Author: Robin Chartier

It’s 110 today. She’s wearing a sweatshirt, leggings, and a scarf to church. I’ve stopped asking “why?”

As part of the marathon of goodbyes, a group of friends from our Bible study group did a Friday brunch together. For some, it was their first time experiencing the wonders of a Bahraini brunch. 

This is a view of 1/8th of the dessert table — 3 or 4 levels, 365 degrees. That doesn’t include the ice cream and crepe station, the chocolate fountain, or the cotton candy machine. 

Exotic fruits — mangosteen (not related to mangos), passionfruit, rambutan, dragonfruit and some others. 

Sushi and sashimi — I ate my fill of the tuna and salmon sashimi. Mmmmm. 

The dedicated cheese room — 365 degrees of cheese. Brie, gorgonzola, aged parmesan, and a bunch of others. 

Lobster tails, crab claws and oysters

I didn’t have any oysters or mussels, but I did have 1/2 of a lobster tail. I liked the ceviche (raw fish cooked in lime juice) better. That was on a beautiful table that I neglected to get a photo of. Grilled fennel and eggplant and steak tartare were also highlights from that table. 

I didn’t do this table, but you can pick your fresh fish or cuts of meat and whichever additions you like (vegetables, noodles, etc) and have the chef prepare them any way you like — wok fried and thai style (with a spicy coconut sauce) both looked good. 

Fresh juices: orange, carrot, watermelon and sweet melon. Both the watermelon and orange juice were delicious. 

I think this was my 3rd course (after eating part of my plate I realized I should take a photo and email it to Josh). Sushi rolls and sashimi salmon at the top, tempura eggplant, fruit salad, fresh mozzarella salad with arugula, mongolian beef and fried camembert cheese. The cheese bites are incredible. 

Chocolate eclair, hazelnut mousse, tiramisu, and fresh raspberries (that I pirated from of the top of another dessert).

After we had eaten our fill, the girls in our group made a trip over to the henna artist and she quickly decorated us. 

Brunch is a process — eat and drink and chat from 12:30 to 4:30. If you drink alcohol, you definitely get your money’s worth. I only had one glass of champagne, but between that, my sushi, lobster, cappuccino, berries, and everything else, I’m sure I at least broke even. Some people brunch (and binge drink) every weekend, but we have to save some money for Italy and make sure we don’t leave Bahrain twice as large as when we arrived! 

A week ago she wouldn’t even put her face in the water, but twice a day swimming has gotten her really comfortable, really quickly. 

Normally Girl Scout cookie season is spring, but for us in the land of sand, Girl Scout cookies arrive in June. This is the 3rd year we’ve been blessed by the cookie fairies. The call goes out that Girls Scout cookies have arrived on the island (donated by a troop in San Diego) and we all line up for our boxes of Thin Mints and Samoas. It’s fun to get a taste of home and to get adorable hand made thank you cards that get handed out along with the cookies. 

Yesterday was cookie day — we got 12 boxes and everyone broke open their favorites on the way home. 

Today was cookie day, part 2. They had so many boxes donated to our base this year that when we went through the NEX after church they told the kids to load up again. 

Note the new haircut. He wanted it long, but then got tired of all that hair and was trying to decide between getting a haircut like Captain America or Iron Man. He looked up the photo on google by himself and show the barber what he wanted. He went with Captain America. 

Day two they were all out of Thin Mints so they got a bunch of Samoas, Tagalongs (the chocolate covered peanut butter ones) and the lemon powered sugar ones (which I think are boring, but all 3 boys love them. Go figure). 

The girl scouts here can’t sell cookies, but they do a great job of handing them out. Everyone loves free cookies!

Especially this girl. Last night she snuck a box of Thin Mints from the stash and hid upstairs in the blanket fort with her friend Jude and they ate almost the entire box. 

Double fisted Samoas

Over the weekend Calvin and I went with some friends to an Indian restaurant where you eat everything off of a banana leaf with your hands. I don’t know if that’s how they really do it in India, but the restaurant was packed with all Indian people so it must be doing something right. 

Everyone gets their own banana leaf and then the waiters come around with various metal buckets/pots/cups and dish out the food. Above is a fried chicken leg on my leaf and salty banana chips and a salted chili pepper on Calvin’s. The pink stuff in the metal container is yogurt (not sweet at all even though it looks strawberry flavored) one of them is shredded fresh coconut and a third is a couscous-type grain. 

Indian food is not her favorite (nor mine), but she was a good sport. 

It was fun having him at lunch and telling me all about Germany. On his leaf so far (much more to come): pickled lemon (the red stuff) and then on the far side, the stuff that looks kind of like pasta salad is actually vegetables in a sauce — probably my favorite thing. Then the coconut, couscous and the pink yogurt. 

both rice and bread — not paleo

The way you are supposed to eat it is to mix bits of stuff with the rice using your fingers and then scoop it into your mouth. I always thought I was fine with using hands to eat, but it was weird trying to eat things like yogurt without a fork or a spoon. I’m the kind of person who eats with a fork in a chinese restaurant, not because I can’t eat with chopsticks, but because it feels fake. Like, we all know I’m not Chinese so I won’t pretend I’m suddenly Asian because I can eat with two sticks (I know, I’m weird). So normally I would have said “pass the fork,” but the friend who brought us to the restaurant wanted everyone to eat with their hands. So I did. I loved the chicken curry and the vegetables in sauce and would have eaten those all day. Also liked the fried chicken and the fish was pretty good too. There was way too much food and I stopped taking pictures before they had even finished dishing things out. 

If you come visit and want to go eat here I’ll take you. I’ll be using a fork — you can eat whichever way you like. 

No photos at the airport. Trying not to be that mom. He had a great time and is full of stories about how green Germany is and the weird food products they have. Spaghetti ice cream? He says they take ice cream and run it through the pasta maker so it comes out in little strings and cover it with strawberry sauce. Ok, I think I could go for that. They also have a soda called MezzoMix which is orange and cola mixed together and bottled. Um, no. He also showed me a photo of cola beer which sounds gross too. I’m not really a fan of mixing things. Unless it’s chocolate mixed with ice cream, peanut butter, or more chocolate . . .

If he were to tell you about the tournament, this blog post would be 50 pages long as he described every detail of various shots, penalties, and who was down by how many points with so many seconds left in the game, but the short stats are they made it through the first round of pool play into the quarter-finals where they lost 1-0. They were at a disadvantage coming into the tournament because they were seeded 13th out of 15 so they had to play 2 very strong teams on the first day. The other teams play each other during the season (can you imagine traveling from Italy to Germany for one of your weekly soccer games?) so they ranked the other teams based on those standings and then tossed the Bahrain school in at number 13. The bottom 3rd of this article in Stars and Stripes describes their first day in a bit more detail. Tournament coverage, day 1

Calvin messaged me a few times during the week so we could keep track of how they were doing. He was really excited one day because he GOT TO PLAY (his text was in all caps — I loved “seeing” how excited he was) for a few minutes when they had to pull their goalie out to change some equipment. Other than that he cheered them on, watched a lot of great soccer and is dreaming about next year when he has the potential to become the starting goalie. 

It’s all been worth it, but we’re both happy tomorrow morning doesn’t start with a 5:30am drive to practice . . .