Isn't Tomorrow Supposed to be Twenty-Four Hours from Today?

We moved into our villa on November 6th. Boy were we excited! Finally, we could really unpack our suitcases and settle down for the next two years. I am aware that I am gullible, however, I have been trying to get better about that...which involves not taking people at their word...which I don't like. I have a long road ahead of me because I fell for every line I was given this last week and a half! Kasim, our house watchman was the first to get me. He is a nice, middle-aged Indian man, on the short side, who smells like a spice cabinet with all the really stinky spice jars left open. He is our "go to" guy for any and all problems. Well, I noticed immediately that there were many touch-up areas to be re-painted and I asked him to please re-touch them. He said, "No problem. Tomorrow." Well, that was over a week ago & I'm still looking at the areas that need to be touched up! About half the lights have burnt bulbs. "Tomorrow" Kasim said he'd have them replaced. I'm still peeing in the dark downstairs. Internet and Satellite service were supposed to be set-up "Tomorrow." but we just got the satellite service yesterday & I'm still jumping on to someone else's wireless internet provider out there. Tomorrow never seems to get here!!! Even Benny is tired of hearing about tomorrow!

We really like our place, though and are happy to be here. Our landlord is laying grass out front (unheard of over here) for Benny & he's putting in a doggy door. Once the doggy door is in & I can leave Benny for extended periods of time, I will start job hunting. There are quite a few opportunities here, I just have to decide what I want to do. Last week was spent waiting around for workers. I read two great books, Say You're One of Them & The Lovely Bones. Both sad but inspiring. I've never read two books in a week, but without satellite or internet what was I supposed to do while waiting around the house?! Included are a few pictures of the house. Once we have it set-up like we want, we'll add more.

Kasim comes to clean the house every Monday which is nice. I have to keep Benny out of the house while he cleans because he's afraid of Benny. So, we sit out front & talk to whoever walks by. The street sweepers here are actual men with brooms and a trash can that sweep the streets. There are two of them on our street & they stop by to say hello every day. The labor force here is made up of primarily Indians and Philipinos. Everyone speaks to eachother in English. So a Philipino can speak to a Bengali in English who in turn turns around and speaks to a Bahraini or Saudi in English. It's pretty funny to watch them all talking to eachother. So after Kasim finished cleaning and we came back in the house, I thought to myself, This place stinks! What the heck does he clean with? I opened all the windows, which I normally don't do because of the heat and the fact that there are no screens & I have about 11 mosquito bites on me. The smell was horrible & I was trying to think about how I could tell him.....& then I realized what had happened. He left the gas to one of the stove burners on. So, the house could have blown-up! Now, I have to watch everything he does. A funny story about getting gas here. You have to hook up this big gas tank outside with a hose that sends gas to your oven/stove. When Kasim was setting this up, he could not tell if gas was getting to the stove/oven so he asked me to smell & see if I could smell any gas. The problem was that his body odor was so strong it overpowered the gas smell. I had no idea. He kept asking, You smell, you smell? and I kept saying, I don't know. I really couldn't smell anything but him. Needless to say, it's all working now. I've been cooking up a storm! On the menu tonight: chicken tortilla soup! Even though I'm cooking, we are still going out to eat whenever we have a chance. We went to an area known as Shawarma Alley. It's a long street with Shawarma restaurants all along it. As you walk down the street each restaurant has a worker outside that practically pushes you into their restaurant, which really is like a taco stand in LA. We decided on one and they really treated us like royalty. We LOVED it. Oh was it so, so, so, so good! The meat was so tender and fragrant! We ordered mango juice as our drink. The guy juiced it right there. It was unbelievably fresh. We also tried the falafel & hummus which were to die for.

The malls here are gynormous! They have every store you can imagine and then some. One store they have is called: The Home Store. It's like a high-end Ikea. Our landlord told us to go there and pick out a new sofa & to get new bedding for the bedrooms. Well, how excited was I to shop on someone else's dime? I dragged Scott there & we spent about 2-hours trying to decide and coming to a fair compromise. I found it interesting that they put up signs letting you know what's not on sale, so you don't get confused!

There is a bridge that connects Saudi Arabia to Bahrain. Drinking alcohol is forbidden in Saudi Arabia but not forbidden in Bahrain. Every weekend bahrain is flooded with Saudis (men & women) who cross over to drink. Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. Once they enter Bahrain they rent cars and drive like maniacs. The unspoken rule here is, do not go out on weekends because you might be struck by a drunk Saudi! The excessive drinking they do is really sad. They start drinking at breakfast & they really don't stop. We went out with some friends who had a Saudi friend visiting. He was in his 50's and is apparently worth $6 billion bucks! He payed for everything!!!!!! Scott & I were very uncomfortable around him though. When we first met him at our friend's house he did not want to talk to you unless you had a beer. He & I didn't talk much. He spoke to Scott, though. Anyhow, in the 2-3 hours that we were with him, I witnessed him drink 15 beers. He could not even stand up. Alcohol is not sold in stores here, but is served at restaurants in hotels. I don't know where they get all the beer they drink when they are not in hotels.

Our car is not here yet! We rented a real piece of junk, but it gets us around. I drove a few times. It's pretty easy here. The only danger seems to be at 4-way stops. Noone stops. They all slow down and maneuver around eachother. Scott keeps yelling at me when I stop. That scares the heck out of me. I've been honked at a few times....oh well I just honk right back, but I do not add hand gestures :) I was walking back from the store two days ago & I was crossing the street at one of these 4-way stops. I was 3/4 of the way through the cross walk when this lady all burka'd up decided to turn left without stopping and missed me by about 2-feet. I put my hands up & yelled and she smiled and waved. I think she thought I was saying hello. The guy driving behind her, an American in his pick-up was shaking his head and put his hands up in the what are you gonna do? motion. I just kept walking.

Thanks to everyone who sent those nice messages to Scott thanking him for his service on Veterans Day via facebook & e-mail. I passed them all on to him. We are grateful to have so many wonderful friends! On a sad note, we can't get Glee over here. I am so bummed out about it. We have the upgraded satellite package & the Armed Forces Network which adds extra channels, but no Glee. I am also unable to stream shows via Hulu or other on-line networks. they don't stream outside of the USA. We have one last trick to try & that is to purchase the episodes via i-tunes and play them from the computer to our TV. We will be trying that soon. If not, we'll wait and buy the first season on DVD. We are slowly realizing all the little luxuries we took for granted and are starting to miss!

Well, I guess we're all caught up for now. Sorry about the delay in this post. Now that I have access to the internet, things should be back to normal! Hope you all have a great week!