Bahrain

This past weekend, we took a long weekend and escaped to Bahrain for a couple of days. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this country – it is a tiny island just off the east coast of Saudi Arabia. Since Bahrain is a little less rigid and conservative than Saudi Arabia (booze and no abayas!), it makes for a popular weekend destination for both Westerners and Saudis. A common joke is that ‘allah can’t see over the bridge’…I guess our equivalent saying would be ‘what happens in Bahrain, stays in Bahrain’.

We spent a glorious weekend of indulgence and consumerism, and for those of you who know me well, these two things go completely against my nature. But it was wonderful – we stayed in a five star hotel, attached to a huge mall/cinema. We spent our days doing all of the things that we can’t do here: trying things on in the fitting rooms while shopping, going to the movies (Mission Impossible), walking around without an abaya on and drinking in our hotel room. In fact, the only reason we actually left our hotel was to go and buy a bottle of wine and a few beer.

Upon our arrival at our hotel, I asked at the front desk where we could go to buy beer. He told us that if we were planning on taking a taxi, the taxi would take us there, but once we went into “the store”, we couldn’t get back in the cab (since we are tainted by going into this forbidden place). Luckily, we had our car so we didn’t need to work around this. After driving around for a while, we finally came across this non-descript building – no sign and windows covered; but we figured we were at the right place judging from the men hurrying out of the store, eyes down, clutching their black plastic bags. The store was absolutely packed (since it is the only place to buy beer in all of Bahrain), mainly with Arab men. This whole experience kind of felt like visiting the pornography section of a video store; you don’t make eye contact and you get the goods as fast as possible before anyone that you know catches you.

Sorry about no pictures; our landscapes this time were H&M and Forever 21. I think you've seen those before.