi Switzerland, taxi France...
The lonely rider at sunset	The world is flat	Burning sun
Going home	going home, too	Sunset with a friend

Our camp in the desert

The buffet in the desert

Camping in the desert = awesome

Middle East at its most beau

Our Lagune

one of the many huge homes

postal services #0; driving skills #1; fire alarm test

Having already gotten advice from the locals not to use the mail for any correspondence I have made the experience myself. First of all, I haven't seen a postal office anywhere in the region, not even to speak of stamps. However, even mail coming from abroad takes up to 6 weeks to arrive. A postcard sent from Europe on October 12, was stamped by the Kuwaiti postal service on October 30, and forwarded to the Embassy on November 22. So, many of the Swiss at the Embassy regularly miss out on the voting back home, if it doesn't arrive through the diplomatic post.


Last time I talked about male driving skills. Well, this time it's time to give some insight into the Kuwaiti ladies' (this has nothing to do with stereotypes, however). Everybody here agrees that the women drive even more dangerously. Most of them are on their cell phones, with up to 6 kids in the car, ignoring traffic and pushing even more than the men. Last time one cut my path in the roundabout, so I gave here a sign with the lights. Well, she  literally went crazy. Started to push me off the lane, braking abruptly in front of me and changing lanes like going doing a slalom..and this all at 80km/h..she was going for the crash...Must have looked pretty crazy from the outside.

Not long ago we've had a dry run of a fire alarm. This included half the fire station showing up. Not with the fire trucks, but in one car, for giving us a power-point presentation and a practical demonstration of the fire extinguisher. The guys probably didn't have to do anything, so they came to use for a field trip ;)

crazy weeks because of high-level visits

sorry for the biiiig gap between the last post and this one...

These last couple of weeks some high-level delegations had visited the region, amongst others, the
Vice-President/Minister of Foreign Affairs from back home. The Embassy was in charge of organizing these visits which was quite the chaotic but fun task. It is not so easy to get 20 people together for a dinner...because the people in mind are bored of these dinners, have other obligations...or just simply don't think it necessary to answer to an invitation, so you have no idea if they will show up in the end...
..well, I had the chance of some very interesting and busy days and receptions...the first was on a Saturday a dinner in the Kuwait Towers (about 100 meters above ground) with the Vice-President and her delegation and some Kuwaiti high-level and business people, then the following day a lunch at the Emiri Palace (I'll explain the fonctioning of such an event in another post)..and then followed in the evening by a lunch at the Ambassador's residence... the result of these three large meals within 24 hours was spending the next (working) day in bed and only eating "Zwieback" and rice for the next two days (we've never figured out which meal caused the issue) but when Mr. Ambassador asked me two days later, and his words were: " don't be afraid, I would like to invite you and some others from the Embassy to my place for dinner"...I laughed and told him that I should probably only have rice...and he said, well, rice it will be for me..haha..

so the last weeks have given me a very interesting insight into business and political visits of a State guest and also a lunch at a Palace...
oh yeah, I almost forgot...there were a gazillion Swiss flags hanging in Kuwait City for the occasion (and I am sure they have as many for any other country)

Pictures will be posted after the upcoming holidays (after the 21st)

Further, I found a wonderful place to swim (ok, it's like 80km down South)..and the water is still quite ok with about 25 Celcius and air temperature about 29..although the nights are much colder now, about 14 ;)

Drving skills (#) 0

Driving in Kuwait is like driving around Arc de Triomphe in Paris, but constantly!!! (if you have never had that experience, here a basic rule...there are no rules in that roundabout..ah wait, there is one: the incoming cars have right of way, which is quite not smart)

back to Kuwait. rules basically don't exist, maybe only one:

survival of the strongest and stupidest (fittest..nawwh, not really).

• The turn light is turned on only when not needed, but when needed most, it is non existant. A good example are the highway ramps. So when you are on a one lane ramp with concrete walls on both sides and the ramp makes a constant right turn, people here think they have to use their turning light to the right. However, if you are passing by a car, left or right doesn't matter here, on a very busy highway with 120 km/h, the light is not used, ever. 

• Since there are no manual cars, driving is like F1 and Go-kart together..or at least for some here. I mean if you have a ferrari, you need to use it's acceleration once in a while, regardless of the faith of the person in the other cars. 
• ah yeah, driving on a motorbike with 150 km/h without a helmet, and doing slalom, is not really smart, but very ;) masculin.   (the same applies to those who drive a lamborghini with about 200 through the traffic jam)

• also very masculin might be honking and ligthing at the one up front whilst in the middle of a traffic jam, where every lane is occupied. but maybe his/her car can find the gap ;)
• another driving skill here is to go on the highway, without checking out if somebody is coming in the outer lane. why bother about that, right?
• or passing you, and then slowing down (probably because you have received a phone call)
  (since the government does not need extra income, the don't really have cops giving out fines, otherwise, like in Switzerland, the would make millions just with driving/phoning and speeding fines)

Communication problems #1

Finding something to eat is not too difficult here...lots of small shops and stands.
To actually get food in the end, however, does sometimes prove to be challenging...
so this one time, I went to a kebab stand..I asked for a nice big kebab..and all I got was a small something..
so this other time, I went to the shop next to it..there they produce the kebab bred before your eyes, put it in the oven, then put cheese on it, heat it on something hot and put in the meat... looks great..but it's not so easy to actually get it... so I went up to the shop and since there were people standing outside I waited in line.. after a couple of minutes when nothing moved I asked the foreigner next to me how this works and he said I can cut the line and go up and order...ok..done.. well, not really..the guy did not speak any English and he started telling me things in Arabic, so I settled for something he proposed, by nodding... then, nothing happens..so I ask the other foreigner to help me..he does and tells the dude to hurry up..ok... nothing happens...then, the foreigner goes into the store and tells that I would like the nice big kebab....so the waiter says I have never ordered...do I have a note with my order on it? so I tell my translator to tell the waiter that he never took my order...ah yeah...then sorry, he can't give me anything cause they are dealing with a big order...well..after 20 minutes it turns out I had to go to the kebab next door..(yeah, the one from last time) and I had to settle yet for another mini kebab..

1st pictures

London with the cucumber

Greater London

Oil fields somewhere in Iraq / sunrise

Kuwait

view from the roof... at night there are even more parked cars

the roofs 

one of the many minarets in the neighbourhood

sunset from the house door

some luxury cars next to my place

modern and traditional architecture
 (can coexist, not like in some cities in Europe)

no place is real without McDonalds

Water towers

view from the roof when the haze/sand/ "something-layer" lifts itself

the inside of a tower under construction

Liberation Tower

notice where the blue skies start

spices in the local supermarket