No Water, No Juice, NO WAY!

Whenever I come back home from anywhere, I wash my hands. It's just a habit. So, I went to wash my hands a few days ago. Low and behold no water came out of the faucet. Apparently, we used up all the water in the tank. I didn't even know we had water in a tank. I just thought the water came through the pipes from a central water location. It's much more complicated than that and although we get water from the city supply, we also have a tank of water. The whole thing was weird to me, but Scott seemed to understand what was going on. Long story short, we had water again the next day. Kasim came by and took a look & told us that if we didn't have water the next day to call him & he'd call the water people to fill up our tank. Since we couldn't run the dish washer, Scott was a good sport and washed the dishes by hand. He's a very handy person to have around during a crisis.

Benny and I pretty much stayed indoors the entire week. Other than meeting Scott for lunch on Thursday, I didn't go anywhere. I didn't want to go anywhere & I don't want to go anywhere next week either. Heck, I don't want to go anywhere until November! It is so hot, that it's truly painful to go outside. It really is a heat I've never experienced before. Memphis was hot & humid, but not like this! We're miserable. I have a few projects at home to keep me busy. I finished one which was to go through all my documents and papers I've filed away over the years. I kept only the most recent & important stuff and shredded the rest. I'm reading a lot & working out everyday, which has been nice. Benny also keeps me busy. I don't get to sit for long periods. He always pops his head on the sofa next to me with either a ball or stuffed toy in his mouth. He has me chase him around a little then he goes out and sits in the sun for a while. Ten minutes later, he's at the door to come in panting like a maniac. I let him in and he collapses on the cool floor for about 30-minutes.

As much as I'd like to just camp out indoors in the air-conditioned house, Scott and I decided to venture out today. We've been wanting to go to the Bahrain Museum since we arrived here 9-months ago. We figured it would be a good indoor, air-conditioned activity. Plus, it's about 5-minutes away from the house and right next to a Lebanese restaurant we've been wanting to try. So, we went. The place was pretty much deserted. There were only a few other people there with us. We always do things early, especially compared to people here, so maybe more would show up later in the day. Who knows?

We were pretty impressed with the museum. We first saw an art show of paintings done Rashid Al Khalifa. We know he's related to the royal family by his last name, but we don't know how he's related. Anyhow, the paintings were nice. Not great....to me, but I'm sure some people probably would love them. We then walked through the rest of the museum, which had areas related to ancient discoveries, burial grounds, early lifestyles, and documents & literature. We saw a lot of interesting stuff. Bahrain is known for its pearls and we saw a lot of "stuff" related to pearl diving of long ago. Bahrain is also known for its pottery and there were many pieces of ancient pottery that's been discovered and put on display. I think my favorite thing was the tombstones. When someone died, they made a clay sculpture of that person as their tombstone. I found that interesting. Another area Scott & I both really liked was the lifestyle section. They had these scenes set up depicting early Bahraini life. From outdoor markets, coffee shops, bread makers, pharmacies, mattress makers, etc... we really enjoyed walking through and looking at what life long ago was once like. I loved that they had a display regarding the evil eye. You know that you are definitely in a middle eastern museum when they talk about the evil eye. There were also displays that explain their sexist view points which I will never understand. I keep reminding myself how lucky I am to be an American woman.

After the museum and since we were starving, we drove a few minutes away to a Lebanese restaurant. As usual we were earlier than most when it came to eating. There were people at one other table when we got there and by the time we left there were about 4 tables of people. The menu was fairly large, but we narrowed down our order. I had been looking forward to ordering a freshly squeezed glass of mango juice. So, I ordered it. The waitress then told me they didn't have mango juice. They had all the other juices (8 choices) but not mango. A little bummed out, but I decided on watermelon juice. No problem. Then it was Scott's turn. Remember, she said they had all juices but mango. Scott ordered pomegranate juice. Oops! They didn't have that either!! I swear, we looked at eachother like, huh? Is this possible? So, Scott ordered watermelon as well. Next was the food ordering time. I ordered koshary, a typical middle eastern (really Egyptian) meal of lentils, rice & noodles. Scott ordered a seafood salad & we wanted to start with falafel. No falafel. What Lebanese restaurant doesn't have any falafel? OK. We ordered this bread with meat and hummus. After what seemed an eternity, our food came. As she was putting our food on the table, she tells Scott that there was no seafood salad. It was comical! She handed Scott the menu to choose something else, but he opted out of that. Really, there was no guarantee that they would have anything else we wanted to order. We shared the food we had which was more than enough. Needless to say, we will never be going there again! What a joke. At least the food that we ate was good.

Stars, Stripes, and Stitches

Reality quickly set in that we are no longer in Italy. Scott went back to work. I'm bored. Benny is as needy as ever. We're all HOT! It's going to be a long summer! As happy as I was to be done with work, I'm kind of ready to go back. I'm sure that once it's time to go back to work, however, I'm going to want to be off of work. It's a horrible cycle!

This was the first 4th of July that I didn't get to see any live fireworks. A year ago, we were sitting outside with neighbors in Memphis watching a spectacular fireworks show. The year before that we were at a minor league baseball game in Memphis which was followed by a fireworks show. The year before that we were watching fireworks from my balcony in LA, where I could see the show from Santa Monica, Venice & Marina del Rey. Scott had also proposed 3-days earlier, so it was our first "holiday" together. Time is just zipping by.

We did have a very nice treat this 4th of July here in Bahrain. We were treated to a delicious meal of grilled steak, baked potatoes, corn on the cob, potato salad, coleslaw, & watermelon. It was all thanks to Harris Ranch Steaks from Central California. A team of people from the restaurant came over here and grilled these amazing steaks in triple digit heat. We were really amazed at what a wonderful job they did. The steaks were apparently flown here on ice...not frozen. The plane had to land at one point just so that they could change the ice. The meat was so tender and juicy. We were really grateful. It was all free, too! I looked up their menu on-line later the next day & found what I believe was the steak we were served. It sells for $30.95 at the restaurant. Can you imagine what it cost to feed 4,000 of us? So, although there were no fireworks in the evening, we ate well! The fireworks were going off in our mouths.

Speaking of eating well, well, we really are! One of the main things to do here in Bahrain is to go to a Friday brunch which is usually offered at all the hotels here. Friday in Bahrain is similar to Sunday in the states. We're off on Friday and Saturday. We work Sunday through Thursday. So, since Friday is the muslim prayer day, these hotels offer these brunches so that people can go pray & then come eat. Needless to say, we all go to the brunches. Yesterday we went and pigged-out at The Golden Tulip Hotel. It's very hard for me to describe the amount of food that is put out. I can comfortably say there are close to 200 food choices. In addition to the prepared food, they have a raw fish and meat section. You go & choose your specific fish & meat & tell them how you want it prepared. They then take it to the kitchen and bring it to your table. Finally, there's the dessert section. There are probably close to 50 desserts to choose form as well. How do you narrow it down? It all looks so good. I went in with a plan and I stuck to it... pretty much. I went a little overboard with the dessert. Oh well! I worked-out for an hour when I got home & I was so full that I didn't eat anything else until this morning. Scott, on the other hand, took a nap & read his book! Although fun, they are not cheap. They cost about $50 per person. We have two other brunches we want to try. We've got 15-months to fit them in. So, we figure every 6-months we'll go to brunch. It's really hard to believe, but we have been in Bahrain for 9-months! We're hoping to hear of our next assignment before the first of the year... possible even late this summer. As soon as I hear, you'll know all about it!

Finally, Benny had his stitches removed today. He did great. He's the only dog I've ever had that loves going to the vet. His tail doesn't stop wagging. He makes friends with everyone. He was so cute. He jumped up on a seat and sat down in the waiting room, excitedly waiting for his turn. Scott took him into the exam room because I didn't want to watch the stitches being pulled out. We also had Benny's toe nails clipped, they had grown so long all of a sudden. Anyhow, Scott came out and told me that the vet said Benny's too fat! I'm so upset! He is pudgy, I agree...but he's not fat. Poor guy has nowhere to run around like he used to. Other than walks, he can't exercise. Now that the stitches are out, I'm hoping to get him back in the pool & swimming. So now, I have to limit his treats & cut down on his food. I can just see his sad eyes looking at me now. We have to do it, though. We want him around for as long as possible!

Back to Italy

One of the perks of being in the military is that you can fly the chartered plane that transports service members & their families to their new duty station on a "space available" basis. In other words, if there's space on the plane, you've got a seat. This is great, especially because it's free! The down side is that you can't make definite plans & you have to be flexible with your travel plans. You are at the mercy of the plane's schedule. Fortunately for Scott and I, we were able to get seats to Sigonella (Sicily) & then seats back to Bahrain flying from Naples. Unfortunately for Scott & I, the plane left Norfolk 2-days late. So, we missed two days in Italy. The worst part is that we missed our time In La Maddalena, which is a small Island that Scott was stationed on a few years before we met. I was so excited to go there & Scott was excited to show me around & introduce me to some friends who still live there. Oh well! We hope to get there on our next trip out to Italy.

We landed in Sigonella at about noon. We needed to catch a bus from base to drive us to Sicily. We were initially told the bus stop was right outside the entrance to the base. Once we walked there, the guys out front told us that we actually had to walk about 1/2 a mile to the stop. So, we started walking. Suitcases and all. We walked along a country road which to me was classic old style Italy. We saw some goats & a ton of wild flowers. As we were walking the road suddenly narrowed into just one lane. As we were approaching the lane, I mentioned to Scott to be careful because the people drive like maniacs. Just as we entered the scary part, a Military Police car approached us. I thought we were definitely in trouble for walking on this dangerous road. Well, we weren't in trouble. It was the guys who told us to walk to the stop. They ended up giving us a ride. I don't know for sure, but I think they realized or were told that there was a stop right outside base. We appreciated the ride. I was happy to walk in beautiful weather and see a bit of the countryside.

The bus came about 10-minutes after we sat at the stop. A typical Italian bus driver type was our driver. He practically ran Scott over as he pulled the bus over with cigarette in one hand and cell phone in the other. We went in the bus and he went out. He disappeared for about 10-minutes. At one point I saw him smoking another cigarette. Whatever. Let's just get going. We were really tired at this point. We were alone in the bus for quite a while. As we approached the beach area, the bus quickly filled up. We had no idea where to get off. Scott told the driver the name of the street we needed & at one point, we were suddenly grabbing our suitcases and jumping off the bus. He told us to walk up the street & we'd find our hotel. We stuck out like sore thumbs. At one point we thought the driver had no idea what he was talking about. We couldn't find the hotel. We found the street & building with the number of the address, but did not see a hotel. Scott stopped in a bakery & asked and sure enough our hotel was within this apartment building. We had to climb about five flights of stairs (not good for the disabled population) and we were there. It was a very cute & modern place. It seemed to be a big apartment divided into private rooms. At the end of the hallway was the kitchen where we had breakfast the next morning. I always love the complimentary breakfasts we get when we stay in Italy!

We walked around a bit and had a great Sicilian dinner. As usual, we were the first ones in the restaurant. We went to eat at about 7:30pm and there was no one there. They started showing up closer to 9pm. We just can't wait that long to eat. We were most likely asleep when most people were starting their evening festivities.

Early the next day, after breakfast, we took a cab to the airport to pick up our rental car. All the cars were stick shift, so I could not do any of the driving. I am so happy to not have needed to drive. I don't think I could have maneuvered the streets with all the crazy drivers. Scott did a great job getting us to where we needed to go. We were supposed to get a VW Golf but ended up with a Hyundai. Whatever! It got us to all of our destinations. We drove to the ferry port. We drove the car onto the ferry & about an hour later we were on mainland Italy. Once off the Ferry we set out on a 7-hour drive to our location in Naples. Along the way we drove to Amalfi. It was absolutely gorgeous! Fortunately, we had really great weather the entire trip. Amalfi itself was super crowded. We could not park and walk around much. We drove to a neighboring little area and ate at a really delicious pizzeria. We had traditional buffalo mozzarella & prosciutto as well as mushroom pizza. It was delicious. I could not eat more than one slice of pizza, so we didn't eat all our food. The waiter commented about that and I felt like we were insulting them by sending food back. I couldn't help it. I wasn't going to eat it just to eat it. When we waddled back to the car we noticed we had a parking ticket! Crap! According to what we could make out on the ticket, which was in Italian, we were blocking the driveway of the house we parked in front of. Of course, we weren't. We really weren't! Now, what do you do about a parking ticket on a rental car in a foreign country? According to Scott's friend in Naples, "Nothing. You throw it away." I hope he's right!

I didn't care much for Naples. It's a dirty city. There's trash all over the streets. Apparently the mob owns the dumps and they stopped collecting trash for a while. At one point it was a horrible living situation. This mess we saw was apparently pretty good living. There were also tons of stray dogs. We saw some sad stuff. I can't seem to escape these stray dogs! We stayed at the Navy Inn on base. It was OK. The price was great & the location good. Really, as long as I have a good shower & bed....and wifi....I'm good to go. We enjoyed our stay.

We took the ferry from Naples to the island of Capri. Capri is beautiful! We had a really nice time there. We took a boat out to see the blue hole. The blue hole is a cave filled with the bluest water you've ever seen. It was gorgeous. It was a busy day there, so our boat waited about 45-minutes before the little boats came to get us 3-4 at a time to go into the cave. We had to squeeze in by laying down flat. Along with Scott & I we had a mother-son couple. They were from Germany. Jon was adorable. He's 13 and travels all over the world with his mom. When I asked about his dad he told me, "He's in Germany to make the money." We exchanged e-mail. We'll see if he ever e-mails me. His mom was a bit much. She did not stop talking! We loved our blue hole experience. With all the boat riding time & waiting time to get in the cave I expected a bit more than we got. We were in the cave for about 2-minutes. I don't know what else we could have done in there but it just seemed to end so quickly. It was beautiful and is a must see!

We toured Naples, eating a lot of pizza. I also loved these cookies with an apricot filling. I can eat like a dozen of those....especially with a good cup of coffee or tea. Yum! We went to the city of Pompei. Pompei was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesusius approximately 50 years after Christ. It's been completely excavated. It was amazing to walk through this ancient city. Fortunately for me, Scott likes reading maps & is good at it. I am horrible at map reading. He found all the important and unusual parts of the city we needed to see. We opted out of a tour so that we could go where we wanted to go at our own pace. We had climbed over a mile the day before to get to the top of Capri. The view made it worth it, but oh my goodness! We were exhausted. I thought I was going to throw-up at one point! We didn't feel like climbing again so we didn't go to Mt. Vesuvius. We had a great view of it and that's all that mattered.

Our final night in Naples was spent with some of Scott's friends. We ate at a hole-in-the-wall local restaurant that only serves fish and fruit. Unfortunately, all the fish is fried. I don't do well with fried food. It makes me sick. So, I felt like a total pain ordering my meal, but I ended up with the only thing not fried.....3 large prawns, grilled. They were very good. I also tried this classic Neapolitan dish of fried dough with seaweed. It was actually pretty good. We had a great time & it's always nice to eat at a local hangout. We flew home on time the next day. We left beautiful weather and walked off the plane to 95-degrees at 6:30 in the morning here in Bahrain. Fun! We were happy to be home, though. It's always nice to get home.

As for Benny, he got himself into some trouble at his boarding facility. He's fine, but poor guy has 7 stitches along the side of his belly. Those of you that know Benny will not be surprised to hear how he hurt himself. Benny will do anything for a ball. And if you play ball with him he will love you forever! Well, one morning, the Indian guys that care for the dogs, opened his gate and he took off to get a ball before the gate was fully opened. A piece of metal was sticking out of the gate & Benny sliced himself open on that piece of metal. He was rushed to the vet where they anesthetized him and stitched him up. Luckily, I left the names of a couple of friends here in case of an emergency. The lady who runs the place didn't ask for any names, but I left them because, honestly, Benny is prone to accidents. I'm not sure why. The only thing I can think of is that he is so impulsive that he gets himself into trouble. Anyhow, he seems fine. The stitches come out next week. The wound looks horrible, but doesn't seem infected or anything. It's always an adventure with Benny boy!