I've been back from my holidays for over 10 days now, it's about time I got back to writing. Truth is, I've been putting it off because I didn't know where to start... And I still don't! So I'll just recap the summer as I remember it:
The beginning of July was a bit boring as everybody left to their summer destination, and I was probably one of the last leaving on July 14th. Arriving in France on its national day, I was welcomed by fireworks! And dull weather, which felt nice and fresh anyway. After that we had a lovely sunny week, during which we received some visit and toured around the West region (Pornic, Nantes, Saumur) as well as Paris. We also attended a couple of weddings in Vendée.
And when Richard's holiday was over, and he flew back to Saudi Arabia, mine wasn't over yet, and I headed to Mexico City. I spent a rainy week there, enjoying the food and the mood, and assisted to a very dear friend's wedding, which was a great party.
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| Pornic |
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| Pornic |
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| Nantes |
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| Nantes - Carrousel |
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| Noirmoutier |
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| Paris - Montmartre |
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| Paris |
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| Paris from the Eiffel Tower |
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| Paris - Louvre |
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| Paris - Notre Dame |
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| Disneyland Paris |
And before I knew it (although I had a 36-hour trip to realize), I was back in good ol' Al-Jubail! Most of the people were still away though, so I had an extended holiday/vegetation/lazy/boring time, which is now coming to an end (thanks God!), since next Saturday is back-to-school at the International School.
Last week-end we took a quick trip to Kuwait, which was nice, even though I didn't like it as much as the first time we went. Probably because coming back from Europe, the differences were just too obvious, and also because it struck me that this "culture" based on extreme consumerism, showing off luxury clothes, handbags and cars and pretending people are only worth what they own is just so wrong, and I wonder how the next generations are going to turn out.
For instance I couldn't believe that in all three malls we went, it was impossible to find a single bookstore! There used to be a Virgin Megastore but it closed at the beginning of this year, and apparently it hasn't been replaced by any other store of this kind, so I don't know where/if Kuwaitis buy DVDs, CDs, books, magazines, etc.
When we went to the movies, we noticed that there is only one movie theater company, which has huge cinemas with a lot of screens, but all over the city there were no more than 12 movies to choose from, 2 of which were in Telugu (spoken in India), 1 in Tamil, 1 in Hindi, 1 in Arabic, so we were left with: Batman, Spiderman, Expandables, Interview with a hitman, Brave, and Madagascar. It basically means that, either because it's the only kind of movies that Kuwaitis like, or because the country doesn't want them to see anything else, there's a possibility that they don't know anything else than these American blockbusters: mass culture at its finest!
Anyways, we still had a nice weekend, and Richard had an incredible Flight Experience, practising taking-off, flying and landing a Boeing 747 in a flight simulator.
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| In Kuwait, you gotta get used to the good stuff from a very young age |
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| Six Starbucks and zero bookstore in a mall: Kuwaiti logic |
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| Only the finest (which happens to be French!) |
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| Richard's flight experience |
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| In the middle of a cloud |
And now, even if school is starting, we're lucky that the temperatures remain high, so we're just going to enjoy our Indian summer!
Good luck coming back to school / work / business as usual ;)
