Tuesday S had to get up super early and head to the base with the team. I slept in and then ate breakfast. I piddled around the apartment as I waited for the crew to head back to the hotel by reading and poking around on the computer. I explored the hotel. At the top of the hotel, you can see the World Trade Center and the beautiful Al Fateh Grand Mosque. To take photos up there, I let my camera heat up on our porch so it wouldn’t have the same glasses fogging effect on the lense. Part of the team drove to the grocery store to pick up a few items. I saw a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf there too. I took a picture and sent it to a huge CBTL fan :) S and I returned later that evening to the area for some TGI Fridays. They have a drinks menu, but don’t be confused, they don’t actually contain alcohol.
Fourth of July! There were even pastries with American flags at the front desk! Wednesday was a bit different. Woke up, ate at the breakfast buffet, then went to work out in an actual gym. I then read by the pool after slathering myself with some SPF 50+ sunblock. The group came back and after a bit most of us went to restaurant row (where S and I tried to drive the night before) to enjoy Macaroni Grill. I saw a Starbucks on the way to dinner. I popped over there to pick up a chai for dessert. chai fail. They had tea, but no chai tea. I thought I read about people drinking chai in Three Cups of Tea in the Middle East??!! Well, that saved a few dinars. The night concluded with a History Channel and Discovery Channel date. We are spoiled having cable here.
On Thursday, my routine started out the same again: wake up, breakfast, workout, hang out by the pool. Today however, I believe Bahrain was having one of their sandstorm like events. It was incredibly windy up on the roof at the pool. I thought my chair was going to blow away. I listened to Rick Steve’s podcasts instead of watching my Kindle try to fly away from me. S and the team came back early and he found me up there. A car load of us left a little later to head to the City Centre mall. It reminded me of the Galleria. We walked all 3 levels and only walked in a handful of stores. I had another attempt to obtain a chai. I asked a guy from Starbucks if they had it and he said yes. One dinar or so later (roughly 4 bucks) I tasted my “chai.” Tasted way different. I then realized there was a tea bag string hiding in the sleeve. It was English Breakfast Tea with milk! Sneaky. I’m going to give up trying until Europe. H&M called my name and I picked up a couple of shirts. After the mall, we started heading back to the hotel. A bunch of us were starving so we went down a sidestreet that one of the guys knew about to let us experience shawarma. It’s like Sonic, but with taco like things. All you have to do is pull up across the street from the store, honk, and a guy runs out to take your order. We got ours “special” which I think meant fries were added.
Fridays over here are like our Sundays. We slept in and didn’t do much of anything else. We finally ventured out for dinner with the rest of the crew. We ended up getting take out on “restaurant row” at Nando’s. My tummy regrets this decision. The mild sauce was freaking hot. I was a good girl the rest of the evening and worked on my resume.
Saturday. I am so glad that we read over some information before traveling to Bahrain that mentioned that you should only drink bottled water. Not sure what would happen if we did not, but I’m not wanting to find out. Maybe I should have brought my backpacking water pump so we wouldn’t have to purchase so much water. I feel guilty. I do try to refill the bottles when I go workout, but sometimes the sweet cleaning guy is too fast for me and cleans them up for me. The group headed to the Tree of Life, a 400 year old Prosopis cineraria. It is in the middle of nowhere.
Bahrain World Trade Center
Home Sweet Home-The Marriott
Restaurant Row
On Thursday, my routine started out the same again: wake up, breakfast, workout, hang out by the pool. Today however, I believe Bahrain was having one of their sandstorm like events. It was incredibly windy up on the roof at the pool. I thought my chair was going to blow away. I listened to Rick Steve’s podcasts instead of watching my Kindle try to fly away from me. S and the team came back early and he found me up there. A car load of us left a little later to head to the City Centre mall. It reminded me of the Galleria. We walked all 3 levels and only walked in a handful of stores. I had another attempt to obtain a chai. I asked a guy from Starbucks if they had it and he said yes. One dinar or so later (roughly 4 bucks) I tasted my “chai.” Tasted way different. I then realized there was a tea bag string hiding in the sleeve. It was English Breakfast Tea with milk! Sneaky. I’m going to give up trying until Europe. H&M called my name and I picked up a couple of shirts. After the mall, we started heading back to the hotel. A bunch of us were starving so we went down a sidestreet that one of the guys knew about to let us experience shawarma. It’s like Sonic, but with taco like things. All you have to do is pull up across the street from the store, honk, and a guy runs out to take your order. We got ours “special” which I think meant fries were added.
Shawarma!
Fridays over here are like our Sundays. We slept in and didn’t do much of anything else. We finally ventured out for dinner with the rest of the crew. We ended up getting take out on “restaurant row” at Nando’s. My tummy regrets this decision. The mild sauce was freaking hot. I was a good girl the rest of the evening and worked on my resume.
Saturday. I am so glad that we read over some information before traveling to Bahrain that mentioned that you should only drink bottled water. Not sure what would happen if we did not, but I’m not wanting to find out. Maybe I should have brought my backpacking water pump so we wouldn’t have to purchase so much water. I feel guilty. I do try to refill the bottles when I go workout, but sometimes the sweet cleaning guy is too fast for me and cleans them up for me. The group headed to the Tree of Life, a 400 year old Prosopis cineraria. It is in the middle of nowhere.
Tree of Life
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