Bahrain

I am in Bahrain on work. Thats what they told me when they sent me. I have realised though, after 2 days of finishing work before lunch followed by hectic socialising that the definitions of work are different across cultures. For instance, in Bahrain, a terribly hard day would begin at 8am and end at 4pm. I like this culture.

I think the people here are exceptionally friendly and the guards hand you the passes in a very endearing fashion by calling out to you as "ah, my friends, here are your passes". Come on now, you have to admit that is endearing.

What is not so endearing is the fact that when you hand in some dollars to exchange to Bahrain-y money, all you get is what appears to be pocket change (given the coins they hand you as well as 2-3 seemingly low denomination notes). Bah!! We are used to handing in dollars to the guy behind the counter and getting large wads of notes in return, making us feel like the king of the world, much in the same fashion as my good friend Leo felt in that ghastly movie called The Titanic. This is unjust!

I have also realised in Bahrain that my photography skills are somewhat lacking (to say the least). As a result, most pictures I have taken are blurry and only show the fact that I missed the actual subject due to my excited waving of arms while taking said photos. However, I am not ashamed of my lack of skill and am therefore willing to allow you to ridicule my horrific photo-taking skills by viewing them here.

Dissolved

The Monday Club has been dissolved. After much enthusiasm and a few hundred pitchers of beer, the members felt it was too expensive and having fewer pitchers of beer was not an option. Furthermore, going out on a Monday was too much of an effort for the ageing members (an of course I dont include myself in this group).

Arrgh! My one opportunity to rule the world has been trashed! Dashed! Thrown to the dogs!!

Meanwhile, one of my best friends has fallen in love and cant get enough of it. Its like she is on a drug! So nice and yet I want my little space - as her favourite person, the one she couldnt do without talking at least once a day to - back. I want it back, you hear me young man? I am, of course, very glad for her but I already know she will get married and move to a land where the timezones are strange. Its like the country likes being awake when one is meant to sleep! I already lost one friend to a foreign land, another one leaves in a few months with her husband (London is snatching my friends away, give them back I say!!) and this one may leave in another year or so... Bah!

In other news, I have a headache that refuses to leave the warm and cosy place between my skull and my hair..... I am off to kill the headache or myself with immediate effect.

Countless Pointy People

In case both of my readers (including myself) were wondering where I have been lately, I would like to tell you the story behind my disappearance from the world of blogging. It was one of my closest friends wedding. I was away and enjoying myself being introduced to all and sundry as "the bride's best friend". It is a privileged position to hold I tell you. I got to take annoying pictures of her (and with her) and pointed and laughed at her silly behaviour throughout. Not only that I further aggravated the tense bride by repeatedly wondering why she was tense because I "remember having so much fun at my wedding" (NOT).

The thing about human memory is that we tend to remember the good parts (if you are optimistic... you are obviously likely to remember all the bad parts if you are a manic-depressive sort) and forget the bad parts of certain events in our lives. Child-birth for instance tends to evoke such happy, emotional responses from mothers who have left the experience behind them. However, from what I see on TV (and I do watch a LOT of TV) it does not appear to be a pretty thing to happen to anybody. Therefore, much like the mothers who forget all the pain they went through dring childbirth, I forgot all the tension at the time of my wedding and only remember the fun parts -

1. My brother aiming the flowers at prayer ceremonies at my spectacles,
2. One of seven dwarfs (grumpy) making a brief appearance at the wedding,
3. F telling one of the gazillion guests when told that he-came-all-way-from-timbuctoo-for-the-wedding that he REALLY SHOULDNT HAVE,
4. Drinking pitchers of long island iced tea;
5. Doing tequila shots;
6. Reminding everybody of my Mumtaz-look and then having to explain to them who Mumtaz was by singing the famous song to them (in a very out-of-tune fashion for that extra special effect);
7. Laughing till I had tears in my eyes while all my friend got their mehendi done for various reasons, the foremost among them being the fact that my friends are clowns,

This wedding was no less and I am sure Sav will remember all the fun parts and just to remind her, those moments were as follows:

1. When we had to paint her face black with a purported face-mask;
2. When we got to pour oil on her hair (pity about the shower cap she wore for that prayer meeting)
3. When she very seriously told us that someone was asking very POINTY questions about her ex-boyfriend
4. (This one is priceless) When I mentioned an exaggerated number, as I usually tend to do, and Sav jumped up and said, "You dont know how to count... you are countless!"
5. When we drank ourselves silly at Buzz and she did her cool chicken dance with her fiance in public!
6. When I said to her (as she sat in one corner alone) that someone is getting engaged today and looking unhappy about it, referring to her of course and she jumped up (yet again) and said "who?? who??"
7. When the singer scolded us for not dancing and Sav proceeded to do her chicken dance in public AGAIN and this time she had people she knew around her!

Thats enough I think, seven fun memories for her and for me. No more, no less. I shall be back with Sub-Urban tales soon..