Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Kuwait City.

Someone thought it would be a good idea to have a "Staff Spiritual Fitness Event" to give some of the staff (the people who do all of the behind the scenes work) a break from the daily grind.  We took off about 0800 to head to KNB (Kuwait Naval Base), which is only about 15 minutes from AJ, or about 2 hours away from Camp Buehring





When we arrived, we were greeted by someone from the 1-125 FA (New Ulm) unit stationed down there.  This person was our "tour guide."  He took us all around- we saw the pier with a bunch of Army, yes Army, ships!  I had no clue that the Army even had ships.  Well, we do and a lot of them!!!  I was not authorized to take any pictures of the ships for security reasons, but I saw a bunch of them!  Then, we got a tour of one of the ships....that was pretty cool!  Once we checked out the PX (something that every Soldier does when they see a new base to see how the other half lives) we were off to Kuwait City.  Err, wait...nope! When we got to the gate to leave the base, the roads were deemed "red" by Force Protection due to wind and sand decreasing the visibility. Well, this means that you need clearance from a 2-Star General to leave post.  So, we head back to the PX area on base. We decided to wait it out at the Dunkin Donuts where I had a delicious iced caramel cappuccino.  We were sitting for approximately a half hour until we got the word that the roads were "green" again.  Now, we were finally headed to Kuwait City to see the Kuwaiti Towers





The towers were pretty cool.  Nothing too special, but they look cool and it was a pretty sweet view of Kuwait City and the Gulf.




Once we finished up at the towers, we headed off to the Raddisson Blu, a restaurant inside a wooden ship!  I know, right?  Well, this place was decked to the hilt!  When I say that it was in a ship, I meant that literally!  The wood had all kinds of engravings, everything was put together well, dimly lit, quiet environment. 




All 18 of us piled in there and gave our orders.  Some stuck with US Beef Steak, while others dined on various seafood varieties or lamb.  Orders were taken and it was time to feast on the hors d'oeuvres- they had all kinds of smoked meats, fish, shrimp, veggies, and all kinds of "other stuff" I had never seen before, nor have any way to effectively describe.  I took some of everything (really full plate!). I liked almost every last thing on my plate, which was about 20 different items.  I had about 5 different types of cheeses- those of you who know me well know how much I like me some cheese and they were amazing!!! Then, it was time for our main course. 



I got some kind of fish and lobster tail.  The fish was cooked head, skin, eye-balls, and all....it was delicious!!!  The meat was incredibly moist, yet it pretty much fell right off the bones.  Sooo good!  The lobster tail was ok, but nowhere near as good as the fish. Dessert time- there was 5 items- a couple slices of a couple different cakes, raspberry sherbet in some kind of spoon-like cone/shell thingy, kiwi, strawberry, and pineapple.  Everything was delicious. 


Oh, I didn't mention the juice.  Well, they had these juices that were all amazing.  I had strawberry while others had carrot (weird people) or kiwi.  Incredible!  It was so good I had two. In the end, it cost me 25 Kuwaiti Dinar (KD), which is roughly $85. Yeah, was not expecting that, nor was I expecting each juice to be 3 KD a piece (yeah, about $10 per juice).  Regardless of costs, the meal was truly amazing as was the environment.  After all bills were paid, we were invited to the top deck area for a dessert coffee. 




We sat for about 10 minutes, then headed out to the deck where we took some photos and wrapped up our adventure. Lastly, we got out on the road to head on back to Camp Buehring.  It was cool to see the city at night.  We even got to witness a little drag-racing...lol.  There was a jeep that tried to race a mustang GT 500.  Needless to say, the Mustang won, but not before almost swerving into oncoming traffic.  wow!  We finally got back to the base around 2230 (10:30 pm). It was a fun little adventure and break from the everyday crap around here.  As much as I was considering staying back on base and working, I was glad I decided to go.  There aren't many occasions to do something like this (have any of YOU been dining out in Kuwait City???) so I jumped on it after some coaxing from my LT...he's one of the good ones.

-T

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