The Wedding

Everyone wanted to hear more about this wedding.  The event took place in the family’s dewaniya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewaniya).  In this instance, the family extends to 10,000 people.  It was a large building with floors made of marble.  You enter into a welcoming courtyard (again, white marble) with rooms to the left and right.  The groom and his father were in the room to the right.  I shook their hands and then sat for coffee one of many couches lining the room.  Juices, fragrant oils and water were also offered.  I counted two other men dressed in western wear, everyone else wore traditional garb.  After greeting the groom we (Fahed and I) went to the room on the opposite side of the courtyard.  That room was filled with food I didn’t recognize.  So, I politely filled my plate and proceed to what I thought was going to be another room where we’d sit and eat.  This was not to be the case.  We proceeded outside where it was 41 Celsius.  For everyone but Thomas and Veronica I say go google it.  It was about 9:00PM when we sat to eat.  And just in case you were thinking “it is a dry heat” I recommend trying to eat a meal sitting in front of your oven with the door open.   

That was Thursday night.  More importantly, right now I’m struggling to boil water.  The stove looks similar to an electric one from home but definitely doesn’t work the same way.  I turned the dial all the way up to 12 and placed the pot with water on top.  After about 5 minutes still nothing.  Apparently 12 is warm and 1 is hot? I’m going to have to spend more time in this kitchen before attempting anything more complicated than hard boiled eggs.

It is now 3:45 and I’m so far passed hard boiling eggs.  Burgers, meat sauce and Nescafe are all part of my “Kuwait cooking skills” now.  I ventured back out this morning to another grocery store.  This one was a bit smaller than the last, but about the size of Whole Foods on Houston.  Unfortunately they didn’t have a French Press (note Nescafe above).  I’ve decided to leave The Avenues for tomorrow www.the-avenues.com.