Bahrain Day Trip

After a long week of school, where Tara had to organize Jubail Math Day for our junior high/high school (a three hour math competition among the students), we headed out to Bahrain.  We took a couple of friends with us who needed to pick up a car.  These friends have each been here a long while and know their way around Bahrain quite well.  It was nice to have our own guides because we don't know the island very well.  Here is a little synopses of our day.

We started with breakfasts at Ric's Kountry Kitchen, where we met up with another couple.  Tara had a BACON, egg and cheese biscuit which she fully enjoyed.  I had the American Special which was two eggs, BACON, hashbrowns, and biscuits and gravy.  It was the first bacon we have had since we've been over here.  It was good and very very bad for us (especially mine).  The restaurant was like walking into a small town diner in the U.S.

After breakfast we picked up some movies at our movie store we like, ran into Brent and Laura, more friends of ours, and headed to the salon/spa in one of the many malls where two of the ladies had pedicures or something and Tara had her eyebrows threaded, yes, I said threaded.  Apparently it hurts.  One of our friends husbands walked into the salon and said "hey, she's getting her face flossed."  People laughed and then he was unceremoniously kicked out because men are not allowed into those kind of places.  When Tara was finished Brent and Laura met up with us at the mall and we left the others behind to finish their spa treatments and headed out to lunch at another mall (I have never seen so many malls in one general area of a city).  After lunch we shoe shopped for Tara and then shoe shopped some more.  Finally, Tara has replaced her white strapy shoes she wore to her friend Katie's wedding almost three years ago that broke this fall. 

Our last stop was at a bookstore and bike shop.  Tara browsed books and I browsed road bikes I won't be buying anytime soon.  At about 8:30 we headed back to Saudi Arabia and got stuck on the causeway in traffic for about 45 minutes. 

Once we got back into Saudi, we stopped at Ikea in Khobar to pick up a couple of things and once we got into the store Tara suddenly realized she had left her abaya in the car!  She said she felt kind of naked.  We hurriedly grabbed what we needed, caught some looks, and made it back to the car without incident.  Ever had that dream you got to school or work only to realize you aren't wearing any clothes?  Tara said it was kind of like living that dream.  She almost forgot her abaya twice last time we stopped in Khobar coming back from Bahrain.  It's easy to do once you haven't worn it all day.

That about wraps up our day.  This week is the science fair at school which Tara is also on the committee for.  Only three more weeks of school before spring break!

Oh, and Origami club is going well.

Signing off, Jamie

 

My awesome American breakfast. Yum! Yum!

The breakfast club. From left to right: Meg, Soraya, Terri, Matt, and Me.  Tara is our photographer

This was interesting.  A fashion show in the Middle East at City Center Mall.  The girls look like manikins, but they were definetly real girls walking the runway.