I’ll be going to Jordan this weekend. To the dead sea to be specific. We booked a hotel by the sea.

This is going to be my first visit to Jordan and my friend hasn’t been there either. We’re going there mainly for relaxation. The daily routine is killing us and we need a change. We’ll try and enjoy the sea, swimming, mud stuff, relaxation and massages… basically minimum muscle movements.

Then I think we’ll go discover other interesting places in Jordan. We’re looking for old souks, old streets.. you know get an idea about the culture and ofcourse the food.

You may ask why the dead sea? why Jordan? well.. Because the lovely people of Kuwait left us no other options! all the tickets are booked for this weekend!

I got it at the airport right after coming back from my trip, its really good in quality compared to the old one, and it looks good with the smart chip which Yousef’s wrote about it long back Here. And if you notice the GCC logo is attached on the back of the card itself.

Oh and by the way, if your current old ID is still valid, you can’t replace it with the new one due to the amount of people and the long queues.

you can find more details about it Here

We went to AlHambra restaurant at the Sheraton the other day. We had a very bad experience over there. Something major went wrong with the dessert so we called the manager. He handled the problem in the worst way possible, I decided to leave the place and head back home, but my friend was so offended by the way he was treated that he stayed and took the problem to a higher level, then higher, till he reached the general manager.

At that point I was peacefully at home getting ready to sleep. My phone rang as I was getting into bed, and there was my friend telling me the following:

“I told the GM about the problem, and how they handled it, and he was more than great with me, he solved the problem, made feel better and just before leaving he insisted that I accept his offer. You won’t believe his offer.”

Me: What offer?

“He told me that you and your friend are invited to stay for 2 nights at one of the hotel’s suites, either at the 4 points or the Sheraton itself! We chose!”

Me: What!!?

“Even when I told him I’m not sure my friend would accept, he said that he is ready to pick the phone and call you and insist that you accept the offer! he asked for your phone number too”

We’re not decided whether we should accept this offer, but aside from that, isn’t that what all managers should do when a customer isn’t satisfied? I don’t mean every restaurant should get their unsatisfied customers a suite but just be professional about it, go that extra mile and show the people that you care and want to retain them as customers, for life!

They messed up big time, AlHambra and even the Sheraton’s image got shaken that day, but the way they ultimately handled the situation got me sucked right back in.

What do you say? Accept the offer or make a point by not accepting?

Picture

I just came back from Mishref’s Applebees and I’m stuffed. I just ate the perfect Medium Fajita ever!

I don’t usually bother eating at apple bees let alone order a steak dish, But there was no other option (My friend refused to go anywhere outside Mishref). Anyway. When the waitress asked me how I like my steak, I didn’t know what to say, Asking for a medium steak at apple bees is like asking somone to find a humble Kuwaiti; it is impossible. But I thought I’d give it a try..

Glenda: How do you like it to be cooked?

Me: I want a medium steak, but that is impossible to achieve in Kuwait, no one in here serve the steak as requested, in fact, I’ve been to most of Kuwait’s steak-serving restaurants and none brought me a medium steak (Gaucho did a couple of times). Look, I dare you to bring me a medium fajita.

Glenda: *stares at me* Ok I’ll talk to the chef.

My friend at that moment told me “lo 6ag’ha ib bo6ol il ketchup wayid abrak”

But guess what? My speech did it’s magic and I was served the best fajita ever! You know those picture perfect sliced steaks? the dark from the inside then gray from the outside.. That was exactly what I was served and it tasted extremely good.

I would’ve never guessed that of all places, I’d find the perfect medium steak at Apple bees.

I went yesterday to my last diving class for the Advance course I’m taking at Bubbles. It was a night dive. We left the marina at 6:15 and returned sometime around 8:30. It was a 40 minutes dive, I didn’t consume much of my tank, which proved that I was getting better and better at controlling my breathing and that I’m not having a hard time navigating under water.

The night dive is more relaxed than the other dives, and it also kinda humbles you, especially when you get to see the sea creatures, the icky and the marvelous ones. The colors at night are more pronounced, less blue, more natural tones.

As I told you earlier, I’m now done with my advance diving course. I learned the following new things in this course:

1-Navigate using a compass.
2-Natural navigation: The use of compass or observing natural marks and counting steps, so I could dive and come back to my starting point all by myself.
3-Drift diving: as the name suggests; Diving in a drift, go with the flow, which is pretty basic.. and soothing!
4-Search and rescue: How to search for a lost item/person in the sea.
5-Deep diving: We dove to 35 meters under water.
6-And the night dive.

With all that done, I’m now unofficially an advanced diver till I get my license, which is soon

This diving thing got me hooked. I don’t know why but it feels like this is something that should’ve happened long time ago, I’m enjoying it a bit too much.

I bought this box of chewing gum a couple of weeks ago for my friends at the chalet, and I can’t get enough of them ever since. I finished the first batch and now I’m half way through the second one

It also brings back so many memories!

I’ve always had this question in mind while traveling, and now since its travels time for most of us, please do tell how you deal with this issue:

While traveling, do you do your prayers as usual? Do you shorten and combine them (Jam3 o Qaser? Or does it depend on how long your stay abroad is?

To me, I’ve asked around a lot and came up with my own collective answer: I combine and shorten the prayers if the trip is for less than 10 days. If its more, I just combine them.

I finished my beginner course on saturday and the only thing left is to have the written exam to get my diving license for beginners.

Lets begin with the review. This time I’ll divide the review to parts and talk about each part separately. There is going to be 5 parts: Safety, Professionalism, Atmosphere, Fun and overall satisfaction.
Read the rest of this entry »

I had my first backstab experience at work today. At first I was kind of shocked, but then that subsided and I’m left with disgust. I don’t feel betrayed, coz the backstabber had no grounds for their accusation, but I’m just amazed at some people’s ability to do such things.. Froid needs to study this person.

Have you ever been backstabbed at work? How did you deal with it?

I’ve been attending diving classes for the past 3 days at Bubbles diving center. I don’t know how my friend bo9ale7 convinced me to join, I’m not the sportish type; I never really think of ‘activity’ when considering an outing… coz well, let’s just say I’m more of a restaurants person But I wouldn’t have thought that I’d enjoy diving this much!

The diving lessons started on Monday and will be ending on Saturday. Over the last 2 days we were studying the basics of diving with Captain Abdulrahman AlSarheed over at Bubbles diving center. The classes were very informative, and have done a nice job preparing us for the real thing.

Today, the 3rd day into the course, we got to practice what we were taught. We went to a huge swimming pool in Al Araby club in AlMansouriya. The experience was magical. Going in with all those diving gears and breathing under water was one of the most special things I’ve done, ever.

I’m too tired to keep writing after the dip in the pool, but rest assured a full review of the experience and Bubbles diving center will be published once I get my Beginners License.

I don’t know if this ever happened to you, but yesterday I was heading to the Avenues for lunch and just 3 minutes before reaching the mall I looked at what I was wearing and discovered that I was wearing my house slippers instead of a real decent ones! It was hilarious discovering that. I was about to turn back home but thankfully my friends were there ahead of me, so they bought me a pair of Crocs and brought them down to me in the parking lot..

Ali just sent me this picture telling me its raining now in north Kuwait with a heavy rain. Guys its June I’ve just checked the temperature & it’s 43C!

Update By Yousef:

It rained in Kuwait City too!

Fawaz was just in Murgab and took this picture!

Since the last month i was in a blue amber mode, so i was busy contacting some sellers for making blue amber misbah, I even bought 2 rocks of blue amber to get it done here in Kuwait, at that time my wife was watching me quitly until i decided to get into the second step which was buying a new misbah from one of my online friends, which was kind of very pricey. At that point specifically before transfering the amount of money to my friend, my wife saddenly says WAIT! dont buy it… i said to her why? she said open the drawer and look there.

Read the rest of this entry »

^He sent me this picture with a very mean subject line! I’m so envying him right now and I have a strong feeling that he’ll choke on the first thing he put in his mouth

Note to Mom: I know you are reading this post, look, I know I said that I won’t travel with you guys this summer, but I’m having second thoughts now.

Ana ga3ed ebhal7ar wohwa raye7 “iteshagag fe roboo3 swaisra*”!!

*in which Kuwaiti (mosalsal) soap opera was this line said and by who? First one to give the correct answer will get a standing ovation from Mishary.

We went to Garoh island last weekend, it was my first time to go to Garoh, and let me tell you how would you feel if you ever went there:

1-On the way there and just before you get to the island, the sea will smell like you’re at a gas station. The sea reeks of gazoline. Big circles of transparent oils are floating everywhere. And just so you know, thats why it was called Garoh. Garoh is a word derived from Gar, which somehow meant Oil/Petrol long time ago.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tetris celebrated it’s 25th years anniversary this week. What do you think of this game? I think it was brilliant and was destined to be a classic.

I remember the first time I played tetris was sometime in the winter of 1990, yep Kuwait was still invaded and we were in france visiting my aunt. I remember I got to play with my aunt’s gameboy and trying tetris for the first time. I was soooo taken away and just couldn’t believe how my luck sucked at the time coz I only discovered this game the day we were leaving france.

I then got another glimpse at this incredible game when we went to Bahrain, in ramadan of 1991, Kuwait was just freed by then. I remember one Kuwaiti girl on our block had the gameboy and we all played together so I was always asking her to play with her gameboy.

I remember I was jumping with joy after visiting my aunt in Kuwait for the first time right after the invasion, coz she had just bought me one from france! I couldn’t believe it lol! I remember that I got to boss my little brother around in order to let him play with my gameboy… well, I bossed him around till my parent got him later the game gear.

Update:

I realized that this was my second mention of the invasion time and it’s also of a happy memory, and that this could lead people who don’t know how old I am or even foreigners to believe that we and Kuwaitis in general weren’t caring enough about their country back then, and I could be misrepresenting Kuwaitis in general (some of Kuwait haters used to say that we were indifferent to that fact that our country was at war). So, just in case, I’d like to say that I was 7-8 years old back then, and thats why all of my memories of that time are happy ones. Sorry, I just had to mention that

I finished The Lovely bones, which was a bit of a letdown. I mean people were praising it on the net and then book started out very promising, but throughout the book I was waiting for it to grab me, to get me hooked, but it didn’t. I finished it because I wanted to know what was going to happen to the killer.

As I was reading this book I was thinking to myself that it isn’t as good as I had hoped but that it would make a great movie. I just had a hunch about it, and just a few days ago I learned that it is a movie in the making starring Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg & Susan Sarandon. It’ll be out in theaters on december 2009.

I bought 2 more books from Bahrain last week and they’re sitting there with the other pile of books that I bought. I read some but only finished the lovely bones. The 2 books above are The Night of the Miraj, and The Pillars Of The Earth. The latter was mentioned and praised on Intlxpatr’s blog a long time ago and I finally got around to buying it.

I need a couple of weeks off just to read all the books I have piled up.

I have been encountering some idiots on the roads lately, well we all have, but there is a new kind of idiots. Let me explain!

You know when you’re in a hurry and driving on the left lane and you’ve got a car in front of you that just won’t move to the right? Well, I don’t like to flash the cars in front of me so I get close, then too close. As a last resort I turn up the headlights once or twice so they could wake up and move to the right. Anyway, nowadays there is a new kind of angry drivers on the scene so beware! They won’t move to the right until they see a road camera coming up, and that’s when they speed up a bit, making you do the same, then they move to the right and hit their breaks so you end up getting caught by the camera!

It happened to me more than once now, and thankfully I was always aware that there was a camera ahead. But still, what kind of a sick person would do such a thing!? And why are they so offended by the thought of giving way that they had to have some sort of a revenge?!

We were in Spain the summer of 1990, we had a nice beginning for a very promising summer vacation. Then we headed to nice, we stayed at my uncle’s place, and that was when we got the news that Iraq have invaded Kuwait.
Read the rest of this entry »

Phew! I just entered the house after a very busy trip to Bahrain. It feels like I’ve been running since thursday afternoon.

This trip was in the works for a long time, 2 weeks to be specific, but then at the beginning of last week it was kind of scrapped due to not being serious enough to book hotel room nor deciding on whether to go by car or plane. But then on wednesday, at 9:15pm, my friend decided to bring this trip up and insist on it. We looked at the time, 9:20pm, and decided there was still time to catch the quick service, to check up the car and prepare it for tomorrow’s trip. I changed the tires, the breaks, the front discs, the battery, among other stuff.. a’3la min bai3 ilsoog, I know. Everything was in a hurry, even the hotel was reserved on our way to Bahrain.

I don’t know why the way back to Kuwait feels much shorter than the way to Bahrain.. On our way there we were really bored and even felt like we might have lost our way coz it was so damn boring waiting to get there! It felt like downloading 500MB using a dialup! yeah thats exactly how it felt..

But hey, nevertheless, we had so much fun over there and I took many pictures to share with you guys. I’ll share them all once I get some rest.. I’m exhausted at the moment.