New Experiences

The Heat, Observations and New Experiences
It's really too hot to do much exploration, but I'm experiencing new things daily. As I'm typing it's 97 degrees Fahrenheit(9 pm). I checked at 4, one morning, and it was 99.  The high today, at 11 am, was 115 degrees. Some days are unbearably humid and some are dry. I guess the hot weather of my recent Haitian summer was foreshadowing in my story.  I don't sweat here though because I just run from one air-conditioned place to another.

What I have seen:
- Sand colored high rise apartments covering the desert landscape.
- Most things seems to be in a state of construction with lots of scaffolding, surrounded by piles of sand. 
- It's hazy, but I'm not sure if it's sand or pollution.
- Bits of green here and there, increasing as you go towards the city center. 
- Some areas are quite well done and maintained, but overall there is very little landscaping. Sidewalks, in general, are scarce.

Shopping

I checked off a few things from my To Do list. I took my first taxi ride with friends. We called a suggested driver who is trusted by our fellow teachers. He took us to a fancy mall right on the gulf, in Al Kout. It has a music and light fountain show that is especially pretty at night. It is only about a 15 minutes drive from our apartments. 

It was a good thing I had that taxi experience and the driver's number saved in my phone because I needed it again very soon. On our third day of meetings, I missed the bus the school provides to school. For the record I was, at the most, 1 minute late. I wasn't stranded though, because I called my taxi driver friend and he knew where to take me. 

I also went  to The Avenues, an even more extravagant shopping center, twice this week,

got a few household items at Ikea,
 

ate a doughnut at Tim Horton's

and checked out my favorite clothing store from Hungary, H&M (I know it's actually Swedish)(as is Ikea). Not surprisingly, they have lots of high end stores at the affluent mall, but also Payless shoes, Claire's and Texas Road House.

Marked off things on my To Buy list, too. I now have a local cell and internet in my apartment because of the generous help of a veteran teacher. 

Food

My new favorite food may be Lebanese. We tried out one such restaurant at an all-new-staff dinner out: falafel, hummus and baba ganoush(a spread made of mainly eggplant) are among my favorites. There was a really good arugula salad, too.

I tried the Indian restaurant across the street, too. It's cheap and also good.

I still haven't ordered my food from the food ordering app yet, but I want to try it soon.

I did however call Caribou from work and they delivered. My small hot chocolate with skim milk and no whip tasted exactly like it does in Nebraska. A school security guard calls me when it arrives.  Pretty sweet.

Most things are expensive here. For example, the small hot chocolate cost 1.5 KD, which sounds cheap, right? But 1 Kuwaiti Dinar is equal to 3.50 dollars. So the small drink cost me 5.25 USD. My taxi ride to school on that lesson learning day, cost 3 KD, or 10.50 USD.

School Stuff
The school did a really great job of creating opportunities for us to get to know the other new teachers. And now that the returning teachers have arrived we are getting to know our teaching teams.  My third grade team consists of 6 Americans.

Meetings are going well.  I'm working on my classroom. 

Students come next Tuesday.  I wish there was a little more technology (though I do have an interactive whiteboard in my class), but they make up for it in other ways. I'm overall impressed. The administration seems very professional, organized and approachable. 

For my teacher friends: 

   -The school is on a 7 day rotation, which is new to me. In that rotation, the students go to the following specials: Art, PE, Music, Reader's Theater(it's a special!), Arabic(45 minutes everyday), Spanish or religion and technology. 

   -We use the Reader's(including Daily 5) and Writer's workshops. 

   -We have NO standardized testing. We do, do MAPS to monitor progress.

   -We use Common Core standards for Math and Language Arts, Arrow standards for Social Studies and Next Generation for Science.  

We were told, "They have never had a new group of teachers laugh as much as us."

Random Things
I love how most things are written in English on one side and Arabic on the other.

The mosque next door is under construction, so that is why I don't hear the call to prayer.

My apartment is the short one to the right.

The water that comes out of the tap is hot. (BTW it is not brownish anymore and I have a filtered tap in the kitchen) I don't have my hot water heater on. The water is stored on the roof so it is just hot from the sun. Even the water in the toilets is steaming hot. You can not get cold water, in fact. So, you can't wash your clothes on cold and the filtered drinking water is hot.  It will cool down here in a few months and then I'll turn on the hot water heater.  I hear I will use my central heating, too.

Transitions

Travel
Travel went as expected. The 12 hour flight seemed unending. I love the way they have it set up to watch movies now.  I started one on the flight from Chicago to Dulles and watched the ending of it on the long flight.

All of my bags arrived and I was allowed to take my guitar though I had to ask flight attendants to help me figure out where to put it on each flight. Once in my life, I want to fly first class, but now I can say my guitar has, twice. I better keep practicing with all the effort I put into bringing that thing!

When we arrived it Kuwait, it was not unexpectedly hot, but s-super humid. Supposedly this is not normal, but eye glasses and iPads were fogging over.

I have already met some open and friendly people. What an experience! At least 30 of us were getting to know each other as we waited in line to have our passports stamped. Porters were scrambling to gather and load all of our luggage. Busses took us and our stuff to our apartments.

My apartment
There are 3 large apartments for teachers and I knew ahead of time I was in the oldest of the three. Still, I admit my first impression was that it isn't as nice as I'd hoped. But after some changes, it is already feeling more homey. My changes have, essentially, just been to take out furniture. It feels larger and more balanced already. It reminds me of an older European flat. All tile with a tiny kitchen including a gas stove you have to light with matches.  I do have 2 bedrooms but one is pretty full(for the time being) of all the unnecessary furniture they put in this place. The furniture the apartment is furnished with, are new and attractive though not top quality.

Still just getting settled but, a couple pics:

The other 2, newer, apartments are right next door. I can move into one next year if I want to. They have a pool, game room and workout room, which I can use now, too.

Seemingly weird apartment facts:

- Way too much furniture, as mentioned above.
- No electrical outlet in the bathroom, at all.
- Only one electrical outlet per room (er, minus the bathroom).
- The water in the bathroom sometimes runs brown. (I have filtered water in the kitchen)
- There are these raised ledges going into the bathroom and kitchen. I've tripped once.

Sweet things:

- They furnished us with a couple cheap pots and pans, cutlery and dishes and a little water kettle, cereal, COFFEE (Hallelujah), tea, eggs, fruit, bread, PB&J, water, etc. As well as simple, new linens.
- I control my own air conditioning. This is nice since it is so hot. Today the high was 113.

Today we will meet for breakfast together and go shopping for food and household things. Tomorrow we leave at 7:30 to head to the school and begin new teachers meetings. And, I hope, to see our classrooms.

Whats on my short list of To Do's:

- Post this. (Check)
- Workout.
- Explore the area on foot.
- Call and take a taxi somewhere, anywhere.
- Wouldn't mind twisting someone's arm to go with me on foot to find the nearest Caribou. I knows it's close. Caribou, ironically, was the first thing I saw when I got off the plane.
- Ordering my dinner to be delivered. It is common and cheap to order in your food and I just want to try it.
- Find and go to a church.
- Visit the big mosque.
- Go to the rotating cafe located at the top of one of the Kuwaiti towers.

My to short To Buy list:

- Phone and internet (probably will be a couple days though).
- Extension cords and plugs.
- Food.

I haven't heard a call to prayer yet, but I'm not sure why because I think I see a mosque right across the street.

Temporary free internet is set up for us in the game room of one of the the nicer apartment buildings. Picture from where I am posting this from: 

Commencing the Journey

Blogging my Experience

I'm the first to admit I'm not sure what the balance should be. What is interesting, entertaining or simply BORING? I needed to land somewhere on this issue because I am commencing the journey this morning. I have decided that this blog is mainly for me (and my dad). But I'm happy for you to follow along, too. 

I will try to not be too wordy and include lots of pictures, but no doubt I'll include unnecessary details that I, only I, find interesting. Planning to write about culture shock to Kuwait, teaching in an International school and my travels from Kuwait (on breaks from school). I'll try to post once a week. 

I won't be putting a link on FB every time I post. If you got to this blog through Facebook but you'd like to follow my journey you can "Follow by Email", which is located on the right column of the home page.

Traveling
The trip is off to a rocking start. They serve hotel Belgium waffles AND biscuits and gravy, on the same day, here at my airport shuttling hotel.

I will arrive at the airport at 8:30 am Central time, this morning, with my 5 'bags' & guitar and I'm scheduled to land in Kuwait at 12:00 pm Central time tomorrow, with the same luggage. Hoping they let me carry on my guitar, because it's not worth 200 dollars to check it. But what will I do with it if they don't let it be my carry-on?

Arrival
Kuwait is 9 hours ahead of Central time (scheduled to land at 9:00 pm local Kuwait time). So, flying out Monday morning and arriving Tuesday night.