Robin Chartier – Page 165

Grosser than gross:

My girlie thinks the bidet in our hotel room is a toddler size drinking fountain.
Disgusting.

We did something really fun today, but I’m too tired from being out in the heat all day to post all the pictures of our boat trip. The boys (the younger two) start VBS tomorrow at the base chapel, so hopefully I’ll have some extra time to write about our cruise out to an island in the middle of the ocean.

I’m probably better off without a car . . .

The boys and I ventured out today to go to a “friend’s” house. On the way the boys were asking things like:
“So where did you meet this lady?”
I haven’t.
“But I thought she was friends with you on Facebook?”
Well . . . I have messaged with her on Facebook.
“So why are we going over to her house?”
Because she invited people over for coffee.
“So why do we have to go?”
Urgh! Be quiet while I’m trying to figure out where I’m going!
“How do you know where she lives?”
Because she sent me her address and Daddy showed me where it was on Google Maps.
“So, who is this lady?”
I have no idea.

Yeah, you know how people tell you to be careful about meeting strangers from the Internet? I’m happy to tell you that these strangers are now friends. The moms had fun chatting over coffee while our 13 kids played Wii and swam in the beautiful pool in her backyard. We shared house hunting stories, housekeeper stories, and military life experiences. The kids left saying, “Thanks Mom. That was great!”

Perfect day, until the drive home. I am the only person I know who can get lost while using a GPS. The house we visited was only about 5 minutes from our hotel and Josh pointed out our “future house” as a landmark, but somehow I managed to drive around for almost an hour before getting back to the hotel. I didn’t use the GPS at first because I thought I knew the general direction I was going . . . and then I ended up on the back side of the base, nowhere near the hotel. Not a big deal, I know how to get home from here . . . oops, I was supposed to turn right back there. . . . How did I end up on the freeway? At least I know NOT to go over the bridge. Let me get off the freeway and pull out the GPS. XXXX Suites is the same as XXXX Hotel, right? Huh, as we’re getting closer, things aren’t looking familiar. What sort of crazy roundabout is this? Good grief, this tiny car has no power. How am I supposed to merge? Yeah, I’m sure this is not our hotel.

Let’s try again: GPS, take me to the Grand Mosque. I can find the hotel from there. Wow, I was way off before since GPS lady is taking me in a completely different direction. After a few minutes, Calvin notices the time on the GPS and says, “Is this thing still on Israel time? Cause it’s saying we aren’t going to get there until 5:56pm.” Say what now? I zoom out, out, out and discover that my destination is The Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia.

Time to call in the pros. I pull over and call Josh and ask him if he set the XXXX Hotel in the GPS as a favorite location. Of course he didn’t, because normal directionally challenged people can plug in the name of their hotel and actually get there. He tells me to go to “Hotels” and type in only part of the name to see all the options. I select the one that seems the most promising and then proceed to drive on 3 different highways and through several roundabouts until finally pulling into the parking lot here at “HOME.” The worst part about the detour wasn’t the driving, but that Camille fell asleep in the car and we were on the road long enough that she counted that as her “nap.”

This is a rough recreation of where I drove: The party was in the area marked ‘A’ and our hotel is near the other red circle. Somehow I managed to turn a 5 minute trip into a tour of the island. I think I need to go back to walking.

We are melting . . . melting!

The humidity has arrived — stepping outside means fogged up sunglasses, slippery iPhones and dripping bodies. Even the glass windows in the stairway inside our hotel were fogging up.

We can’t escape the heat by going to the beach and there are no waves here — this is the front of the indoor waterpark inside the mall. We haven’t gone yet, but it’s on our list of things to do. Unfortunately we are starting the Ramadan season of daytime lockdown (starting tomorrow) where everything is closed all day and people party all night. The indoor waterpark is one of the places that closes for the entire month.

We caved and rented a car. I decided my mental health was more important than adhering to the principle of not “needing” a car. Last night we went to the mall to walk around and find a place to eat. The parking garage said there were 1400 spots available, but when almost every car parks like this, it makes it a lot harder to find a space than it should be.

I am so bummed that this photo didn’t turn out. The mannequins all had their legs covered, but tons of nippage showing through the tops. I think it’s much more important (and modest) to cover my lady bits than my knees . . .

I know going out to eat every night sounds fun . . .

It really isn’t. I spend the entire time hissing at the kids to eat like humans, rather than wild animals, and she wants to climb on the table and make a mess of all the food. Look at Josh’s tight jaw — he’s trying not to lose it as she screams and flops everywhere. She is an expert at “going boneless.”

It’s a beautiful, gigantic mall. We’ve been twice and haven’t even begun to cover it all. It’s like the Dubai Mall’s baby sister. This is the view from our seats at Fatburger (Carter was so excited), looking out at the entrance to the indoor waterpark. Sorry for the blur.

Poor sweaty girl. On the base for lunch with dad.

They have all sorts of food options: Taco Bell and other fast food places, but Carter’s favorite is going through the cafeteria line for mashed potatoes and gravy. Today he got beef stroganoff along with his mashed potatoes.

I opted for the taco bar and made a taco salad.

The other thing that has been hard about blogging lately is I now have to think about XXXXXXXXXX (redacted). I have to be careful about the things I take pictures of or the things I talk about that have to do with Josh and his work. That is a new twist for me and I’m feeling sort of inhibited by it all. I’m sure it will become more natural and I’ll get a better idea of what is off limits soon, but it’s not making things easy at the moment. And now I’m second guessing if I’m even allowed to talk about XXXXXX (redacted) . . . not like I know what Josh does at work (I’m not even allowed XXXXXXXXX (redacted) Or maybe that’s a secret too. [yes it was] Ackk! [see how difficult this is?!?]

A new friend took the boys to see a movie on base after lunch, so I was able to take Camille home to nap.

She runs hot anyway, so as soon as she hits the outside air she turns as red as a beet. Picture a blow dryer set to ‘High Heat’ blowing in your face while being drizzled with warm water — that’s pretty close to how it feels.

bright spots

I think I’ve figure out what my problem is (at least one of them): I was expecting to soothe my disappointment at not going home this summer with a fun introduction to Bahrain. Sightseeing, eating out, discovering new favorite spots . . . and my expectations haven’t been met.

Poor sweaty, tired baby in the middle of her 10 minute cat-nap as we ride the shuttle

The plan (see my mistake there?) was that Josh would check in so we could start looking for a place to live, then take leave and we would enjoy exploring the country together, just as if we were on one of our trips. I’m still waiting for leave to happen. He arrived, they piled on work, and he’s been working 11 hour days. So while I’m waiting for the fun to start, here’s a little of what we’ve been doing:

It took me a while to figure out that these signs aren’t actually adversing a toilet.
(For Kristy: it’s a For Rent sign — ‘To Let.’ I’m not sure why so many of them have the words run together)

OK, I can be happy here. They have my favorite cookies (a 3 pack for $5 is a bargain!)

Grocery store games — trying to crawl out from under a moving cart. See all the water? A source of dispute here. Josh keeps telling us to drink tap water, but none of us like it and when the bottles run out we all slowly dehydrate until we get more bottles. It’s not environmentally friendly, but not much here is. When we’re in our house we’ll have bottled water delivered in the big 5 gallon reusable jugs.

A ramadan special: buy a 2 liter bottle of coke and get a free bag of macaroni? Cause that’s always what I crave when I open a Coke . . .

The bright spot of every day is when we go out to dinner at night. It’s a chance to get out of the hotel and walk around in the not-so-blazing heat. Oh, it’s still hot and humid, but at least the sun isn’t baking our skin. We’ve tried a bunch of different restaurants in the neighborhood around our hotel. This night we did schwarma (the meat on a spit that is shaved into flatbread along with tomatoes, lettuce and sauce.) Cheap and really good. Like Oman, food is expensive here, but schwarma can be had for about $2 each.

Walking the streets — it feels much more like a big city than Muscat

Stopping at a juice stand for an after dinner drink — fresh fruit goes in the blender with ice.

A bunch of red grapes tossed in the blender = Grape juice

Totally unrelated, spotted in the Navy Exchange: it says “Cruelty Free, Tested on Humans First.” It wasn’t cruel to those first humans who tested it?

Another evening, walking by the Grand Mosque.

In the huge dirt lot, men are playing games of cricket and football (soccer)

All these tall buildings are much different than what we would see in Oman — I don’t think there’s anything over 4 stories there. Most buildings are only 2 stories.

Another day, another dining adventure. (Not very adventurous that night since we ended up at TGIFriday’s.) So far it seems like the only thing to do here is eat out. If my Arabic-speaking tour guide ever has time to explore, maybe we’ll find a different side to the island. Hoping that time comes soon!

More limbo

I keep meaning to post, but there’s not really anything new to share. I’m sure there are plenty of things that are blog-worthy, but I’ve seen too much of the middle east for them to stand out much anymore. Guy driving in reverse down the road? Yawn. Seen that (many times) before. Big family crammed in a car sans seatbelts? Not only have we seen it, we’ve become it. We borrowed a car last night and my attempt at safety was wearing Camille in the Ergo and sitting in the back seat (less chance of getting thrown our of the car) since the seatbelts weren’t working. It was an improvement over the day before when the kids and I crammed in the back seat of the shuttle (a town car) along with a random man. Poor guy having to share space with the 5 of us!

All that to say that there may be some craziness in my day to day life, but I’ve become sort of immune to noticing it. Crazy has become the new norm. Also not helping: a general monotony to our days that doesn’t seem interesting enough to blog about.

1. Wake up exhausted from bed sharing with a baby who is all elbows and knees.
2. Run an errand on base — get hot, sweaty, and flushed from all the walking outside. Baby misses regular nap time and falls asleep in the Ergo on my back.
3. Back to hotel, baby decides 10 minute back nap was enough, spend the next hour unsuccessfully trying to convince her otherwise.
4. Kids all watch too much TV, which I allow because it cuts down on the fighting, at least temporarily.
5. Josh comes home and we have to figure out where to go for dinner even though no one is hungry but him.
6. Walk to nearby restaurant/schwarma stand/grocery store. (my favorite part of the day)
7. By the time dinner is over and we’ve walked back home it’s late (after 9) and Camille is overtired. She ends up thrashing around in our bed and fights going to sleep for the next hour.
8. I stay up too late — clinging to the hope that if I just keep changing the channel, I will find something great to watch. It never happens.

Repeat.