Tuesday 4/15/2008-Wednesday 4/23/2008
Our 4.5 hour flight from Sri Lanka went rather quickly, and we were greeted by Zein’s husband Yanal next to the Dairy Queen (WAHOO!!). It was amazing to have someone we actually KNOW pick us up from the airport!!! He gave us our first tour of Manama, the capital of Bahrain. Zein, Samia, Tess, Rakan (their adorable one year old) and Cat were our welcoming party at the Jallad house and they prepared an incredibly delicious home cooked meal for us. Dermot and I ate like we had never seen home cooked quiche before, and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing familiar faces and having a home for the next few days! Little does Zein and Yanal know…we hadn’t booked out flights from Bahrain yet—so we could be staying (queue evil laugh)….forevvvvver!!!
On our first morning, we decided to bag our plans to go to the Ritz Carlton’s beach and sleep in. Zein’s friend Karima stopped by with her daughter Noha who is friends with Rakan. We all had Labneh, a traditional Arab breakfast dish, for brunch. It consisted of tasty Lebanese yogurt with fresh veggies and delicious bread. After we fueled up, we got to experience our first Gulf mall—which is essentially where everything is located, including the post office! In a mall!! Zein said that once it gets to the ‘summer months’ it can get up to 140 degrees (with humidity), so everything has to be inside and air conditioned. Yikes—glad we are visiting during the ‘spring’… with temperatures in the mid 80s-90’s.
Zein then gave us a quick driving tour of Bahrain. We were so surprised (cut us some slack, first time to the gulf) to see the highway to Saudi Arabia! Everything is mainly…beige and sand colored or covered in sand. We saw some of the Shiite villages, some more malls and lots of ex-pat compounds. Ironically, there are no beaches on the Island nation of Bahrain…only plans to build huge skyscrapers. Plans to change this in the future will help bring more tourism, as there is very little $$ from tourists in Bahrain.
That night, we headed over to their friend’s compounds (which actually has green grass!) to have a game of soccer ourselves. We played 6 versus 6 on a small field. We were thankful for the ‘small field,’ as it was quite a workout for us. After our football match, we headed back to Zein and Yanal’s place where we had another delicious home cooked meal and hit the hay (They are so amazing at spoiling us!!!).
Again we woke up and decided not to head over to the Ritz Carlton….but we decided that we should probably stop postponing out trip planning ….as we currently are living in Bahrain with no flight out yet!
Zein drove us over to the Indian Embassy in Bahrain to get our Indian visas, which was much more successful then our previous visit to the Indian Embassy in Australia. After submitting our applications, which would be ready in three days, we went to Le Chocolat for lunch with Yanal and Catherine. Very tasty and we were grateful to not be eating with chopsticks!
After lunch, we met up with Samira and got to meet her fiancé Ramon (Congrats again!!!). Back at the house, we decided that we can’t live in Bahrain forever, so we booked our flights to Jordan and India. For dinner we headed out to Kai, a Sushi place in the Golden Tulip, with Aref and Kamira. The sushi, sake and Sapporo were just what the doctor ordered... Back to the house we started to prepare for our Formula One Go-Carting and watched Talladega Nights before heading to bed.
The work week in Bahrain is a bit different than that in the USA. In Bahrain most businesses close on Friday and Saturday and then reopen on Sunday. So even though it was Friday, today was a weekend for Yanal… TGIF has a whole new meaning! Sadly, our plans to go go-karting were cancelled as we woke up to a sand storm. It was very strange to look outside and see everything enveloped in a mist of sand. We started to realize why most things are enclosed in a mall. We decided to instead go see the movie “Drillbit Taylor”…in Seef Mall. We had relatively low expectations going into the movie and were pleasantly surprised by the time we left the movie. It was a stupid funny movie, but it made us laugh.
For lunch, we had Persian food at a restaurant in the mall before heading back to the house to play with Rakan. We continued to plan the rest of our quickly moving trip. For dinner, we went to a place called Thailand which served; you guessed it, Thai food. We had dinner with Yanal, Zein, Ramon, Samia and Catherine. The Tom Yum soup (very very tasty) and walk down memory lane to our trip with the Stratton’s was very delicious.
Again we woke up the remnants of the sand storm, where EVERYTHING was covered in a fine film of sand. This meant that our fun sailing trip to neighboring islands (36 in Bahrian’s archipelago) was also…cancelled. Refusing to be stuck in the house, Katie and Dermot decided to play some tennis. Dermot won (again…ouch) 6-2. We took a quick dip in the pool and then came back inside to get some more trip planning done before heading out to lunch at Café LiLou with Samia, Ramon, Catherine, her husband Edward (we finally got to meet Edward!) and our fabulous hosts, Yanal and Zein. We could tell that café LiLou’s, was one of the best restaurants in Bahrain. The food and fruit shakes were delicious.
After fueling up, we all headed out to the go kart race track, which is next to the Bahrain Grand Prix race track in the middle of the island. We passed the A’Aali Burial Mounds which date back between 3000 BC and 600 AD, reportedly the largest prehistoric cemetery in the world. They basically looked like big ant hills – and most of the tombs had been…you guessed it, raided.
It was cool to see the Grand Prix race track up close and even cooler to race around on the mini-track in go karts next to it. Dermot won the 1st heat, but Yanal won the 2nd and 3rd heats. The men had bigger engines in their cars, so the girls had a good excuse for not winning. All of our arms and hands were very sore from the very life-like race cars—and we really enjoyed ourselves.
After the racing, we headed over to Yanal’s friend Digby’s place for a cookout. Digby and his wife Julia were wonderful hosts, both working in journalism. They cooked us a lovely meal and we had a great night of conversation that ranged from politics to food to traveling. At around 11:30 we began to get sleepy and decided to head home where we watched the latest episode of “So You Think You Can Dance?” before heading to bed. We’ve got to love Bahraini Tivo!
Today was the day that we finally gave the Ritz Carlton beach a chance. It was the only beach in Bahrain, so we had to be pretty sly to ‘sneak’ in…successfully! Zein and Katie enjoyed the cold hand towels served by the staff, while Dermot went swimming in the Arabian Sea and then in the pool.
After a grueling day at the beach, we met Yanal at home for lunch to try Yanal’s mom’s special omelet for lunch. (We could tell you, but we’d have to kill you….haha) Next we started preparing Katie’s Grandma’s famous haloopkis recipe. They take about 5 hours to cook, so we started them at 3 p.m. Dermot watched Rakan and the Aston Villa/Birmingham football match as the ladies cooked. Samia and Catherine joined us for Grandma’s haloopkis, which came out just perfectly. We all headed back to Mai Tai’s at the Ritz Carlton for drinks. We met up with Edward after he finished work (at the Ritz) and we had very fancy named drinks, such as: Tahitian Fog Cutter and Parrot Punch.
Today was a child’s dream come true…we were off to Lost Paradise Water Park in Bahrain. Unfortunately today was probably the coldest day we had while we were in Bahrain, but the water park was a lot of fun. On 30-40 minute drive, Zein found an old mixed tape from when we were in high school…of us singing karaoke. Dermot has sure gotten to see many sides of Katie on this trip!
The waterpark was in the middle of a construction zone with new hotels and home complexes being built all around it. We could barely recoginize the fun… amongst all of the cranes, huge trucks and concrete slabs everywhere. We all agreed that tt was as good as or better than any water park we have been to in the United States, and it was pretty much brand new. After three hours in the almost empty park, we finished our fun filled day with an old American tradition, Fuddruckers for lunch. After lunch we got McDonald’s ice cream sundaes for dessert. It was hard to believe we were away from home! (It was amazing!!) We also passed Chili’s, Dairy Queen, Baskin Robbins and Applebee’s on our way home too— so we may as well been in the states!
When we got back to the house, Zein got ready for the play group she has at her complex every Monday. There is a group of about 10 mothers who get together every Monday. The group feels a bit like the UN as it has members who are originally from Bahrain, Italy, the United States, England, Palestine, and Jordan among others.
We decided to get the gang together and hit a Sheesha café for dinner. The dinner was done in a typical Middle Eastern style with lots of mezzahs. We also enjoyed all different types of sheesha (tobacco mixed with molasses and flavors). The dinner group consisted of about 14 people. It was fun to meet more of Zein and Yanal’s friends and some new locals.
Dermot managed to somehow never step outside the house from the time he got up until after it was dark today. Katie on the other hand spent the day with Zein going for a massage and manicures, exchanging the various currencies we have picked up along the way, picking up our Indian visas and doing some grocery shopping. Dermot planned the itinerary for Jordan and starting looking into India a bit more and of course took breaks from time to time to play some FIFA 08 on the Xbox. We are thoroughly enjoying our downtime and having a REAL house to stay in!!
When Yanal got home, Dermot decided to brave the outdoors and played a tennis match against him. The match was fairly lopsided as Yanal put on a clinic for Dermot who was sent running like a chicken with his head cut off as Yanal effortlessly placed shots into every corner of the court. After a 6-1 drubbing, Dermot showered and then helped Yanal set up the BBQ for dinner. Katie and Zein prepared the food, which Katie then cooked. Samia who came over for dinner made us all “crunchie” brownies. The hamburgers stuffed with blue cheese, hot dogs and salad were great, as were the brownies for dessert. We couldn’t have asked for a more delicious homecooked American meal before we set off tomorrow on the remaining 2.3 months of our trip!
After our meal, we sat down to watch the Liverpool-Chelsea Champions League match. Liverpool looked great at Anfield and thoroughly outplayed Chelsea until the closing minutes when John Arne Riise inexplicably headed in an own goal past Reina in the 95th minute. A match that should have been won was ruined. We went to bed in disbelief, but hope Liverpool will be able to pull off a win when the travel to Chelsea for their second match.
Sad and slightly depressed to be leaving the Jallad’s oasis…we woke up at 7:00 a.m. to finish packing and caught a ride to the airport with Yanal on his way to work. We couldn’t thank them enough for being incredible hosts, doing our laundry, making us feel so at home …so far away from home.