Beyond Prague: Gargoyles and Bone Chandeliers

During our Christmas 2011 trip to Prague, we did venture out for one outside-of-Prague day-trip to the towns of Kutna Hora and Sedlec (both of which were named as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the 1990s, due to their churches and cathedrals). Not wanting to worry about renting a car, getting maps, driving or learning history on the fly, we hired a van, driver and guide to get us there and back and help explain all that we were seeing. Our guide was fantastic, and the poor girl never stopped talking for hours due to all our questions. The town of Kutna Hora was our first stop. It was established in the mid 12th century around the first Cistercian Monastery in Bohemia and within 100 years was known for its silver mines. The center of the town is a beautiful area, reminiscent of older days, with cockeyed houses and cobblestone streets, built up around the old Italian Court, which was originally the central mint for coin making, and is currently the town hall (with the most amazing art nouveau chapel). Across the valley from the Italian Court is St. Barbara’s Church, perched high on the hill, looking as large and foreboding from a distance as it does up-close. We walked through the town, past the Gothic St. James’s Church (which was under renovation), past the Jesuit College, and up to the imposing St. Barbara. Before entering, we walked around the entire church, just marveling at all those pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and endless flying buttresses. But my favorite architectural details were the gargoyles, all of which were different and individual. Some were animals, a frog, a ram, a bat, and several were humans, or at least human-ish. Some looked so horrifying I’d sooner believe they were vampires or relatives of the weeping angels from “Dr. Who” (if you haven’t experienced them, maybe you shouldn’t). The interior was equally enormous, but I found it less interesting than the exterior (not one leering gargoyle!). But you couldn’t ignore the vast scale and extreme height of the arches. Our next stop was in the neighboring town of Sedlec, to see its Gothic Cathedral of Our Lady as well as its famous ossuary. The cathedral was impressive in scale (but have you ever seen a tiny cathedral?), however I was mildly under-impressed. I think anything following the Gothic expanse of St. Barbara’s would probably pale in comparison (barring Notre Dam, of course), so Sedlec’s cathedral had a hard act to follow.

I will admit that one of our deciding factors in choosing a day-trip destination was when we saw pictures of the ossuary, or bone church, in Sedlec. It just screamed out, “You have to see this!” But in hindsight, I found it more disturbing than interesting. When you picture a “bone church” you can imagine some very strange things, but trust me when I say that you couldn’t possibly begin to imagine what they’ve done here. The external church looks like any normal village church, with a surrounding modern graveyard and wall. But entering (and paying the entrance fee) you are transported to something so disturbing that you feel like you’re on a set at Universal Studios. The original ossuary was built in the 1400s as a final resting place for the mass graves that were disturbed during one of the church’s many renovations. But it wasn’t until the 1870s that a man was hired to put the bones in order, which he did, in a sense. Immediately upon walking through the door, you are faced with stacks of skulls against the wall, each one alternating with a crossed ulna and radius (or something similar) reaching to the ceiling. Lines of skulls and ribs are draped garland-like all over the place, bones have been used to recreate the Schwarzenberg coat of arms and towering monstrances (vessels used to display the consecrated host), and the center of the room displays a chandelier that could really only look at home in the Munsters’ domicile. I stumbled around gaping at everything with everyone else, but I think I just found it difficult to wrap my head around the fact that each of those skulls represented a person with hopes and dreams and I’m not sure “being made into a chandelier” was one of them. All in all, our beyond-Prague day-trip was well worth it. I would highly recommend visiting Kutna Hora and, if you have the time and the inclination, you can swing by Sedlec, too. But, truth be told, I think I could have done without mental images of Hannibal Lecter's DIY projects.

Koushary Quest

My husband had a hankerin’ for koushary the other night. Normally this wouldn’t be blog-worthy, but considering it sparked a 24-hour quest, it earned its blog-worthy-ness through sheer determination. To start, for those who are not familiar with koushary, it’s a typical Egyptian dish made with multiple types of pasta, rice, lentils or chickpeas, doused with fresh tomato sauce and topped with fried onions. It’s a carb-lovers delight and typically puts me into a happy food coma within minutes.

When he first mentioned his hankerin’ our instinct was to go to the online delivery service that serves most restaurants in the area. And when I say most, I mean it includes McDonald’s and PF Changs and Burger King and Papa Johns Pizza, not to mention all the Indian, Chinese and Iranian restaurants, and even some Lebanese/Middle Eastern restaurants. Knowing all this, it seemed a likely source. After some digging, he found a restaurant offering koushary, so we ordered and waited.

We haven’t ordered out a lot, but the few times we have, have taught us to settle in and wait comfortably. It almost always takes over an hour. This particular evening, however, stretched the bounds of waiting. After 90 minutes, they called to get directions; which my husband provided. Another 60 minutes passed and several more phone calls ensued, with my husband getting more and more annoyed. We live off the Gulf Road, next to a popular amusement park with a huge Ferris wheel and the name of our building is spelled out clearly on top in large well-lit letters. Even without a spotlight, we’re not that difficult to find. At the three-hour mark, my husband called them back and cancelled the order. We’ve never done that before and were curious if they’d still deliver it regardless. They didn’t. Part of me wonders if the poor delivery guy is still wandering aimlessly.

So dinner was leftovers and soup that night. However, having his hankerin’ unquenched, his quest for koushary continued the next day.

Our plan was to run some errands, go on a walk with the stroller, and then drive by a koushary restaurant and carry-out our dinner, thus avoiding three-hours of phone directions. But on our way out, we decided to see if we could find the restaurant first, since it was still daylight. After 30-minutes and multiple wayward turns, my husband announced that we were officially in “Wee Egypt.”

“How can you tell?” I asked

“Look, there’s ‘Cairo Pharmacy’.”

He was right, right next to Hadi’s Tailoring (a very Egyptian name).

Excellent, so assuming “Cairo Pharmacy” and “Hadi’s” were run by Egyptians and not by Indians or Pakistanis and further assuming that these Egyptians couldn’t live without koushary, we should be set.

It wasn’t quite that simple.

With a bit of prodding from me, my husband popped into the pharmacy to see if they were Egyptians who liked koushary. They were Indian. “But I know we’re in the right area,” he insisted. So we spent an hour driving up and down and around these back streets looking for any sign of koushary. The good thing about koushary restaurants is that they only serve koushary; that’s it, nothing else. So inevitably their shop sign will typically say “koushary” in it. Finally we were in an area that my husband was sure was near the restaurant (his koushary senses were tingling). So we parked and decided to whip out the stroller and stroll a bit. Easier said than done. As I’ve mentioned before, Kuwait is not particularly pedestrian-friendly, and this area in particular reminded me of the back streets of Cairo, which, while covered with pedestrians, were definitely not stroller friendly. Across the street from the parking was a bakery. Being too small for the stroller, I waited out side while my husband popped in. He not only got a lead on the koushary, he also managed to buy some of his favorite fresh-made date cookies.

“So, which way do we go?” I asked.

“Um, it’s like this way then right,” my husband said vaguely waving his arms about. Why can’t men ever get clear directions?

As I was eyeing the rubble-strewn alley he was indicating, a customer from the bakery was getting in his car and asked us if we needed directions. “We’re looking for Juha Koushary,” we told him.

“Ah, it’s just down the street here, turn left at the little circle and it’ll be about 30 meters down on your left.” Ahhh, clear directions (and I might point out that they were in the opposite direction of my husband’s waving arms). And in keeping with typically Arab hospitality, the customer even offered to drive us there. We declined, but thanked him profusely.

So we began our little trek, bumping and stumbling along with the stroller over rubble and broken sidewalks. At one corner we saw a whole gaggle of men sitting around little tables smoking shisha, “Definitely Egyptian,” whispered my husband. We knew we were close! And within ten minutes we were there! Juha Koushary, in all its minimalist glory with a few rickety wooden tables and plastic chairs outside, and a small galley-type counter area where my husband placed our order while watching them prepare it out of the vats of steaming pasta, rice, and lentils. Not wanting to deal with the stroller on the way back, I plunked my husband down on one of the plastic chairs with our daughter, the stroller, and our dinner and headed back to get the car. My decision in waiting versus walking didn’t have anything to do with concerns about my safety waiting alone, rather I feared that I’d never see my husband again (his sense of direction can be severely lacking and I didn’t want to wait for yet another hour for him to find the car and then find us again).

Without incident, I got back to the car, passing the shisha-smoking gaggle and the bakery, and returned to gather up the goods. By this point, our evening’s plans of errands, a walk, and carry-out were adjusted to, spend two-plus hours finding koushary and return home. Which we did.

I have to say that this was our first wandering, exploring, walking adventure in Kuwait and long overdue! We used to do this all the time in Cairo and they were inevitably some of my favorite outings. So I vow that this won’t be our last! And next time I’ll take more pictures, will bring the baby carrier and will leave the stroller, grocery list and any intentions of getting anything else accomplished at home.

Dating Difficulties

Dating was never exactly fun for me. Whether it was the pre-date stress of deciding what to wear, or trying not to sigh audibly when my date spoke of his robot factory in his mother’s garage, or pretending to listen attentively while another prattled on about his ex, the Duchess of Hades, my dating history was rife with more tales of woe, than tales of woah. But that all changed once I met and married my husband. Not only had I finally found the love of my life, but I figured I’d never have to worry about dating difficulties ever again. Apparently I was wrong.

We managed to have several years of difficulty-free-dating, however, our recent dating issues resulted from the arrival of our daughter. My husband likes to claim that we had our first date, post-parenthood, at the six-month mark. I disagree. Yes, it was the first time we’d gone out together without our daughter, yes, we had a specific date and time scheduled, and yes, we even had a driver. The fact that the reason for our outing was our long-awaited trip to the Kuwaiti DMV doesn’t seem to factor in to my husband’s thinking. Of course, I will admit that no where is it stated that a date cannot involve bureaucracy, cow-crossing road signs, a trip out to the edge of the desert near the new highway construction, three other people and a written test; so maybe I’m the one with the definition issues.

Having visited DMVs throughout the U.S., as well as in Egypt, and assuming that a Kuwaiti DMV was no different, we decided it was probably no place for a baby. So we asked a friend to watch our daughter for a few hours. Thirty minutes later, as we were racing along in the van, with our driver and three other eager wanna-be-legal drivers, my husband reached over and grabbed my hand. As delighted as I am typically with spontaneous gestures-of-affection, this time I merely smiled at him and said, “This still doesn’t make this a date. Now pass me the study guide.”

In the end, getting our Kuwaiti licenses was similar to that of getting our Egyptian licenses; you sit on a well-worn couch in some official’s office while people come and go and he stamps a lot of things; you drink scalding highly-sweetened tea (though in Kuwait, I was not offered any, only the three men were); then you shuffle in your group to the next office where another official with a desk-full of stamps proceeds to wildly stamp away as you wait. Then you’re done. No test, no questions, no nothing. License received. And not surprisingly, they managed to misspell all of our names.

Our real first date, according to me, occurred on our anniversary, almost two months later. Again, we asked our friends to watch our daughter, and dutifully dropped her off early with all her piles of accessories. Our plan was to go to dinner at Marina Crescent, grab dessert at the Chocolate Bar for an added layer of decadence, and then head back to pick her up.

Best laid plans and all… we neglected to fully comprehend one external factor: it was Eid al-Adha, the four-day Muslim holiday celebrating the Hajj and Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son. So, like us, the rest of Kuwait City (aside from our babysitters) also had designs on heading out for the evening.

So, for the next three hours, we crept along the Gulf Road, routinely being passed by motorcycles and teenagers on bicycles, even some strollers. We finally made it to the Marina Mall, and proceeded to get stuck in the parking lot. I actually started to have some mini panic attacks; there was no where we could go, there were parked cars on either side, and a line of awaiting cars that stretched out behind us and in front of us, leaving us truly and absolutely stuck.

We finally were able to reach an exit and promptly threw ourselves back into the non-moving traffic jam on the Gulf Road. After two-and-a-half hours (and about 20 miles) of this non-stop hilarity, we finally made it back to our apartment. By this point we were starving and in a complete fit of desperation, we parked and walked in to the Sultan Center grocery store, where I got a Taco Bell bean burrito and my husband grabbed something at McDonald’s. I wanted to leave and just go get our child and return home, but my husband wanted to eat there. So we perched on some white plastic chairs and ate our “anniversary” dinner while being surrounded by delighted screaming Arab six-year-olds. Rather surreal.

Over an hour later, we stumbled back into our apartment, sleeping baby in tow, put her to bed, and collapsed on the couch. We did manage to have a successful third-attempt at our first post-parenthood date. But this time we brought the baby, managed to pay our cable bill along the way and got our Chocolate Bar goodies to go. Not necessarily the romantic candle-lit dinners of our past, but there wasn’t one mention of robots or the Duchess of Hades, and for that I will be forever grateful.

Happy Fifth Anniversary, dear.

Christmas is Coming…

Christmas is coming to Kuwait… you can tell by the slight chill in the air (temps have dropped to the mid 80s), the dearth of powdered sugar on the grocery store shelves, and the ever-increasing piles of chocolate Santas for sale. But the key sign that Christmas is a mere six weeks away is when Ace Hardware stocks their store with rows of fake Christmas trees in such dizzying colors that even a four-year-old would stare in disbelief. I remember growing up and hearing all the adults bemoan the arrival of Christmas décor within seconds of the end of Thanksgiving. Then, as I became an adult, I, too liked my holidays separated, and would adamantly refuse to listen to caroling before the wee hours of Black Friday. So when I moved to the Middle East almost five years ago, I figured I wouldn’t have to endure the creeping ever-earlier Christmas season. But I was woefully wrong.

During our time in Egypt, I quickly learned that Egyptians love any reason to string up colored lights and twinkling decorations. Most of the boats bobbing around the Nile at night are so lit up they glow. I’ve even gotten into Cairo cabs that were draped in blinking neon lights on the inside. Aside from being seizure-inducing, it always added a bit of whimsy. So the arrival of the Christmas season, regardless of its Christian undertones, meant an added excuse to get that seventy-fourth string of blinking colored lanterns out (or stars or oranges or cherries or bows) and string ‘em up. So coming to Kuwait, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But after witnessing the explosion of gaudy decorations last year, I felt fully prepared. And yet, I still found myself doing a double-take at the Ace Hardware display this year. Maybe it was the pink neon tree, or the pale brown tree that brought to mind the Januarys of all my childhood Christmases where the live tree didn’t look so live anymore, or the blazing sunlight and the 90 degree temps, but apparently I wasn’t as prepared as I thought.

After adjusting to my initial surprise at Ace Hardware, I ventured over to the Avenues Mall where my Christmas cheer induction continued; from the crooning carols in Pottery Barn, to the Swedish Christmas décor in IKEA, to ordering my daughter’s first Christmas stocking at Pottery Barn Kids. It was all so wonderfully festive. I could have be shopping in Tysons Corner, Virginia, had it not been for the Christmas stockings monogrammed for Ahmed, Hala, and Fouad in Arabic. Even our grocery store, LuLu, is just as festive this year as it was last year. Although I think their neon rainbow of Christmas trees has surpassed last year’s collection. So, feeling already behind the Christmas ball this year, I shall drag out our decorations and thoroughly drape our home in festivity, all the while figuring out how to keep the baby and the cats away from the Christmas tree without resorting to chicken wire and “Caution” tape.

You know, maybe I’m finally getting the Middle East Christmas spirit; I'm feeling that our home may need a purple tinsel reindeer this year. We all need a touch of Christmas Kuwait-style, right?

Oman, an Unassuming Jewel, Part 1

Day 1: Keyless Cars & Moonlit Nights

Oman. The first question we typically got from people when they heard we were heading there on vacation was, “Where is it?” So, quick geography lesson; if you imagine the Arabian peninsula as seeing a foot in a thick cast from the side, Oman is the ball of the foot and the nail of the big toe. It’s the second largest country in the peninsula, behind Saudi Arabia, and yet it’s still no bigger than Kansas. Despite its quiet existence, it has a history dating back nearly 8,000 years to the Stone Age, and is incredibly diverse with beaches, deserts and mountains, all contained within. So, depending on your interests, you can scuba dive, watch for dolphins and sea turtles, hike mountains, camp under the stars in the desert, or explore ancient ruins. And that’s all in the first four days.

My husband and I took advantage of the 90-minute flight to Muscat from Kuwait this past January. Deciding to forego the guided tour route, we started researching and seeing if we could plan our own trip. It wasn’t easy. We didn’t leave ourselves enough time to order a guidebook online, and the information on the web was sparse at best. We did know we wanted to see the mountains and maybe do some desert camping, and then when I discovered that Oman is a nesting ground for four of the world’s seven sea turtle species, I quickly shoved that to the top of the must-do list. So we bought our plane tickets, picked our hotels, and then figured between the mountains, site-seeing and a date with the turtles, it would all just somehow fall into place.

We flew into Muscat, Oman’s capital. Despite all that there is to see here, we had not planned on spending much time in Muscat. But we had heard they had a fun tourist souq. So after picking up our rental SUV (we did manage to learn ahead of time that if we wanted to drive up the mountain we had to have a 4x4 vehicle), we pulled out our GPS and headed out.

We quickly learned that GPS in Oman works wonderfully, and were soon on the highway heading north into the city. The first blip in the vacation was that our rental car had barely a quarter tank of gas, so we stopped off at the first gas station to fill up. This was also where we realized that they’d given us a “keyless” car. So when the tank was full, we both just sat there desperately trying to figure out how to turn the car on without a key (there was no obvious “push here to start car” button). In growing desperation, I even flagged down the gas attendant and asked him, he just shrugged and smiled (bet he won the daily “Who had the stupidest tourist?” game). Finally we found the manual in the glovebox and quickly read “How to start the car”. While waving the fob around like it was a juju bag, my husband turned the ignition as if there was a key in it and with a delightful roar to life, the engine turned on. Whew! First potential crisis averted.

We then headed in to Muscat, following the GPS directions. We got a bit off track, asked for directions, were told to head towards the water and that we’d be lucky to find a parking spot, and headed off. They were right; parking was a bear. We drove along the waterfront, inching along with the rest of Oman who also thought to head downtown on a Thursday night. Finally, after passing out of downtown and doing a u-turn, we came to a beautiful parking area where we quickly grabbed an empty spot. There were rocky cliffs on either side of the road, but grassy lawns and a lit-up fountain made for a very popular moonlight picnic-dinner spot for families.

We headed back to the city lights, walking along the marble sidewalk that edged the large port on the Gulf of Oman. It was a beautiful moonlit night, with a nice breeze, and lots of people out walking and cruising by.

We got back to downtown in about 15 minutes, and entered the souq under the impressive stained glass dome. Maybe we’ve been spoiled by Cairo’s and Istanbul’s souqs, but we were definitely under-impressed. We stopped in a few shops, and I did buy some silver earrings (to ensure the 30 pairs I have from Cairo don’t get lonely) and a keychain that I’ll make into our “Oman” Christmas ornament, but otherwise we weren’t itching for much.

We did stop at one merchant to smell the frankincense and sandalwood, but as we were trying to extricate ourselves from him, he said to my husband, “You’ll promise that you’ll come back? A U.S.A. promise?” Fearing we may never be able to leave, we assured him that we’d come back. We didn’t. I hope that wasn’t what he meant when he said a “U.S.A. promise.”

From here, we drove on to our hotel, the Shangri-La’s Barr Al Jissah Resort & Spa. Oo-la-la indeed. We got there late, but still managed to have dinner outside under the stars.

The hotel complex is actually made up of three huge separate hotels, and to get to the Al Waha (oasis) hotel, we had to drive through a tunnel that had been cut into the mountain. In the morning, we grabbed a delicious breakfast out by the pools, then wandered a bit to see the amenities, including multiple pools, a lazy river, and a gorgeous beach. None of which we used, since we felt we should get on the road and head down the coast for our date with the turtles; we didn’t want to keep them waiting.