Catching up part 2 - home for the holidays

Christmas is honestly the only time that makes sense for me to go home.  My entire family is home and my friends are more likely to be able to meet up with because I can sometimes con them into coming to NJ.  It just wouldn't be Christmas if i wasn't with my family.  There were a handful of us that were going home for the holidays while others took the opportunity to travel.  I love to travel but I love my family and friends more.

Two weeks never seems like enough but it is always worth the trip.  This time around it was filled with tons of family time, new technology and ended with seeing some of my really good friends.  Over the summer I had decided that I would buy an I-Pad for myself, seeing that I travel a lot of sometimes having a computer along would be helpful, plus i could use in the classroom because most of my kids have one too.  Also my other big technology update was a new DSLR.  Over the summer uncle had looked at my camera and said that I needed to update and at that point I said yeah sure whatever.  But being the tech nut that I am, of course I started to look into it more and more.  Which lead to me going to a camera store over break and purchasing the amazing Nikon D7000.  Such a sweet camera.  Still working on figuring everything out but taking pictures in class has been fun.

Leaving is always the hardest part, literally the saying "see you later", my parents and a close friend brought me to the airport and it has never been this hard to come back.  I just kept telling myself the reality of staying in NJ and I don't like that reality.  The idea of being in NJ and not having a job like most of my friends just does not rock my socks, plus not being able to travel easily, no no no not for me.  Kuwait really isn't great but its not the worst either, at least I have a job at a school that I like with an awesome admin and kids who are amazing.

So here are a few pictures from my trip home.  It was an amazing time.

catching up part 1 - Camel Races

So before winter break (I.E. Christmas break) a group of us decided to go to the camel races.  We had heard that the Aware center was hosting a trip the Saturday before our break.  The Aware Center is an organization that hosts different trips around Kuwait for us international people here to learn about the culture and country of Kuwait.

What I had heard about camel racing before going wasn't much, but I knew that they didn't have people riding the camels because of children's rights.  They used to use small boys to ride the camels because they are light.  Well its not very safe and  I am glad that human rights stepped in and took over.  So now they have these small robots that are tied onto the backs of the camel that have a small whip on it.  Now you must be asking, how do they control the camel.  Well each camel has their own "driver", this person is in a pick-up truck driving along side the camel and controlling how fast the whip goes.

So that Saturday we board the buses at the Aware center and off we go to the races. Now still in my mind I am picturing horse racing:  sitting in the stands, big crowd, lots of dust, camels everywhere!  When we got off the buses we walked into a building that I figured was going to bring us to the stands.  Well we go in the building into this huge room where there are 3-4 levels of lazy-boy couches.  This is where we were suppose to sit and watch the races. So we plopped down in some.  Looking around we started to notice that the track is HUGE.

Before the race started we decided to walk around outside and check out the camels that were there to take pictures with.  Slightly a sad sight because they were literally there for you to get on take a picture and get off.  As we were outside we were told that a race had already started and we didn't even know it until we saw the dust from the trucks and then the camels running across the finish line.

In the end it was a bit anti-climactic, but I was still glad that I went.  After the races we went to a "farm" for dinner which was nice.

Here are some pictures from the day: