Today and tomorrow are national holidays for most of Kuwait (I say most because I am working and so is the guy who got me my coffee this morning…). Today is National Day which recognizes Kuwait’s independence from Great Britain and the start of a sovereign nation. Tomorrow is Liberation Day, which is the celebration of (you guessed it) Kuwait’s liberation from the Iraq invasion. It seems that – among other festivities – these holidays are celebrated by people roaming the streets, waving flags, singing, honking horns and spraying everything they see with silly string and foam. Crates of this stuff have been sold in every store all week. The festivities shut down many roads, including Gulf Street.

My apartment building is on Gulf Street.

I have found a back way there of course (or I would not be in work). But the celebrations actually seemed to start over the weekend, as I discovered on my hour crawl on Saturday night down Gulf Street. Police were everywhere and I think their main goal was to keep traffic slow… because the streets were filled with groups of young boys walking back and forth across the highway, spraying cars with foam. Not only that, but younger kids were in cars (not driving of course) and spraying foam out the windows. It seemed mostly aimed at other cars with children in them. They would spray each other, sometimes hanging out windows, sometimes popping their heads out of sunroofs. It actually looked like a lot of fun. Somehow – I escaped the foaming, even though I was eye to eye with a can wielding youngster a number of times. I was kind of disappointed…

Lastly, I have officially completed one of the major “expat” rituals in Kuwait – my homemade wine is bubblin’ away as we speak. It should be ready by St. Patrick’s Day.

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