Let’s stroll through the Q tonight, shall we?

First off- Kuwait stinks. I don’t mean metaphorically. Literally. Stinks. A large portion of Kuwait proper is on the Persian Gulf (including shops, restaurants and where I work). And when the tide is out, the smell is akin to swamp gas mixed with burning oil products… only worse. So as I get out of the car near the Marina Mall, the first thing to hit my senses is the smell of low tide. But since this happens every day, you get used to it.

As I walk down toward the mall, past the beach, it is about 7:30pm. The night life is only just starting. The one truly active area is the skate board park, where boys with bikes, skateboards and skates practice their skills. They wear backwards caps, fist bump each other and listen to thumping Jay Z hip hop. It’s almost like home… There is a skirt of restaurants just outside the Marina Hotel and that is where my fish restaurant is. Since it is only 7:30, there is only one other table occupied in the place. My guess is that by 10 this place will be hopping. I have eaten here before and both meals where very good – including an indulgent lunch one afternoon of a dozen oysters. There are no oysters tonight to my dismay (I have never found them again after that one time). But I settle on a salt-baked sea bass with “mashed potatoes”(served as a compressed hockey puck on the plate). It was fun to watch my server break the salt tomb the fish was encased in and deftly separate the meat from the bones. And it was very good – however I remembered why I rarely order fish when dining out. Haddock, sea bass, grouper or snapper – white fish tastes like white fish. With an interesting sauce – it can be lovely. On its own – eh. It’s good, it’s healthy… but it’s hard to be enthusiastic.

From here, I walk through the Mall to come out the other side. I pass Kuwait’s sad little Virgin Megastore on the way. A year or so before I came, this was your typical Virgin store – like those I have visited in Dubai or Abu Dhabi. However, someone saw something offensive on the cover of a DVD box one day and the place was shut down. When it reopened, it was a eunuch. Mostly toys and video games, the music selection is bleak and rarely sees new product. The same for the movies. And they take up little to no space. Maybe the size of a large elevator. That said I can still buy BOTH of Lindsay Lohan’s albums there.

I come out the Mall into the heat (about 85 degrees) and walk down the street. I have two destinations: my bootleg DVD store and Dunkin Donuts. For some reason, I have decided to make coffee for the first time since I have come out here and I felt like Dunkies. The store is past my video place and down the stairs. It is virtually empty except for the five people working the counter. It’s either still early or no one EVER comes here. The latter is hard to believe because they have cheaper donuts and Kuwaitis like their sugar products. Turns out they don’t sell bags of coffee, but they would grind up a pound of their coffee and put it in a bag. This is offered so quickly, I gather I am not the first Westerner to ask.

Coffee acquired, I head down to my video place. This is also the same store I bought all my tapes and all my CDs. I love this store and they know me by now. Since it is Ramadan, the store doesn’t open until 8pm and there are people in line for the first time I can remember. I start to rummage through their “catalogue”. For well over a year, I was reluctant to purchase the boots. My experience with New York and some I picked off the street here was not very good. But THIS store…! Trust me – Hollywood has no hope. I have seen movies just barely released on DVD copied nearly verbatim. And I have picked up movies still in the theaters in digitally streamed clarity. None of these have been “off the screen” and they are not edited (thank the Lord!). And all for $7 – what used to be the price of a movie. And I have popcorn at the apartment. Obviously, the place is not a secret because people kept streaming in and going right for the books. So I picked up five – including “Drag Me To Hell”, which I can’t wait to see – and started back to the Mall. Did I say I loved this store?

Sweating now because, well, it’s still hot and I’ve been walking and crossing the very busy streets without being hit. I go back through the Mall to my final destination – Krispy Kreme Donuts. The other part of my nutritious Friday breakfast. It’s a truncated selection from what I’m used to. There are no lemon-filled donuts and I’m fearful of the date-filled and pistachio-crème ones, but there is still a dozen filling the box. As I walk back to my car, it’s about 10pm and my fish restaurant is still not as crowded as Johnny Rockets. But the beach is starting the fill up and the adjacent park is as well. The sidewalks are filled with children and bicycles and ice cream/water vendors. The skateboard park is rocking louder than before (and the rap music has become more obnoxious). Still – for Kuwaitis the night has just begun. For me – it’s over.

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