Roaming With the Roddens: August 2013

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Welcome to September in Kuwait, where it's still 115 degrees!

Happy September everyone! Now that the calendar has changed to the ninth month of the year we are excited about the first day of school, which is exactly one week from today. We have become fairly familiar with our neighborhood and with the Kuwait City area, at large, but we have yet to find our rhythm because all we have done since we arrived in Kuwait is prepare for life after September 8. We really enjoy our place and our new friends and coworkers and we have already learned a lot about being an expat here in the GCC region. The biggest frustration thus far has been lack of reliable internet in our building. We moved in days after the construction was final and, since we live in a new building in an up-and-coming area of the city, the infrastructure is still catching up!

So bear with us, we will be posting much more often in the coming days - once we are able. Here are some pictures from the past week or two, along with some hopefully enjoyable anecdotes!

Lindsay's school had a huge opening event this past Thursday with a large throng of reporters who took thousands of pictures! This was the coverage - a full page - from just one of the local papers!

Lindsay outside her classroom with her teaching assistant, Beverly

Some of the other teachers in our building decided that we should have monthly pot luck dinners. This was a fantastic idea and the start of a great tradition! Here is a picture of the spread (it was more impressive in person) and another of the folks digging in!

We were delighted to find out we have, among many others, a Smashburger less than a mile from our house. One of the malls, well actually THE mall, here in Kuwait City has a Texas Roadhouse! (And we ate there and it was just like home!!!)

About 1 kilometer from our building is the only authentic Mexican food restaurant in Kuwait! How fortunate for us! The Lord knew! :) It is pretty good, but we will still miss our Pappacitos!

The biggest and grandest mall in Kuwait is named The Avenues. It is over a mile long and has many British and American stores, from all ranges of fashion and fair. You can find dozens of American restaurants and stores ranging from H&M to Fendi, Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Ralph Lauren. Kuwaiti's love to shop and The Avenues is their top of the mountain,

As we mentioned before, Lindsay was ecstatic when she met the three other Hoosiers on her faculty!!! Here is a shot of them - Kyle (4th Grade), Jessica (4th), Emily (2nd), and Lindsay(3rd)!

About a five minute cab ride form our building is a great little mall, built right on the sea with an infinity pool and fountains that dance to music. It is a beautiful and nifty little area and houses our go-to grocery store. We plan on spending a lot of evenings here sitting outside some of the cafes once the weather cools down starting next month.

Joe has already dove head-first into Middle Eastern food. Zaatar is the main option, found all over Q8, and it is delicious!

Lindsay's school took us on a trip to the Kuwait Aquarium. It was nice, but once you have been to the Georgia World Aquarium in Atlanta the bar is high!

Here is a couple of pictures from Joe's school. He is exited to be a part of a faculty with teachers from 27 different countries!

Finally, we have a beautiful little beach about five minutes from our building and Joe snapped these pictures on a couple different morning runs. The first is his shoes in the waters of the Arabian Gulf and the second was just after sunrise, when the morning is calm and a beautiful 80 degrees!

If you've read this far we know you are pretty special to us, so know that we love you!!!

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Settling in...

We need to address an issue that a couple of Joe's globetrotting friends brought up via facebook. We are not eating at all the American restaurants pictured in our blog! Haha, seriously, though, we are trying to give you all a look at how fascinatingly familiar all the food options are. We have eaten most of our meals at home or at a hole-in-the-wall Asian place right by our building. It would be easy (but expensive!) to eat at all the wonderful American fast food joints and restaurants, but that isn't Joe's style!

That being said, Joe took advantage of his last day of summer this past Tuesday and canvased our entire neighborhood. Below are some pictures of just a few of the local food options, all within a short walk from our home.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Our new home

We moved in to our new apartment three days ago and we are getting settled in nicely, with one big exception - the internet connection is very poor. We have hardly been able to contact family back home because our plan of using facetime has been sabotaged by very, very poor internet service. We are supposed to have a solid, high-speed connection as part of our housing package but they are apparently still working out some bugs. We basically had no service at all until yesterday and now we have a slower than dial-up connection about 20% of the time. Writing this blog will take about an hour, instead of the 15 minutes or so it should.

That being said, we really like our new crib! We are on the tenth floor and have a view of the Arabian Gulf (Persian Gulf to Americans) from our bedroom, dining room, and living room balcony. The apartment itself is much larger than we expected and very nice. The furnishings are 100% Ikea, which is fine with us, and rather basic, but we appreciate the open-plan kitchen and the fact that Lindsay's school provided us with a welcome kit filled with a few days' worth of groceries and basic necessities. We have already gone on a couple of shopping outings that Lindsay's school has set up and we have began to make our place our home.

Lindsay's school has gone above and beyond to help us feel comfortable and get adjusted. They have regular shopping trips scheduled to various supermarkets, shopping malls, and department/furniture stores. They also provided us with a generous settling in allowance to allow us to have plenty of $$$ to buy the things we need to make our house comfortable - small appliances, such as a hair dryer and flat iron for Lindsay, some DVDs, groceries, snacks, toileteries, etc..

Our building is located in a new and up-and-coming suburb about 20 miles south of downtown Kuwait City. There are about 15-20 restaurants within a 15 minute walk and we have already tried (and fallen in love with) a few of them! The highlight is a place called Rowdy Taco (Texans can imagine a poor man's Freebirds) that has chips & queso along with a solid selection of various tacos made to order. A close second is an Asian place we discovered yesterday called Panda House. They serve Chinese, Japanase, Thai, and sushi and a group of seven of us had lunch there and we all loved it. This place would be successful in West Houston or Flower Mound, it is that good!

Today is Lindsay's first day at school, where she is being given a tour and basic orientation. This afternoon her school will pick up the family members, like Joe, who are chilling in our building and they get to accompany the faculty and staff on a field trip to the national aquarium and science museum. The school is doing this to show all the teachers potential field trip options. They have another such option planned for later on in the week. Remember, the work week is Sunday-Thursday in the Arab world, with weekends being Friday/Saturday. Joe has his first day of in-service on Wednesday, the 21st, and he is excited to get started.

One awesome thing to mention, Lindsay and her fellow teachers were told by the director of the school that this would be her/their best year of teaching ever. The school is brand new and they are opening with, at last count, 54 total students in pre-K through 5th grade. This low number means that each teacher will basically have a small group of students to educate for this next year as they design and map the curriculum and build out the school. Lindsay's school is starting the way a new school should, keeping the admissions standards high (a majority of their students are members of the ruling famly!) and sparing no expense. We can't wait to show pictures of the building, because it is one of the most amazing educational facilities in the world! That says a lot, because Joe taught at Houston Christian for three years and their campus is nicer than most small universities.

Finally, Lindsay is elated because she is one of four graduates of Indiana University at Bloomington! She has three Hoosier buddies and fellow Colts fans, as well as a couple other teachers from Michigan who root for her beloved Tigers. Add to this the nearly dozen Texans and her little educational family couldn't be much more awesome! They are a diverse and wonderful group and we both look forward to living beside, working with, and getting to know them all!

Here are some pictures...