Tuesday, September 3rd - Where we at???

Another good day at school. Jacqui is feeling better about her class as time goes by. It is kind of weird to think that we had already completed three days of work this week by the time our colleagues from Ontario started their week.

We went out to the Avenues mall for dinner - it was a colleague's birthday (no drinks of the good kind for the birthday boy, or anybody else for that matter!). What a place. I'll have to take my camera next time we go. We had dinner in a chinese restaurant; it was really good. We did a bit of shopping at Ikea afterwards before coming back home.

Here are some info about Kuwait City:
Map of Kuwait City below

If you look at the map, you will see that we live in the Fintas borough (for lack of a better word), in Block 3, close to the arabian gulf, south of the city center (about 30-40 minute drive). Our school is located close to the airport, in Block 2 of South Khaitan (about a 20 minute drive for the apartment). The city is divided into many boroughs,which are in turn divided into 4 or more blocks. There isn't really street names on street corners and the buildings do not have numbers. They go by location. Our address is building 4, on Restaurant Street (but I've never seen that name anywhere, ... and there are no restaurants on the street!), Block 3, Fintas. When talking to a taxi driver, we say it in the opposite order : Fintas, block 3, restaurant st, building 4. We make it home most of the time - mostly because our place is easy to find as the exit from the freeway comes up to our street. If they decide to use the back streets instead of the freeway, then things get a little dicey!

Getting around in Kuwait City.
Traffic moves north and south through 3 major highways (Hwy 30, 40 and 50) and there are ring roads to go from east to west and vice-versa. Travelling on the main roads is easy, like travelling on the 401 (but some people do drive fast). It gets a little more complicated when you enter various Blocks, as there are no street names and cab drivers sometimes have to drive around for a bit before finding our destination (going to popular places like shopping malls and grocery stores is no problem).

We still have to go downtown Kuwait to visit the area and take a ride along the gulf ; they say it's beautiful. We'll let you know when we do that.