First Day in Kuwait

I made it to Kuwait!  Man, the heat really is like walking around with a hot blow dryer on your face.

  Because I used a meet and assist service, it only took me 2 minutes to get my visa.  Really, it only took a couple of minutes!   I felt like royalty when I got off the plane and an Asian lady with a red jacket was standing there holding a sign up with my name.   The young  lady also walked me around the airport and took pictures of me since I was wide-eyed with tourist like amazement.  We sashayed through that airport so fast...  Basically, I was pushed to the head of the class.  And I'm glad too, because if you're an expat, getting off the plane and entering the  terminal can be confusing.  There are no signs, no directions and when you follow the pack of other lost expats and visitors... you find yourself standing in front of the visa counter where there's a man just sitting there smoking a cigarette and chatting with his buddies... He gets to you when he gets to you.  So needless to say, I would recommend using the escort service BEFORE you get here.  If you don't, you run the chance of getting lost or you'll have to follow the rest of the lost visitors.  While sitting for my couple of minutes, I noticed a couple of packs of 20 visitors asking each other... where do we go?  where's the line? where's the form?  I even got the evil eye from a few when my escort waved me over and handed me my visa to sign in the time it took them all to mindlessly survey the area.  They looked puzzled, miffed, and was probably thinking, "Who the hell is she?"  Well, I said I  felt like royalty.

When it came time to get my luggage, that process was just as fast.  The young lady escorted me to the baggage claim area and snapped her fingers at a nearby porter.  There was a family that was clearly there first and they tried to get his attention, but he ignored them and made a beeline for me and my escort.  They didn't look too happy either.  I was like, whoa!  Shocked, but honestly, I didn't really care about anybody else at that time because all I wanted to do was hug my husband.  Speaking of hugging my husband, I asked the lady was it acceptable to hug my husband and she looked at me like... girl please....  and said, "Pshaw, you have an American passport!"

My luggage was not on a carousel, it was lined up next to a carousel with other traveler's luggage... I suppose the workers pull it off and line them up.  I don't know. I was glad that I had tied  purple tulle to identify my two bags quickly.  After the porter loaded my bags, we all walked to the X-ray machine and my purse and luggage was loaded on the belt.  They didn't open any of my luggage, only my purse was searched in front of me.  The security guard tried to look official and intimidating, but I was looking him up and down like, dude, you better not spill any of my liquid makeup on my Coach bag.  Every time he pulled something out all rough like, I would quickly pick it back up and gently re-wrap or package it.  He picked up my mini contact solution bottle and asked me what it was.  I pointed to my eye and said for my contacts... I mean, like dude, can't you read?  I was getting a little pissed, because he was sloppy and slow, pulling out my contents and I was hoping that I didn't have a tampon or something in there.  Finally, a supervisor or something came over and waved him to stop and he pushed my purse back in my direction with a caveman grunt.  He didn't scare me.  But he would have been scared if he spilled my makeup.

The waiting area was close by and the lady asked me if I could see my husband in the waiting crowd.  Looking left, right, left... I couldn't see him.  Then finally, I eyed him timidly standing with his hands interlocked.  I was thinking, why in the world is he just standing there all scared looking?  Then I laughed out loud because I knew he was afraid that I would run and leap into his arms and kiss and wrap my legs around him like I do at the American airports.   I remembered where I was.... There would be no kissing him like the end of an American love story.  I gave him a  conservative hug and whispered in his ear, "Get me outta here so we can kiss!"