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....