Random things I miss about home

before i came to kuwait i knew there would be things about home i missed. family, friends, normal diet pepsi that didn't cost a fortune, current american tv shows, real booze, etc... there are some things i miss that came as a total surprise, either because i had no idea i could ever miss such things or it never occurred to me that certain things would be absent from kuwait. hopefully this will give you all an idea of the day to day annoyances and irritants of living in kuwait. so here they are, in no particular order.

-accessible ATM's... this is quite possibly my biggest pet peeve here. the country itself is very cash driven. meaning you can't order take out, buy things from the bakala, etc, with a debit card. this would be fine if there were ATM's. however, there are no ATM's in my part of town so in order to get cash i have to take a cab into salmiya. not the biggest tragedy, but still a bummer when you have no cash and just want pizza hut for dinner.

-pretzels... there appear to be no pretzels in the entire country.

-drug stores that sell more than just drugs

-convenience stores... bakalas are nice, but they don't have big bottles of diet coke or toilet paper... forget about mac and cheese or ben and jerry's

-accessible toilet paper... culturally "the hose" is more popular so the only places to buy toilet paper is at the big, more western supermarkets... not so helpful should you accidentally run out

-diet pepsi... i drink diet coke here because the diet pepsi is so weird tasting. me... 'nuff said

-large bottles of any beverage... 2 liter bottles of soda are 2.25 liters here and they are HARD to find, unless you want pepsi or miranda.

-normal tasting tap water

-mexican food, especially burritos... i would kill for a baja fresh at marina mall, or in my apartment building

-draino

-soda machines having diet soda in them

-cheese cake factory

-boston drivers... kuwaiti drivers are sooo bad it makes us look amazingly skilled.

-completed sidewalks

-baked ruffles, lays, cheetos, etc...

-real trees... palm trees only get you so far

-recycling. it's all faux recycling here and the only things they make an attempt with are paper and plastic water bottles, but i'm pretty sure none of them make it to the plant.