Leaving Kuwait

I'm in Doha, Qatar now... or at least in the airport. I've been here about 6 hours now, and I have 5 more to go before I board another plane tonight. It's not as bad as it sounds. While I hadn't made arrangements to have a room in the hotel before I left Kuwait, they've been kind enough to give me free meals for my lay-over, and I'm allowed to use the quiet rooms. I was actually looking for a washroom when I found an electric socket and decided to plonk myself by this pretty window-wall. I've been surfing the internet and watching planes take off for the past few hours.

I've always wanted to watch The Terminal in an airport, but I don't have a good copy. I started watching it an hour ago, and it stopped working once I'd gotten into the plot!!!

I've been lucky to have been entertained by my friend MJ - he's been telling me how people get married in Kuwaiti tradition, and how funerals are. He's even let me know that there's a cemetery where I least expected one to be, in Kuwait City...

I found the entire first season of I Shouldn't Be Alive on my laptop and I'm slowly watching through them. Wow, I am thankful to be in an airport, bored but safe! I've just been watching one where a couple and baby drive across the States to visit family and then get stuck in a national park during a blizzard. They were out in the cold (or in a cave or cold car) for NINE days before they were found!! 

Anyway. A green helicopter just landed and I've started to play the helicopter game. Who's with me?!

http://www.helicoptergame.net/

My visit to Kuwait

Meet my sister, Luiza. She goes to U of A, in Edmonton, and she's studying psychology to become a speech therapist. She likes to sleep a lot, she's recently started running, and she is a mean swimmer!

Since arriving in Kuwait, I have been a little jet-lagged. I would wake up early (6/7) and crash at around 9pm at night. To make this work, I developed a morning routine that consisted of reading the paper in the morning, cutting out interesting articles, high-lighting cool TV shows to watch, and checking my email. I have loved being awake in the early morning – makes me feel like there's more time in the day :) I recently tried this organic apple and raspberry drink and it was interesting.

 

 

Just before I left Canada, while I was at an AIESEC conference in Ottawa, my phone drowned and hasn't worked since. Everyone keeps telling me that I need a phone (I don't 100% agree) but I decided to look around at the prices around here. I fell in love with a phone, that wasn't too expensive, and we were on a mission to find out which store sells it for the cheapest price. One day we went to the biggest mall in Kuwait, The Avenues. This place is so big, they have 2x Columbus cafe's, at least 7x Starbucks, 3x H&M's and more stores than you can imagine. They also have a huge IKEA.

We also did some shopping, in order to get things to make a yummy lunch! We made soy beans with peanut sauce, and asparagus with butery-garlic sauce.

 

As well as eating well in Kuwait, I have been exercising quite a lot. I've been alternating between running, stair-climbing and swimming. I've slowly increased my workouts to be able to do 40 minutes of running, 3000m of swimming in 1.5 hours, and I can now climb 60 floors of stairs in a row, in 25 minutes. It's great to be able to see improvements in such a short time (I'm only here for 2 weeks), and I am certain that the hot weather allows my muscles to heal faster! I'm thankful for that, because running outside in a sauna is HARD!

My sister and I go for walks around the campus when we're bored.

Yesterday, I went swimming, and did 120 laps = 3000m. This is the furthest I've ever swam! I decided to do 50 laps at a time, with tanning breaks in between. This way I wasn't getting bored, and I could cool-off with a swim. Some people may not like swimming caps, but I can't swim without one. I always feel like my hair would suffocate me.

After swimming, we cooled off at home watching Grey's Anatomy and eating a delicious salad. I then checked my email to see if I had some work to do, and watched the women's tennis finals. It was a great match, and it got intense at the end of the second set! As soon as the tennis ended, my mum drove us to my friend Fadey's house.

 

        
It was a great night! After pool, we went back to Fadey's and got some Fatayer, which is sort of  wrapped-up pancakes with savoury stuff inside. I love cheese and tomato ones. I went to bed soon after I got home, it was a long day :)