Last bit of Orientation

As I mentioned last post, we went to the Grand Mosque! Here are the photos I promised! Michael and I took one together, but learned after that it's inappropriate for one male and one female to take a photo standing close together in the mosque....whoops!

While visiting a mosque, all women need to cover their hair.
They give you abayas to cover your clothes and hijabs to cover your hair.
In Kuwait, both are traditionally black.  

Friday is the holy day. In fact, the US embassy has church services on Friday for Christian Americans in the area, since the work week is Sunday to Thursday. Basically nothing is open on Friday until later in the day, so we took advantage of the free time by cleaning and organizing our apartment!

That night we went to the souk. It’s an old Kuwaiti market that sells pretty much everything and is very inexpensive. I bought a scarf and we ate hummus and hot, fresh pita.

Later Friday night we went on a boat ride for our friend Laura’s birthday. And by boat, I mean three million dollar yacht. It was very eye opening. We’ve seen the expensive houses, heard how the students have drivers, nannies and maids, but going on a coworker’s friend’s 85 foot yacht is a different story. Of course, he is getting a new yacht soon, because he just bought a helicopter and wants his new one to have a landing pad. 

You might have noticed my scandalous shorts.
Since we were hanging out with friends we didn't need to cover up.
Kind of like how we can wear what we want in the apartment building. 

Dancing!

Cooking dinner

Saturday we went to The Palms. It’s a western health club on the beach with swimming pools, workout areas, and a spa. I got to wear a bikini! The water was very very salty and hot, and in no way was it refreshing. It was nice though to lounge under the umbrella with a little sea breeze!

Sunday was my first day of work!! It was wonderful! We finished up paperwork, took tours of the campus and met with our staff. While we were all in the auditorium for our very first meeting, servers came around with wine glasses of juice, followed by Arabic coffee. I tried to imagine being in a public school in the US listening to the principle in a staff meeting with servers weaving through the teachers with silver trays of juice and coffee...maybe plastic cups of in the back for you to grab yourselves! After that we had breakfast/brunch. There was an unbelievable amount of food! Hummus, falafel, omelets, wraps, fruit and desserts! ACA definitely makes a great first impression. Looking forward to a  productive week preparing the classroom!