National Day

February 24, 2008 | Filed Under Main |

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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12 comments so far
  1. Mike February 25, 2008 6:20 am

    Gulf Street???? Boy, you go half way around the world and wind up on a street 1/4 mile from where you were born. Now that is a coincidence! Just be careful with the homemade wine. I just saw a National Geo. special on moonshiners and some of that stuff will melt your insides.

  2. terry February 25, 2008 8:47 am

    Wine for St. Patrick’s Day? Why aren’t you brewing beer?

  3. Tommy February 25, 2008 9:15 am

    Make green wine. It would be the best of both worlds!

  4. Nattarg February 25, 2008 10:43 am

    Home made is okay? No legal problems with it?

  5. Mom February 25, 2008 3:27 pm

    Your Grandmother would be proud of you! What are you using to make the wine, fruit, dandelions??

  6. Katie February 25, 2008 4:26 pm

    hey just thought I would tell you that I miss you freak

  7. mburma February 25, 2008 10:33 pm

    Ok - it’s officially Arabian Gulf Street.

    And - no - it’s not legal. So don’t tell! I can’t wait to see what happens. I used mainly the straight grape juice/sugar/yeast method (much easier than beer) and added a little honey to the sugar solution and some crushed red currants for pizzaz. Who knows? Maybe by the 17th, it WILL be green.

  8. kerry February 27, 2008 10:46 am

    Hey, wanna come on my radio show and talk about making homemade wine? Oh, I forgot - I don’t have a radio show…never mind :)

  9. Nattarg February 27, 2008 9:32 pm

    If it aint legal, don’t write about it on the internet, except to say that you just dumped it all. I highly doubt there is anything even close to FISA laws or a Patriot Act there.

  10. Patrick February 27, 2008 11:02 pm

    Hey, if you wanted to make beer, I could help you with the recipe. I actually made it once by accident in Russia, while trying to make what they call “kvas” (kind of a bread cider…yeah…it’s an acquired taste…”near-beerish” I suppose you could call it.)
    If you ever want to get to work on anything harder, we’ll send you some MASH episodes and that should contain enough info to make your own still. :)

  11. Patrick February 27, 2008 11:03 pm

    Oh…and a belated Happy Birthday! Not 50 yet are ya? ;)

  12. mburma February 28, 2008 7:49 am

    Not yet - thank you. Still in my youth…