Our Friday Market (Souk) adventure.

We had an opportunity to tag along with Joe to the Friday Market souk yesterday so we did that. Friday market is a large outdoor market where you can find anything, and I mean anything. We were there looking for carpets, one for the living room and another for the TV room. There are so many to choose from and the prices and quality vary so much it becomes a daunting task. If you find a vendor with a carpet and price you like, because of the maze like layout of everything you may or may not every find him again and if the price is good someone else may steal the purchase, so you need to have a good idea up front of what you want, how much you are willing to pay and then be able to reasonably haggle the price. All purchases are cash and carry with no receipts that I saw.

After a long and arduous walk around we found a vendor with two carpets I can live with and at a price I was happy with. You can tell that there is price fixing between vendors because I asked several about the price of a 3x4 meter carpet, and the immediate response was 38 KD. I believe I got a good deal out of desperation on our vendors part to take home some dinar. The souk starts to close down around 8 pm - 8:30 and the price magically dropped in half so I picked up two pieces (3x4 and a 2x3) for 30 KD or about $113 USD.

The carpets cover the floor nicely and present a more organized appearance to the living room by defining the living room area from the area where the dinning table sits. Our living room is really more like a great room in concept with no dining area really set up by wall or partition. So defining the room area by carpet seems to works for us.

Kim has posted some photos on her BLOG http://www.quiltingmemakim.blogspot.com of the Friday souk and also our carpets.

On an extremely sad note, Kimberly’s father, James Ronald Nill, passed away earlier this week. (1 January 1937 – 8 July 2008) He will be truly missed by those that called him friend and those that loved him, and I count myself as one. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery 26 August 2008, so I will be traveling to the states for the funeral. Kim has decided to finish her Kuwait vacation and return as originally scheduled on 9 August 2008.