Sunday, August 24, 2008

Lori and her new boyfriend
Shark fin soup anyone?
Day trip to the old souk
Meat market in the old souk.

Lori, Chris, Melissa, Christel, Andrea, Andrea and Maren at the Marina Harbour The New AIS Teachers

Lori in front of the Grand Mosque
Chris in front of Liberation Tower

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Our kitchen - our coffee maker was our first purchase!
Washer/Dryer in the kitchen
Chris in our great king-size bed
Our spare room - looking for some visitors in the next 2 years!

Our bathroom - notice the foot washer beside the toilet, not a bidet!
Lori walking into the enormous Avenues mall about to buy all of IKEA!
Chris, the handyman
Our living room, the walls are still bare but it's coming along!
Our dining room (front door is on the left)
Our hallway - bedroom and extra room on the left, small bathroom and kitchen on the right and our main bathroom at the end of the hall.
The front of our apartment building The view from our balcony, you can see the difference between the new and old buildings!
The Green Mosque - this is only a few buildings down from us!
AIS - Our school
Our outdoor hallways!

Monday, August 18, 2008

We're here!

After some tough goodbyes and lots of teary eyes we got on our way, traveling from Ottawa to Toronto to Frankfurt (for an 8 hour layover!) and then finally to Kuwait! Altogether it was over 24hours of travel time, but we were greeted by an amazing and well-organized group of admin and staff from AIS at the airport. From the airport it was an incredible drive to our apartment passing by houses (villas) that were bigger than any mansions we've ever seen! All of our luggage made it safely from Ottawa into our apartment...all of the rubbermaid tubs, suitcases and Chris' hockey equipment included! It was about 1:30am (Kuwait time) when our heads hit the pillow, (which should have felt like 6:30pm to us) but we were quickly fast asleep - only to be woken up a few hours later by the "Call to Prayer". This is an announcement for 15min over the loud speakers from the top of a mosque for all muslims to wake up and proceed with praying and this is done 5 times a day, everyday.

We were up at 7:30am and at school to begin our orientation sessions, followed by our first shopping trip! We stocked up on items for our apartment and some groceries, but there's still lots to do and buy! We had the evening to ourselves to get organized and we walked around the city for awhile, had our 2nd shwarma already (which are different than back home, smaller - but tastier!) and stopped in at a local shop to buy a hookah for our apartment. So after a few hours of unpacking and organizing, we spent last night listening to Middle Eastern music and following the cultural tradition of smoking flavoured tobacco (shisha) using the hookah...not something we would do every day, but great to have especially when we have guests over!

Today we were up early again and back at the school for more orientation, a brunch at a restaurant on the gulf and this afternoon we have some more shopping trips, followed by a dinner at our "building host's" apartment. Oh, and by the way today's high is 47 degrees Celsius!

We're so excited to be here - and having a great time so far! We've both gotten to see our very own classrooms, which are great and we're looking forward to the rest of these two weeks before school starts! Hopefully we'll have internet hooked up to our apartment soon and possibly our own cell phones (very cheap here!) and hope all is well back home.

Chris and Lori :)

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Preparing and Packing

What an amazing summer we have had so far! Thanks to everyone for the cards, well-wishes and attendance at family parties for our engagement and moving away to Kuwait, which is only 10 days away now! Our flight leaves from the Ottawa airport next Friday at 3pm and we fly to Toronto, Frankfurt, then to Kuwait City!

Before school starts, we have a busy two weeks of orientation with the staff, which we are really excited about! We are also really looking forward to moving into our first apartment! The next 10 days are definitely going to be busy with more visits with family and friends, preparing and of course some good ol' last-minute packing! :)

Please bookmark this page so we can try to keep everyone updated on our lives overseas. We will be posting videos, pictures and stories of our many adventures! Enjoy and please keep in touch!!

Chris and Lori