The Letter K

Where did September go?  All of a sudden it's October and I've been here for 2 full months already!  What have we been up to lately?  This post has been brought to you by the letter K:  Krazy, Khobar, Kittens, and Kindergarten

Last weekend I took a trip to Bahrain for the weekend and ended up having a great time!  They have a lot of entertainment options there that we don't have here in Saudi... movie theaters, water parks, live music, and most importantly, bars with alcohol!!!

Welcome to Bahrain!  (I forgot to take a picture of the 2.5 hours of traffic on the causeway to get there)

First stop:  The Westin for a drink!

First margarita in 2 months!  Probably a record for me!

Dow sponsored a day trip to the Wahooo Waterpark in City Center mall, and I ended up staying the night with some friends at a hotel.  The water park was not that big, but it was big enough to amuse us for several hours.  It was also inside a giant mall, so that helped.  The mall also housed several hotels with bars, so we had a lot of fun!!! 

Because I know someone will ask... I got to wear my regular bathing suit at the water park.  This would be a no-no in Saudi, but Bahrain is obviously much more liberal...hello, they serve booze and pork here!  I was definitely one of the only ones in a two piece, but I didn't feel uncomfortable.  Muslim women can buy a Burkini (yep, that's actually what it's called) to make sure they stay modest in a swimsuit.

Burkini shop outside the water park

One day this past week, I went to Khobar (the bigger city about an hour away from us) with two other women to go to a few shops and have lunch.  We found this SUPER neat store that had awesome home decor items and furniture, all made by Indians and Pakistanis.  I'm not going to post too many pics, because some Christmas gifts will probably be coming from this store, but this was too cool not to post.  This pottery is made out of CAMEL BONE!

Camel bone vase!

We also stopped by a pet store because one of the girls has adopted their compound kitty, and he needed some supplies.  That's where I met this ADORABLE kitten, which google tells me is probably a Persian kitten.  I just loved his little smushed up face!!!

I shall call him Fluffy.

Other than these side trips, life in Jubail has been pretty boring.  Brian's been in Texas for work, so it's been very quiet around here.  Because I was kinda starting to lose my mind, I decided to go to the international school here in town and apply to be a substitute teacher.  Two days later, I walked into a Kindergarten classroom and was in charge of 20 four- and five-year olds.  What?!?  So somehow, "I'm certified to teach 6th-12th grade" turned into "uhhh yeah, I'll sub for kindergarten."  To be fair, I did tell them I had absolutely no idea of what to do with kindergarteners, but I had two outstanding teaching assistants who saved me.  The first day went so well that I went back for more!  The kids were some of the sweetest and cutest kids I'd ever seen.  But two days of kindergarten is enough for me.  Hats off to anyone who is a PK or K teacher... you have a TOUGH job!  There was so much singing and glue and crumbs and boo boos and more singing and practicing writing the letter E.  I did have two great days in kindergarten but I hope my next sub job is with kids in double digits.

I'll close this blog post the way that we ended our day in kindergarten... with the Goodbye Song!  Enjoy!!!