Photos Uploaded to Flickr (Finally!)

I've got pretty much most of the pictures uploaded now and put in a set.

To have a look click here.

The Journey Home

This is a picture of me enjoying my 'sundowner' at the Ritz Carlton on my last evening. Look how happy and relaxed I am. It was a completely different story 12 hours later...

After picking up a few final touristy tat things in the Bahrain duty free it was on to the plane for to go home. The flight was packed so my vain hope of having 2 whole seats to myself was dashed. The Geordie dude that was sitting next to me scoffed at my hopes, which I thought was a little mean so I stopped talking to him after that. At least I had the aisle seat though. Ha! In your face Geordie dude!

I had hoped to get some shut-eye on the plane but, alas, it was not to be. I managed to doze off for a bit while watching From Here to Eternity but I woke up when Frank Sinatra is handed the bum job because he's the last man left in the bunk house. I'm not sure how far into the film that is but after that there was nothing to be done, I was wide a-frickin-awake and not getting back to sleep any time soon. As my brain was total and utter mush by this point and, as the concept of radio plays or audio books seems to have been lost on whoever designed the in-flight entertainment system, the only thing I felt able to cope with were the kiddie movies. I got to watch Mulan and Shrek before we touched down in Schippol. (Did I spell that right? I have no idea...)

I'd left Bahrain at 00:10 local time and arrived in Schippol at around 5:30am local time. Goodness knows what the hell time my internal clock thought it was. Time for caffeine is the closest I could get. Time also for decent food seeing as the gluten-free option on the flight back was, if anything, worse than the one on the incoming flight. Yeeeuch! I managed to get my mitts on a big ol' Diet Coke and a BLT, which a scoffed while watching the sun come up over Holland. Pink sky - very pretty. That's all my brain could register unfortunately.

After a while I noticed that if I sat or stood still I experienced a feeling not unlike being on the temporary seating they use during The Festival when someone is walking up the stairs. There was a vague, rhythmic bouncy sensation going through my body but I knew I wasn't bouncing so goodness knows what the heck it was. Probably the blood pumping up and down my spinal column or something, it was well weird!

I found myself one of those comfy lounge seats to, well, lounge on but I didn't stay on it for very long because I got paranoid about falling asleep and missing my flight and being one of those "Oi! We're chucking your bags off the plane" announcements. Unfortunately, when I found the gate my flight was departing from there were no seats nearby. What's that all about?? There were lots of seats on the other side of the security gate but none right outside. I almost cried when I realised I was going to have to stand in a big queue in order to get on to the plane. Once through the security check I can assure you I had a blimming good sit down!

The flight back to Edinburgh was fairly uneventful, apart from being stiffed on the coffee front again. The people in front of our row got coffee and the people behind our row got coffee but coffee we got none. I was too whacked out to care by that point though. I usually get a lovely sense of coming home when I look out of a plane window and see Edinburgh spread out below me but, due to being physically wrecked and sat in an aisle seat, I didn't have that feeling this time. I was quietly grateful to get my luggage back in one piece and pass unmolested through the 'Nothing to Declare' channel though so I was counting my blessings. Emerging from the airport into the crisp Edinburgh air was a different story though. I still had on my linen trousers and KG espadrilles so it was a bit of a shock to the system to say the least. Brrrrrr! I'd just missed a bus back into the city too so I was not the happiest of campers.

However, on the bus back into the centre of town my civic pride and sense of homecoming was restored. There were a couple of loud Ozzies on the bus who had obviously just arrived for their first trip to Edinburgh. From around when we passed the zoo at Corstorphine they did not have enough nice things to say about the place and did declare that they were getting 'a good vibe'. I started to look forward to the point when the bus would reach Princes Street and they would get their first view of the castle. I was not disappointed. Their awe was most gratifying but I was amused by one of their comments about how unfriendly Castle Rock looked. I couldn't help but comment to the chap next to me that was the whole point of sticking the castle there. Maybe I should have told the Ozzies? Anyway, I was so proud to live in Edinburgh at that point it made coming home that little bit sweeter. They say it's nice to go away but it's nice to come home again and I'd say that was doubly true when you live somewhere as gorgeous as Edinburgh :o)

Day 8

The last day of my holiday. Boo hoo! The itinerary included a leeetle bit of culture and a leeeetle bit more shopping. Nat and I headed to the Bahrain National Museum because there was an exhibition of Egyptian stuff on that looked interesting - oooh, shiny stuff! Unfortunately tickets were way too expensive for us so we didn't bother having a look. We justified it by saying we've got Egyptian stuff in the Chambers Street museum anyway. We did go in to have a look at the rest of the museum though and I'm glad we did because it was very interesting. They used to think Bahrain was just a burial ground for the rest of the area because of all the ancient burial mounds all over the place. Then, after WWII, some Dutch guys befriended the king and did and archaeological dig and found out loads of stuff about the civilisation that had been living on Bahrain for thousands and thousands of years.

Well, I think that's roughly what happened anyway. There was a hell of a lot of information to take in so most of it went in my eyeballs and right out of my ears again. I was struck by the presentation of the exhibition about the Dutch connection though. It was full of references to how benevolent the king was by letting them all in to dig and how well they got on and what gifts were given to who. Lots of information about the individuals that you just wouldn't find in an exhibition over here. I guess that's another one of the cultural differences I was beginning to percieve between here and there. Materialism. That's all I'll say.

The picture above is of some of the modern art sculptures that are outside the museum. Despite being made of rock that couch was actually about as comfortable as one of those ones you get from Ikea that are a similar shape! I didn't try the chair though.

Bahrain hasn't quite got a handle on tourism yet, the museum shop was rubbish. Booo! I don't think they even had a cafe either. What's a museum without a cafe? I ask you! We didn't let it get us down though because Nat took me to her favourite cafe for some coffee and cake anyway. I believe she told me that they have a real French pastry chef there and I have to say the cakes were little works of art. I think the place was called Lulu but I'd have to check on that.

After we'd had our coffee (or jasmine tea in my case) and cake we hit the blissfully air-conditioned malls for a final little bit of shopping and then it was back to the house to go try and fit all the stuff I'd bought througout the week into my suitcase and get the fecking thing zipped up again. That was a bit of a struggle but I managed to get everything in (except for the mint tobacco - boo!) and I don't think I left anything behind.

I took Nat and Barbara out for dinner to say thanks for having me and managed to spill Chinese food down my front. D'oh! Ah well, that's one of the hazards of having a cleavage ;oP Then Ejaz came to take Nat and I to the airport so I could catch my flight home. What a gent! I didn't change my top so that was me stained until I got back to Edinburgh. That was the least of the horrors awaiting me though. The return journey was quite harrowing so it's going to get an entry all to itself. Eeek!

Anyhoo, there were big hugs for Nat and Ejaz and then I was through security (before check in. Wha?) and queing up at the KLM desk. The wine we had with dinner was keeping me quite merry so I didn't have too much time to stand there and go "Oh dang! That's my holiday over." I didn't have the brain power to think about it over the next 12 hours either....

Day 7

Today Nat's friend Ejaz took us to a cafe to smoke sheesha pipes. Having never encountered a hookah in my life (that's hookAH!) I wasn't sure what to expect but Ejaz talked me through it and I have to admit, after the first couple of chuffs, I was hooked. Gettit? See what I did there? Oh please yourselves!

Anyway, it was very nice to sit there puffing away on the flavoured tobacco (grape. It's the kind Ejaz always smokes so I thought I'd give it a go) and I think I really could have got very used to it. I wonder if the smoking ban in Scotland covers the places that were offering sheesha pipes? Oh probably. Ho hum. I do have some good pictures from the cafe but, again, they're still imprisoned on the digital camera.

After a very late lunch and sheesha smoking Ejaz kindly agreed to take us to the souq for some tourist tat shopping. We took a look at many, many jars of sand and wooden camels and I eventually picked up a couple of pashminas and some trinkets at one of the shops. I also got the piece of tourist tat I was hoping to get for the folks at work - the mosque-shaped alarm clock. It now has pride of place in the office but we can't get the alarm to go off. Goddamn cheap tourist tat! Ho hum, I got their batteries included because they didn't take them out again before putting in the box, and Ejaz haggled for me. You have to haggle!

Wandering through the souq I spotted the pillow in the picture above. Eh? I've since learned that you apparently have cervical bones in your spine but it did make us chuckle at the time.

Ejaz also took us to the hookah shop (stop with the hooker jokes!) and helped Nat pick out a shiny new pipe. I picked up some tobacco as well because Nat has left her old sheesha pipe with me in Edinburgh and, after chuffing away earlier, I was determined to get it out and dust it off on my return. We got kitted out with all the paraphenalia (pipe, tobacco, charcoal, fiddlers three...) and headed home to try it out...

One problem arose though. How on Earth were we going to get the charcoal lit? The house is equipped with a flipping electric hob and oven. Ah nuts! Prehistoric man could make fire, surely we could too? I've watched enough Ray Mears survival programmes, as well as having served times in the Girl Guides (surely for something evil I did in a previous life?) so I was not going to let a lack of flamage defeat me. We also had a lighter and a candle so it's not like we had to rub two sticks together or wait for lightning to strike. So, we found out holding charcoal over a candle doesn't work. Bumholes!

We were going to have to somehow build a fire to get the dang stuff lit. Barbara doesn't seem to own a BBQ so that was no help and the housemaid had tidied up the garden the day before so we were a little short on combustibles. Eventually we got a tiny little bonfire going in a tin can and ended up with 4 little bits of charcoal glowing away merrily (after much cursing and swearing and blowing on them). They were enough to get the pipe going and bubbling away for a good 20 minutes or so. Hoorah! We both had a great sense of achievement and very much enjoyed the mint tobacco. Again - more photos of this momentous event are trapped on the camera. I'll get them downloaded eventually.

I hope Nat will have her sheesha pipe out lots from now on, once she's picked herself up one of those little blow torches for making creme brulee with of course! Luckily, I have a gas hob at home so as long as I can get my sticky mitts (literally if you're dealing with sheesha tobacco) on some untreated charcoal I should be able to arrange sheehsa evenings to my heart's content. I don't have a pool to lounge beside though. Boo!

Day 5/6

Note - The previous entries were written while I was still in Bahrian but I'm writing the rest of the holiday blog from my desk back in Edinburgh (out of office hours of course!).

Day 5 was another day spent nursing the cold. By this point I had ripped through 4 of the chick lit books I brought over for Nat. These were The Adultery Club by Tess Stimson, Why Not? by Shari Low, Around the World in 80 Dates by Jennifer Cox and Lipstick Jungle by Candice Bushnell. Sheesh! That's a lot of chick lit!

That evening we attended the Marlboro Speed of Sound party at the Gulf hotel. My first swanky party in Bahrain. Woo hoo! Unfortunately we didn't have VIP tickets so there were no seats or free soft drinks for us (this is apparently what a VIP ticket gets you). I was wearing the new killer heels so a seat would have been most welcome. Never mind though, I was happy to soak up the atmosphere... Until my feet got sore! Thankfully we didn't stay too long as Nat's cousins had a curfew. Just before leaving some boy that looked about 15 came over and asked me to dance. It's only looking back on it now I realise he was probably some nephew of the king or something to have that big of a brass neck. Perhaps I should have been a bit more gracious but my first thought was "What? You're very short. Does your mum know you're out??" Ho hum.

Day 6 was Sunday and that meant... No, not another day of rest. Sunday was Grand Prix day! After 3 days of rest and recuperation... And coughing and sneezing and generally grossing out Nat and Barbara... I was ready to leave the house and see what all the fuss is about. We piled into the car and headed off to the race track, stopping on the way to pick up a bunch of Nat's family who had come to Bahrain especially. The sun was shining so the factor 30 was on again and it was hot, hot, hot! No more dust, the rain of the last few days had cleared it away. I'm sure the racing car made from grass (can you smoke it?) looked even more fabulous on Friday but by this point it was looking decidedly frazzled! The sand sculpture (photo of which is trapped on the digital camera) looked amazing as well, until you got close to it and the wind blew sand in your face.

There was a Red Arrows type flying display by 4 planes going on when we arrived. They went up-tiddely-up-up and down-tiddely-um-down and loop the looped and flew all around and we all went 'Oooh!' and 'Aaaah!'. Then came the thing that really impressed me - formation flying with 2 jumbo jets. Now that was something to behold! Apparently it wasn't very well publicised the first year they did it so everyone thought a terrorist attack was happening and they dove for cover in the stands.

We had a wander around, looked at the vastly expensive merchandise and acquired some earplugs. I was told that these were essentials for the Grand Prix but I didn't quite grasp how essential they were until the race actually started. Oh my gosh! Those cars are LOUD! We had good seats high up in the Victory Stand so there was a lovely cool breeze blowing on us. In keeping with the theme of the rest of the week I was a very comfortable temperature and all the ex-pats were complaining about the cold. Once the race started it was quite difficult to tell what was going on, apart from a whole bunch of cars going 'Vroooooom' around and around the track. Did I mention they were loud? Gosh, they were loud. A few of the chaps sitting near to us didn't seem to have earplugs and I did see them trying to stuff their shirts into their ears. Oh dear!

So, the race wasn't as exciting as expected but I would put that mostly down to not having a bally clue what was going on or who was who. One of the cars (and orange and black one?) seemed to take a pit stop or something early on so for many of the early laps it was lagging behind everyone else and it was temting to shout "Boo! You're rubbish!" at whoever was driving. I didn't though. Then about halfway through somebody almost went on fire in front of us (David Coulthard maybe?). When they came round the corner we could see flames around the wheel and exhaust area, but then they were around the corner again and out of sight. I was waiting for the big explosion and the obligatory flaming wheel to come rolling back round the corner but it didn't happen so I guess he must have got to a fire extinguisher in time. Towards the end of the race (around lap sixteen million and three) I did find myself wishing that it was more like Whacky Races. Now that would have been entertaining! However, the look on Craig's face when I got back and showed him the photos of the cars made it all worth it. Engage smug mode.

Day 4.

I am well and truly stuffed with the cold and feeling shite. I’m sleep deprived, snotty and now it hurts when I cough. Typical. I tried to keep my spirits up by slathering myself in sun cream, parking it by the pool and baking the germs out of me but it was no good. At about 3 o’clock this afternoon, when Barbara and Nat were out on an errand and I was left alone to brood and cough and sneeze and blow my nose yet again, I confess I started to feel really, really sorry for myself. I’m now home alone while Nat’s off to some party on a yacht. I thought I might have made it out but then it really started to hurt when I cough so common sense prevailed and I’m staying in… again. Sigh. I hope I can get some sleep this evening. I made a hot toddy of Lemsip, honey and a generous dash of rum earlier so fingers crossed that helps.

Mind you, I’m just home alone with a cold. The party Nat’s gone to is supposed to be a huge affair with a famous American DJ. One of her friends organised it and put a hideous amount of money into it and the rain and wind are on again and instead of the 3000 revellers they were expecting Nat estimates they’ll get about 500. Yipe! Suddenly my runny nose doesn’t seem like such a big deal after all. Let’s just hope and pray I’m feeling better tomorrow! Is it time for another one of those hot toddies yet?

The picture above is Nat ready to go out and partay. You can't see it but she's got the killer heels on with that outfit. Yowsah!

Day 3

The mosque manny didn’t wake me up this morning but I still inexplicably woke up at 6:30am with a mouth that tasted like a student’s sock. Unable to put off finding H2O any longer I got up at about 7:30am, got the precious liquid, tried and failed to doze off again and spent a few hours reading until I heard Nat stirring. We spent a wee while lazing in the sun by the pool (coated in the factor 30) and then it was off to shop again. This time Nat took me to the Jimmy Choo shop and I did get to press my nose against the window. We took a surreptitious picture of me outside looking sheepish as that part of the mall was quite deserted and the security were definitely wondering what we were up to. Or is that just my paranoia?

I didn’t get a pair of Jimmy’s but I did buy a very, very sexy pair of 4 inch black patent peep toe slingbacks with a bit of a platform heel for only 10 Bahraini Dinars. Phwoaarrrr! They’re so lovely Nat got a pair too. I’m tempted to go back for the same in red but that may be depriving some other pair of gorgeous shoes a place in my luggage so I will resist. Sigh. Well, you know what they say – Red shoes, nae knickers… Apparently. Doesn’t sound very hygienic to me! Black shoes, big pants? Who knows!?!

By this point it was becoming obvious that I was coming down with some dreaded lurgy. Typical! I’m not sure if I caught it before I left or if it comes from sucking up all that recycled plane air but I was sneezing all over the place and definitely starting to feel a bit grotty. We got stocked up on drugs but I was feeling dodgy enough to decide to give the Fashion TV party a skip. Booo! I got a bit of glamour when we nipped into the Ritz Carlton to drop something off for Barbara, Nat’s dear mama. They had security searching all the cars as they went in because that’s where a lot of the Formula One people stay and all the palm trees were covered in these greeny/turquoise lights that I now covet for my Xmas tree. They also have a camel at the front door you can have your picture taken with. Apparently they douse the poor creature with CK1 to hide the natural camel aroma. I think that should be the advertising slogan – can mask the honk of a camel so imagine how it’ll make you smell!

So yes, Nat went to the Fashion TV Grand Prix opening party and I decided to miss it because I was full of snot. Can you believe it? What a total bummer. There was a spectacular thunder storm that evening as well so I was on my holidays, choked full of the cold and it was pissing with rain. Brilliant! Actually, I was still having a great time by this point. Watching the big forks of lighting from the roof of the house was spectacular, until they were right over us and then we beat a hasty retreat back indoors.

Things started to go downhill when the cable telly broke and the DVD player decided to play silly beggars with me. I don’t think Barbara’s electrical equipment likes me. I got the TV/DVD in my room working and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Jonny Depp version. Ah Jonny, such a comfort when one is ill – even in that movie!

But I could not get to sleep. Waaaaaargh! I was still lying there awake when mosque man did his thing at around 4:30am. I dozed off sometime around dawn but woke up again a few hours later. Not good. Not good at all.

Day 2

As I said, sleep deprived. Uuuurgh. That didn’t stop me though and after a bacon buttie Nat and I went to hit the malls. And how was the weather on my first full day in Bahrain? Sandy. It was sandy. When we left the house the sky looked a bit like a dreich day in Edinburgh, but with a slightly more yellow tinge to it. There was no skyline of Bahrain to speak of because it was totally obscured by dust. Weird. The sun was there but you could look right at it without going blind because of the dust. I’m really surprised I only seemed to get grit in my eye towards the end of the day but once it was in there it was annoying enough.

So we went shopping in big air conditioned malls. That’s a more better! I’m having difficulty getting my head around the exchange rate but I think it’s add a zero and divide by seven. Buh? Well, seven Bahraini dinars is about a tenner and I kind of fudge it from there. They take all sorts of money in the shops here though. Bahraini dinars and the Saudi money to name the two most common. I’m kind of in awe of this seeing as we have to change Scottish notes to English in order to spend them down south and it’s the same frikkin’ country. Hey ho.

After a day of shopping we went to a British bar called Sherlocks to wet our whistles. There we met with a few of Nat’s friends and before I really knew what was going on I’d had 5 pints of cider and no dinner. D’oh! I don’t think I talked to much rubbish but I was definitely glad we left when we did and declined another round from the charming gentlemen (friends of Nat’s of course) who were buying the drinks. We went to the Fuddruckers for some food after that. Perfect drunk food – greasy with an amusing name. Needless to say I got to sleep with little difficulty that evening, but I think the copious amounts of cider helped with that.

The picture above is nicked from Lady Nat Nat's Flickr page because my Fuddrucker pictures are still imprisoned on the digital camera. Hopefully I'll get them downloaded sooooooon.

Day 1

Well, you’ll all be pleased to know that I managed to drag my ass out of bed in time to make my flight. 3:30am! Ohmigod! I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare but was muchly dismayed to note the huuaaawge queue at the KLM check in desk. I decided that trying to blag and upgrade would probably just annoy the staff and they’d put a note for the flight attendants to fart in my general direction or something. I was happy to see that the duty free was open at 5am though and Lady Nat was overjoyed – I purchased a bottle of Hendrick’s for her because you can’t seem to get it anywhere else. Well, it is a most unusual gin after all. The flight to Schippol was quite uneventful, except for the point where the stewardess neglected to give me coffee… so I poked her in the back and demanded some though. I don’t think she farted in my general direction after that but there’s no way to be sure.

I spent my 5 hour stopover wandering around, drinking coffee and reading. Has anyone else noticed the annoying habit airlines have of not announcing the boarding of flights though? I was sat right beside the gate and didn’t realise the flight was boarding until the queue was the size of a very large thing. I guess in these circumstances perhaps you should wait until they’re telling you to get on the plane quick smart or they’ll offload your luggage. Maybe that’s why there were so many of these announcements in the airport? There was one for just about every flight.

Once on the plane I had an aisle seat (lovely) and the in-flight entertainment had improved in leaps and bounds since the last time I was on KLM. Movies, movies, movies! Old, new, funny, sad. TV programmes – drama, comedy, documentary. Games. Etc. Etc. Etc. I started trying to watch Easy Rider because it’s on my list of film I feel I really must check out but I’m sorry to say that half an hour in it had really failed to grab my attention. I guess it’s probably better to watch it in the comfort of your own home with the benefit of mind altering substances though. To get in the mood for my Bahrain holiday and the Grand Prix I watched the Disney movie ‘Cars’ instead. It was very good fun. Then I watched a documentary about the effect Islam had on European culture in the middle ages. See – edutainment on the plane. What will they think of next? There’s another documentary I’m hoping to watch on the way back but I can’t remember what it’s about – a history of art I think.

So the flight was entertaining and educational but the food was bloody awful. Out of interest I put down for a gluten free meal and what got served to me was absolutely foul. I’m not sure the gluten full meals were any better but I’m definitely packing snacks on the way back. Maybe I’ll confuse the hell out of the attendants by munching down on a big sandwich half way through the flight. I think when they come along and ask if I’m having a special meal I’ll reply “Oh God, if I have to!”

When we eventually got into Bahrain Lady Nat was there to meet me and as I walked out the airport the heat hit me. Aaaaah. I forgot I was coming somewhere hot. Hours and hours of sucking up plane atmosphere and arriving in an air conditioned airport didn’t prepare me for that wave of hot air that hits you in the face as you go outside. Noice! It was midnight local time but still as warm as a big toasty warm bit of toast. Not so great when you’re trying to sleep but it’s either lie there and sweat or lie there and not get to sleep cos the air con is running. That’s what awaited me at Nat’s house. The bed is uber comfy but I was too hot with the duvet on me and the air conditioning is quite loud. Then the dude in the mosque next door started calling folk to prayer at silly o’clock. I dropped off after that but needless to say, I’ve been pretty sleep deprived since I arrived. Nat let me lie in quite late the next day but I’d been awake until about 6am. Sigh.

The picture above is of the spotty house round the corner from Nat's. Who would live in a house like that???

I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane...

...But I know when I'll be back again. I'm only going for a week...

Cripes! 9 hours until I'll have to leave for the airport to catch my flight to Amsterdam. Then after a swift (??) 5 hour wait it'll be on to the flight for Abu Dhabi and then onto another flight for Bahrain. There to be met by Lady Nat Nat and hopefully whisked to the general vicinity of a bed and maybe a cheeky G&T, depending on what I can find in the duty free. If I can't get Hendricks (Lady Nat's favourite) then a bottle of Sailor Jerry's rum may have to do. It's a hard life ;o)

Well, my main concern at the moment is if I'm going to be able to lever myself out of bed in time or if I'll have a repeat performance of my 1999 jaunt to Canada. I set the alarm and it went off and woke me up... I just went back to sleep again and the next thing I knew there was a taxi at the door. At least I ordered the taxi in advance! I'm doing that again this time. I doubt I'm going to sleep much tonight as I'm too wound up. I'm quite a nervous traveller, not having done very much of it in my life. I'm definitely not going to go into Amsterdam during my stop over, that's probably just asking for trouble. I'd probably forget the time difference or underestimate the strength of the 'extra' that came with my coffee. Nope, I've got lots of chick lit to keep me going between flights - if I can stay awake.

Ok, time to go and check that I have packed everything. I have the potato scones, the books and the card from Marks & Spencer that I was asked to bring. I've got my fabulous espadrilles but I have to guage if there's room for the other pair. I've got my toothbrush and my shampoo. I've got a digital camera for taking pictures of camels with and I've got my flight pillow for drooling on during the flight. Money. Tickets. Passport. Anything else is a bonus.

Wish me bon voyage!

Oh, and the pretty picture is a possible example of what I will maybe see... It's more interesting than a picture of the dreich weather in Edinburgh at the mo anyway!