Elite Pavilion - Luxury Apartments Manama

Not much - just waiting at the airport for the flight! Bahrain was both nicer and more boring than I thought, the weather is a lot more forgiving but it's not worth more than about 3 days exploration tops.. Unless you like to get really nittygritty :P

Apparently the Bahrain-Saudi border is on a little island [not sure if it has an official name], which hosts a rest point on either side of the border, complete with matching observation towers. The whole road, which is 45km long, is called the King Fahad Causeway on the Bahraini side, with a different Saudi name.. Interesting stuff! :) Due to it being Ramadan and us not being ...

... wanting to come into Bahrain and next to nothing going into Saudi - apparently it's easier to access alcohol in Bahrain! :P

Our last stop was the Bahrain Fort [aka Portuguese Fort]. Nothing particularly new to me, seen plenty of them, but it was weird knowing the whole area it was on was reclaimed land from the sea!

Today, my mum had a conference so I was left to do as I pleased. I had a walk around the Juffair neighbourhood which was where my hotel was ...

... bar but couldn't stay since you couldn't hear announcements up there and our plane wasn't on "the board" yet.

Mike grabbed McDonald's---a "McArabia" which he'd been eating all over here---a pita-like wrapper with chicken inside---it looked good.  We headed downstairs to see if we could track down some information on the flight via the airport transfers staff (unlike in the U.S., where each airline has dedicated re-booking and transfer staff, these ones are shared at the ...

... 8217;t as productive as I’d hoped it would be, but with the key objectives already accomplished, I wasn’t as concerned. Knowing I was interested in local/Saudi food, the admin ordered traditional lamb for the team’s lunch. Again, it was a ton of food with the lamb/rice dish, a cucumber/tomato/dressing salad, yogurt, olives, hummus and bread.

At around 2:30, I was in a ...

... good for football games), too many coffee shops (Starbucks, Seattle's Best, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and Caribou -- all in the same block), and the US Navy 5th Fleet. K - Kindness. Most people really are nice. Last week, we got a little lost trying to find the Gold Souq. We stopped a man and asked for directions; he turned around and led us five blocks out of his way to our destination. It was 107 degrees Fahrenheit. L - Land reclamation. There's a lot of it going on here. The ...

... on and into the city. It is definitly a boom city as there is huge construction projects everywhere. I usually am not a fan of skyscrapers but when you build them with a little style then it makes then much better. We arrived at the Golden Tulip hotel and I felt quite out of my league. It was more then a dirty backpacker could want. They fed me and then offered me thier pool. I was stoked on going for a swim but of course my bag was still in the bowels of the airport and so ...

... and with a broom sweeping Security guards are everywhere, yet there is no crime, no joke people still talk about this bank robbery that happened like 6months ago Where ever you are, you are not far from a mall Dubai has 25% of the worlds cranes and it is evident when you are there It is not uncommon to head to the mall in the morning and be forced to take another route home because they decided to randomly do something to the ...

... eve. Note: if you are reading this to get a bit of a feel for Bahrain as a city and a place to visit as a tourist; culture, tourist attractions, history ect, you should probably stop reading hear. The weekend consisted of a few quiet drinks in a number of local establishments around Bahrain, well maybe more than a few. We had been given a number of recommendations of place to visit while we were hear, all bars of course, so we wanted to tick as many off the list as ...

... know is that no mater how he felt about the 9/11 attacks, I know for a fact that if he refused to sell them, his boss would fire him. I knew for a fact that he had nothing to do with the attacks. I did not consider him the enemy. The final thing he didn't know was that even though I am in the military, and ultimately our job is most often viewed as the obligation to take lives, MOST OF US view our individual job as protecting life. My aircraft does cool stuff, and I am proud to ...