Random info

Well today I saw a bunch of beautifully pink flamingos hanging out in the water looking for food. I've never seen them in the wild before. Sometimes we see people and their horses get into the water together and cool off. Weird. It rained on November 28 for the first time since we've been here. It was crazy windy and sand was flying everywhere until it finally rained. Some of the stores are starting to carry Christmas decorations. I think because of the big British and American population here. The picture here is of the fountain at the entrance to one of the palaces here. I'll try to post a better picture once I'm not in the car.

Gulf Hotel health and fitness club

This week Kenny and I decided we needed some exercise and entertainment in our lives. After searching all over Bahrain, we found a club that fits us. Most of the hotels here offer a club to join. After looking at numerous hotels, we decided that the Gulf Hotel was the best fit for us for the price. We joined for 6 months. The club includes a seperate men's and women's gym complete with workout classes, fully equipped gym, personal trainers, two saunas, a private hot tub and massage sessions indoors or outdoors. The tennis courts and squash courts are huge, but you have to bring in your own equipment. The pool is the best part. After walkinng down these wooden stairs with little ponds on the side with fish in them, you arrive at the pool. There are peole waiting to provide you with beach towels so you never have to pack your own. There is a hot tub you can enter from in the pool and a bar you can swim up to. Waiters/waitresses are there to bring you drinks and food. It's a wonderful place to hang out and waste a few hours. Maybe Kenny and I will eventually get a tan!

Margaritas

Margaritas is Bahrain's first fine dining Mexican restaurant located in the Gulf Hotel. It was a little exensive. Dinner for two cost around $90, but we had a few drinks. The guacamole is made table side and they place the bowl at your table. So even though it's $14, you get a lot of guacamole. Kenny had two enchiladas and I had three tacos, but were very good. It looked like small portions at first but luckily we ordered sides to fill us up and we left very full. The sides are sold seperately. We had black beans and rice, both which were very delicious. The rice was green, flavored with cilantro. You can get various shots of tequila and margaritas. I had the blood orange which was delicious, but the second one was full of too much syrup. They also put red pepper flakes on the rim of the margarita glass which was annoying and too hot. They bring you chips and salsa at the beginning of the meal and the three salsas were very delicious. One was a cilantro based, the other was very spicy and the third was a roasted pepper that was mild and my favorite. The food was exellent, but a little over priced. The decor was beautiful as well as the table settings.

Spices Restaurant in the Crowne Plaza

This restaurant is brand new. I never used to like Indian food, but the Indian restaurants here have really opened my eyes. We started with calamari rings (pictured). They also provide you with three dips (pictured) and some naan to start off with. The two dips on the outside were very spicy and the green dip in the middle was cool and minty. We each ordered a tikka which came in little le creuset pots (pictured). It is three different courses, the left is hammour (fish) the middle is a lentil dish and the last was spicy shrimp. It was served with rice and naan. This was one of the best Indian restaurants I have eaten in. The service was excellent. I ordered prosecco to cut the heat from the main dishes and since they were out they brought me another sparkling wine and didn't charge me for the second glass.

Thai Palace in the Gulf Hotel

This restaurant is inside the Gulf Hotel which has 18 restaurants in it. The hotel is beautiful and one of Bahrain's oldest. This Thai restaurant lets you pick out your own fish and cooking methods if that's what you choose to order. We had stuffed soft shell crabs and vegetable spring rolls for appetizers (pictured), followed by pad thai and coconut spiced shrimps. The desserts were delicious. We had a mango creme brulee and stuffed pumpkin with egg custard. This was the first place that actually had creme de menthe on the dessert beverage menu so of course I had to get it. I had a half bottle of Portuguese rose wine that was wonderful (pictured). To get to the restaurant you get to walk outside the hotel and down a few stairs that look like they were made out of bamboo. They really tried to create an authentic dining expeprience here. Next weekend we're dining at the first fine dining Mexican restaurant. I can't wait, it's been a while since I've had a margarita!

Golf Courses

The golf courses here are beautiful. The one pictured here is The Royal Golf Course. It's beautiful. I usually sit and drink wine and read while Kenny goes to the driving range. Sometimes I'll go with him to drive the cart. We go at night time because it is way cooler and the price is cheaper as well. It has two beautiful restaurants and a gift shop that any golfer would enjoy. The golf carts come with a little cooler with bottled water and a GPS map of the course. I was impressed, but then again I don't golf that much. There are little "pit stops" along the way, you can get more to drink or even light up your cigar. They have many of these "pit stops" because they don't have any cart girls to bring you beverages. Too bad, I need a job :) The courses are beautiful as you can see; however, you can see the pipes that are carrying oil right on the golf course. This course is far away from where we live, but it's remote and peaceful.

Another week

As the holidays approach, I get a little more home sick, so I bought a mistletoe candle and a Christmas movie from the base and downloaded some Christmas music from the internet, but still can't seem to get into that Christmas spirit. It must be because it's still 100 degrees here and I'm not used to anything but cold weather during the winter. Now that everything is settled here with getting my CPR card and my visa and now that our trips are over for now, we are having trouble keeping ourselves occupied. We're thinking about spending a few days at the Ritz Carlton for Christmas and enjoy their pool and beach. I believe Kenny works on Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I'll spend it alone until he gets home later that night. I'm catering two holiday parties at the base so that will be fun. I bought this magazine I saw at the Carrefour (grocery store in the mall), called "Time Out Bahrain". It lists events that are going on during the month and new places to go. I've always wanted to eat at Nobu, a very expensive place, the kind "Hollywood" goes to. Angelina Jolie goes there quite often. Anyways, since I'll probably never be able to get in there, the Mirai Restaurant Bahrain is the next best thing. The chef from Nobu now works here at the Mirai Restaurant. The menu is Japanese tapas. They also have an extensive wine/beer list with saki-tinis, can't 'wait to try it. Hopefully I'll get there this weekend and I'll have a post about it later. The Ritz Carlton is also having a chocolate fest with a chef who sound slike he's from France, but who knows. I definitely have to go to this.
So the awesome grocery shopping events are wearing off. I'm no longer in awe of the produce I see. However, today when I bought some celery, I discovered a red worm in it. I'm almost glad now to pay that extra money in the states to have someone pre-wash my produce to save me from seeing things like this. All the produce is like this though, you just have to make sure you wash it really good.
We have found the one wine store in the whole country. But the prices are outrageous. You end up spending about three times as much. Looks like I need to go to the duty free in Dubai again to stock up on some rare wines (although you can only bring two liters per person back). In Dubai and Abu Dhabi you need a certificate/card/license thing in order to buy alcohol.
At the end of December, we are moving into an apartment. The apartments here come with a pool, a gym and a steam room. The apartment we found even has a dishwasher. I never knew how much I took things like a dishwasher for granted...or a garbage disposal at that. Since it seems we managed to rent the only villa in Bahrain without a pool, this will be a nice change. The apartment still has three bedrooms, fully furnished and in some apartments you can pay by the month. So I think we'll move into that in January. More to come after this weekend's events.

A Week in Dubai

Dubai is so full of money! Everything here is done to the nine's. The malls have huge aquariums, ice skating rinks and snow skiing hills. The first restaurant we ate at when we arrived was a sushi place in the mall. We sat near the window overlooking the ski hill. It was very neat. All the malls have the high end shopping like Ferragamo, Versace, Armani, Louis Vuitton, etc. The restaurants are amazing. We ate at this Moroccan restaurant in a hotel that was outstanding. The Moroccan wine, which I didn't know they made, was outstanding. They had huge tents in the courtyard you could sit at and eat. Like in Bahrain, only the hotel restaurants serve alcohol. The gold souq was awesome. It has lots of jewelry shops. You are just in awe the whole time by looking at diamonds after diamonds. However, the Bahrain souq is a little better, but the Dubai one is more crowded. The prices are so good. We also went on a ride in the desert and had a buffet meal planned for us with camel rides and belly dancing. It was very fun. The best shopping, however, is not in the malls, it's in the duty free at the airport. We always joke you could fly to Dubai, shop at the duty free, eat and fly home again. Dubai is only a 45 minute flight from Bahrain. The duty free has tons and tons of various wines I can't find here, caviar, cigars, alcohol, jewelry, clothes, books, movies, golf clubs, etc. It has everything. The restaurants in the airport are also very good. You can get seafood and caviar with champagne. Kenny and I ate at a sushi place where you can pick out the fish you want served to you. They also serve alcohol in the airport restaurants. Dubai is exciting, but go ready to shop, otherwise, there's not much to do besides shopping and eating!

Day 6 Harrods!

By Day 6 we were so tired from walking so we took a relaxign day and did some shopping around London. Harrods is very cool just to go see. There are tons of places to eat but are very expensive though. A sandwich is around $18. You can get oysters, seafood, truffles, tea, dim sum, fresh cheeses, sushi, caviar, etc all in the food court. The tea room and chocolate bar is wonderful. Kenny and I had chocolate fondue with coffee and a chocolate martini. My favorite part was the Christmas room which opened in August for the holidays. I didn't want to leave that room. Harrod's is a beautful mall, more elegant than I ever thought it would be, but didn't really do any shopping, it's just way too expensive, but I still had to see it just to say I saw it. The next day we left for Bahrain and then got up early again to head to Dubai.