Our Shopping Adventure #2

Got off work this afternoon and decided to take a trip into KWC and take the family with me (of course). Got home and changed clothes for a mall crawl at the Avenues Mall. Kim wanted to see what Ikea was all about so we browsed through there for a while and picked up a few items , cutting boards, pizza cutter and a few stalks of bamboo and a vase. After that we entered the mall to the aroma of fresh HOT Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Following our noses we ended up at the food court and decided to have dinner at the GBK ( great burger kitchen) and then bought a dozen fresh hot glazed doughnuts. We then proceeded to browse the mall.

What a large place and still growing, 2 stories so far and about 5 football fields long, and the construction is continuing so that when it is completed it will be more than twice as big as it is now.

From there we continued to walk and shop around and ended up at the Carrefour store. Carrefour is a large international company from France that has stores nearly world wide. Reminiscent to a Walmart super center. They have just about everything you can imagine, although most of everything is imported, though there are some locally produced products. Very few American brand names are available though a few are and are labeled in Arabic. Stocked up again on groceries then called it a day, called for my cab driver for a pick up and arrived back home about 7:30 pm. Just in time to watch nothing on TV. I guess I will have to subscribe to a satellite service to be able to watch the current line up of American Shows. Everything we get here now is last season which I have mostly seen.

Our Shopping Adventure....

Yesterday, I called my cab driver Ryan for a ride into Fahaheel, where I took Kim and Ashleigh shopping and found some OK deals on a dining room set up. A 4 top table with 4 padded bar stools which since I do not have a "Dining" room, I figured the casual table with bar stools would be more than adequate. It will also serve dual purpose as a place to use the laptop. Now I can toss out the cardboard boxes I have been using as end / coffee tables. Also found some matching end tables and coffee (tea) table for the living room ( they sort of match the dining table ) and some bed side lamps for the bedrooms. Furniture to be delivered Saturday between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm (today).

After shopping at Center Point Home furnishings we took a walk over to Al-Kout Mall, walked about there for a while to see what was there then ate lunch in the food court. Ashleigh had a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza and Kim and I had a Philly steak and cheese. After that we took a stroll to the Sultan Center Grocery store and stocked up on some food items. I have a pretty full pantry now and should only need to make maintenance trips to the store for odds and ends as needed. To see photos of the whole day please visit www.quiltingmemakim.blogspot.com

Company at last....

Well, Kimberly and Ashleigh have arrived, no more counting down the days. They had a FUN TIME at the airport waiting for the flight from DC to carry them to DC. Norfolk seems to be notoriously late on it outbound flights especially for making international connecting flights. As a matter of fact, nearly the same thing happened to me when I traveled to Kuwait. My flight was canceled out of Norfolk, so I missed my connection. Kims flight was delayed and then they said her connection was leaving at 12:15 am. that should have been enough time to catch her plane. When she finally got to DC the flight information board said the flight was departing at 11:15 pm. Gives her about 10 minutes to get from concourse "A" to concourse "C". She and Ash made the flight , But the luggage didn't. So when she arrives in Kuwait, she has no luggage, but we are told to come back tomorrow and the luggage will be arriving on the next days flight. O.K......

Next Day, I hired a taxi ( I still don't have a car or Kuwaiti drivers license) for a round trip cost of 13 KD or $48.95 then dinner at the airport, Starbucks and some soveniers so the total lost luggage experience cost over $100. Anyway, The assisting airlines (not United Airlines) Kuwait Airways, proves to be absolutely no help in resolving the problem. They originally told us to call the number on the claim sheet which I did, Only to find out they either do not answer the phone or the phone is constantly busy. I even got a phone message once that said the office was closed, to call back tomorrow. Once at the airport, I was talking to the Kuwait Airways agents and thats when I started to get the run around. They then told me I would have to wait until tomorrow then go over to some warehouse where they send all the lost luggage. I told them the luggage was not lost, that it was coming in on todays flight from DC, BTW information they provided me the day before. Well, evidently the agent got attitude and through her silence I figured out that she was not going to be ANY help at all.

I had hired a "Meet and Greet" service (Hala-Kuwait) to meet Kim at the gate and assist with getting the visa's and luggage through customs. I went to the HALAKUWAIT service agent and explained the situation to him. He then went over and said something to them and they must have snubbed him as well so He went behind the scenes into customs and got our luggage and delivered it to us, not really part of his job, but he was very kind to do so.

On the way back from the airport, The cab driver (Ryan) gave us a tour of Kuwait after dark. Too bad the air was so full of dust you could not see further than a few hundred meters. He needed to get fuel and the stations he usually goes to were closed, so we got a grand tour. Same price, they rarely use meters. Just ask how much it will cost and they quote a price. I have been using the same cabbie since I got here and he speaks good English and is reliable.

We Plan on going on a small shopping excursion Friday. I will let you know how that works out. TTYL

Another week in ....

What a lousy week it has been weather wise. The dust moved in last Wednesday and has been here since. This is not the worse dust storm I have seen so far, but it is the longest lasting that I have seen to date. Visibility today is about 700 meters as reported by the local radio stations (maybe 1/2 mile at the most). It reminds me of the fog on the mountains. I will have to remove the curtains in the apartment after the dust and give them a good washing as the dust has accumulated on them from the leaks around the window frames. I don't know if you could even seal the windows to where they would not leak, the dust is about as fine as talcum powder and just floats in the air and settles everywhere. I have even gone so far as to place covers on the furniture in the living room to protect it from the dust. They could have done better with the construction, everything looks really nice but on close inspection the attention to detail is surely lacking.

Good news on a personal level. I finally received my Civil ID card, so now I can pursue the driver license and base passes. I was told to wait on the base passes so that I could register a car at the same time, rather than doing one now and then having to redo it later. So I wait. I was told 2 weeks from last Wednesday, which will put me getting the license after Kim and Ashleigh get here, but hey, at least I will be driving. Eventually... hopefully..

Again - WOO HOO!!