2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

I am sitting at Dunkin Donuts surfing the web trying to kill time while Nat finishes her shopping spree. Its raining outside which means its snowing in the mountains. We still don’t have plans for tonight, we have a couple of options ranging from clubs to gatherings but for some reason we still haven’t decided what to do.

We come back to Kuwait tomorrow afternoon. I miss Geo.

I hadn’t been out clubbing since I graduated from university back in 2001 until last night. Me and Nat went to this club in Beirut called Basement. Its literally a basement located in a really old building. There was a long line outside but we went with Nats sister who works for Red Bull and she managed to get us some last minute seat reservations at the bar.

We got there at 11PM when the place barely had 30 people. We left at 3AM when we barely were able to pass through the crowd to get to the exit.

It was a lot of fun, I had 6 glasses of vodka with ice and 3 shots of I don’t know what and now I have a really bad hangover. I hate hangovers.

This is a picture of my rental car. Its a Renault Megane, 1.6liter engine with 16 valves. The car has turned out to be a lot cooler then I expected it to be. Although on paper the car specs don’t sound like much out on the streets the car packs a bit of punch. The acceleration is pretty cool and the handling is pretty tight. Best part about the car is you get great mileage. In Lebanon where gas is expensive it really makes a difference.

Other then the gas issue driving in Lebanon is actually pretty relaxing. No rules, no cops, no limits. You can do anything you want and you don’t have to worry about any cops busting you.

Well you can imagine, I am in Lebanon and its my first vacation in a long time so its not like I am going to be hanging around my computer. I have been out of the house all day and I am just back now to change before I go to this club called Basement.

Although I am Lebanese people here in Lebanon when they hear you are coming from Kuwait they think you are fully loaded. It doesn’t matter if you are Lebanese, Kuwaiti or whatever, if you are coming from the Gulf then you have money to spend.

I was supposed to rent a Peugeot 307 from this local rental place here in Lebanon for like $40 a day. So yesterday at 9PM we call the guy to confirm and he is like yeah don’t worry when you come here if we don’t have the 307 you will have a whole range of cars to choose from. i was like cool. So I am now in Lebanon, I call the guy and guess what? He only has a BMW X5 available for $150 a day. Yeah right fucker I am going to rent an X5 from you instead of a Peugeot. Whatever. At least if you are going to rip me off do it gently. Go up 1 level to like $60. Tell me sorry we don’t have a Peugeot but for just $20 more you can get a BMW 1-series. Maybe then I would have considered it but don’t triple my budget up to an X5!

We made a few calls and I just scored a 2007 Renault Megane for $45 a day. Hopefully its the hatchback version and in black.

Me and Nat just got to our Jazeera Airways gate and noticed they were boarding people onto the plane. I thought that was weird since it was like 50 minutes ahead of time. Nat wanted to get coffee I told her we didn’t have time they were boarding the flight.

We checked into our gate, gave them our boarding pass and they then led us into a very tiny over crowded room located just before the door to the plane. I was like WTF? Turns out they weren’t boarding the passengers just making it look like they were boarding to the people who were still outside the gate. We were tricked!

So we are standing in this tiny over crowded room with barely any seating while right outside this door lied the main boarding lounge for the gate. How messed up, they herded us all into this tiny room just so it looks like we are boarding so people would come in. I am really pissed. I told the Jazeera guy I was going to be outside getting coffee, he took my boarding pass and kept it with him. Now they can basically leave without me.

This is really a cheap ass move by Jazeera Airways. Can’t believe they are still shoving more people into that tiny room its really packed!

It’s 6:15AM and I am getting ready to leave my house. Everything is packed just need to shutdown my computer. Will try to post from Lebanon, it might mostly be pictures will see.

I spent all day today getting some paperwork done. First I went in the morning to get my motorbike driving license. I passed the test like 2 weeks ago but I never got around to exchanging my learners permit for the actual license. When I got to the place in Jabriya it turned out I had a lot of papers missing, so I had to go back home, get the papers and drive back to Jabriya. The whole process took over 2 hours but I now have my motorbike license.

One thing I found strange is I now have to separate driving licenses, one for riding and one for driving. The new redesigned license has icons in the back for riding, truck driving, car driving etc.. and they mark under each what you are qualified to operate. I figured they would print me out a new card stating I can drive a car and ride a motorbike but instead they printed me a card that says that I can ride a motorbike. Now I have two licenses which are exactly the same except for the little marking in the back. It would have been more practical to just combine the two in one card.. weird why they don’t do that.

Later in the afternoon I had to go to this other place in Shuwaikh to transfer my car into my name. I just finished paying the installments for it and I had to meet a mandoob (the person who does the paperwork) there to transfer the car in my name. That operation also took 2 hours. It would have finished a lot sooner if the employees actually came to work on time. My mandoob had to wait 45 minutes in line waiting for the employee to come in. When the employee finally arrived the line was super long but he didn’t seem to care, he sat down, ordered his tea, spoke to his friend on the phone and THEN started signing the papers. Mandoobs have a lot of patience.

So now I am home, my flight to Lebanon leaves early tomorrow morning so I am packing my bag. We are going for 6 days but Nat is taking practically all her winter and summer clothes. Whenever I say anything about it she yells at me telling me girls are not like guys and she can’t just take just 2 t-shirts and a jeans. “She has to be prepared for any scenario”.

Anyway, I am checking the site statistics and I might hit 100,000 unique users for this month by tonight. Thats 5 days ahead of schedule, pretty cool.

note: thats not my real date of birth in the picture, its their own creation.

I don’t know when this happened but you can now pay for your traffic violations online. Thats pretty cool. [Link]

Thanks Vampire

Saw a picture of poster on Hanan’s blog taken in Kaifan today. Basically the poster tells Muslims not to wish Christians a Merry Christmas. Now while checking Digg I also found an article by the Herald Tribune on this issue, about how some Muslim extremist are telling people not to wish Christians a Merry Christmas. I found this all very depressing. If Muslims are being advised not to wish us a Merry Christmas then I doubt they will be legalizing alcohol anytime soon…

Here is a link to Hana’s blog with the poster
Here is a link to the Herald Tribune’s article

Since no one ever agrees to buy me toys for Christmas I end up having to buy them for myself. This year I bought myself a radio controlled car and a Lego Technic set.

Anyone noticed Marina Mall still has the Ramadan decorations up where the water fountain is? I asked a friend why they hadn’t removed it yet and he told me he heard that Marina Mall hadn’t paid the suppliers yet for the decorations and so the supplier decided he wouldn’t remove the decorations until he had gotten paid. Whatever the case, I found this years decorations not very tasteful anyway and its a shame they have the fountain covered up at the moment.

I was parking my car outside Sultan Center in Salmiya when I first spotted this place. Its located in the backside area near the clinic and because of the name I felt I had to try their shawermas.

After I was done shopping I put the bags in the trunk of my car and walked over to Shoo? Shawerma to order some food. I ordered two chicken shawermas with no pickles and a coke. Total price? 800fils. I was like “fuckin A” this must be some seriously good shawerma if they are charging 350 a piece for it. So, I picked up my two shawermas and headed to the car where I started eating them.

After my first bite I turned around and told Nat this was a 2.5, but the more I ate it the more I hated it. The shawerma was really bad, like really bad. It tasted really greasy and the garlic flavor was no where to be found so there was nothing to cover up the god awful taste of the chicken. It was so bad that once I was done with my first shawerma I threw the second one away. I had NEVER done that before!

Now if this was any ordinary crappy place selling shawermas for 200fils then I might expect something this bad, but 350fils for a shawerma, thats the big league, fuck that, thats the super league. Most top scoring shawerma places charge 300 fils for a shawerma and this joint was charging 350 for the worst shawermas I have ever had. Even the Pepsi can was the small 250ml one, who still sells these, even Bader Al Badoor sells the 330ml Coke cans!

So super high price, small Pepsi can, and most importantly the worst shawerma I have ever experienced in my life earned this place half a star out of a possible five. It only got that half star because if I was stuck in the desert with no food except for their shawerma then I would consider eating it.

Can’t believe I started my vacation by getting sick. Sucks.