What's My Age Again?

i remember hearing the song "What's My Age Again" by blink 182 in ninth grade...the one line " Nobody likes you when you're 23" got my attention. i thought,"that'll be the day, i'll never turn 23..."

But here i am, 23 years old and no body likes me. Sure i got a couple posts on my wall saying "happy birthday" and i got a card and phone call from my sister but she's pretty much has to do that. Of course none of my friends called me. i really thought i would get at least one phone call from a friend wishing me a happy birthday ...but no, no happy birthday phone calls. My parents were busy traveling too, so i didn't even get a phone call from them. Poor lazy son.

But at least i went to a Phillies game..

The Terminal

Checked my one suitcase and it was time for the waiting to board my flight. At this point i was ridiculously tired, and there is always that fear that if i close my eyes...before i know it i'll be asleep and miss my flight. i couldn't just sit at my gate because it was blocked off for security reasons because that's how British Airways rolls in Bahrain International Airport.

At the Bahrain Airport, one of the attractions is this boat with a water spraying on it. On the bought are these two robot men with beards and mustaches. They're always dressed differently when i come through there. Before they were wearing traditional arab clothing, thobe and gutra. Now they're decked out in Ferrari hats and shirts...nice.While walking around, this red box caught my eye. A random popcorn machine. Delicious Popcorn Now! i thought it was pretty ridiculous. Who would use this thing? i sure wouldn't, i don't even like popcorn. Who knows how long those popcorn seeds have been chillin in there...and the oil?
i try not to take pictures of random people, but this guys beard was just ridiculous. Yes i've seen longer beards, but this one had character and spice or something like that. Okay i've got nothing. i'm just glad i can't grow a beard. That junx is sick nasty.
i did it! i stayed awake long enough to board my plane. Once on the plane i was out...i even missed the drinks and dinner. Lemon...didn't even catch the in flight movie, or should i say movies? Even though the flight was about 6 hours, it went by very fast since i was asleep.

While flying into london, the captain pulled the most annoying move ever. i had to go to the bathroom but figured we were going to land soon and i could just wait to go in the airport. Of course when i decided to do that...when the plane was just over the london area, he turned around and went the opposite direction to circle back again that took about 10 minutes...when the plane started heading towards the airport again, the captain too the plane for another circle....at least this circle was a little smaller than the first. Just when i was sure we were going straight to the landing strip, the plane makes this giant "S" before landing. The worst part is that the captain didn't say anything about trying stall so there would be an open landing strip for us...so all i had to rely on was the GPS on the little LCD screen. i thought my bladder was going to explode...next time i'll hit up the lavatory on the plane.

If i had to tell someone my third home, it would probably be the London Heathrow Airport. Terminal 4 to be exact. i've been in and out of this airport so many times it might as well be another home. Its like i'm starring in my own The Terminal when i roll up in this place.

Not much has changed in this airport, everything pretty much stayed the same. Sure a few stores are and and some old ones are gone but not much more than that. i would like to know who designs the benches and seats in the airports...they are so uncomfortable. Armrests, really?? Where am i suppose to lay down and pass out!? Airport seating makes me so angry. If you look at the picture there are two seats with out an armrest in between but thats just because its where the two benches are pushed together, so maybe a little person lay down there...but i'm still left without a place to lay down. Ugh i need to find a place to sleep.
One of the hang outs in london when i was passing through in boarding school is Garfunkels Restaurant. Another food place with high prices and small portions. i guess the food is okay but i'll never eat there by myself. Plus i hate paying in dollars and getting british pounds back in change, like i'm going to use it before i board the plane.
The best place to get a drink up in this place is the Wetherspoons Bar, mostly because its the only bar in the terminal. There is another bar but its really lame, Wetherspoons is where it is at. i wanted to grab a beer, but i really didn't want british pound change...
While walking around, legs getting tired, i walked towards the end of the terminal and went in to check out the quiet and multi-faith prayer room. Usually this place is jammed pack, but when i went in there was maybe 5 people lounging around. Then i saw it, the chair i would call my bed for the next 5 hours. It was down this hall way too so it would be the quietest spot and i could people watch!

i got about two and a half hours of sleep on this bad boy. The rest of the time i played texas hold 'em on my ipod...about an hour before my plane was scheduled to leave i waited at the gate.
For the flight back into Philly, i sat at the exit by the window. i had these two very talkative british chicks sit next to me that had a lot of perfume on. They were pretty good passengers to sit next too. The one thing i can't stand on the plane is when the person next to you uses the armrest between the two of you when the armrest they are using has the remote for your tv...so clearing if that armrest 'belonged' to someone, it would definitely be you. But the girl next to me must have taken a class in 'sitting next to lazy son etiquette' or something.

For the movie selection, there wasn't much to watch...it was either Lions for Lambs or PS I Love You, i was told PS I Love You would make me cry so i stuck with Lions for Lambs. It was an ok movie, not amazing but helped pass the time. i also caught a bit of the Harry Potter Behind the Scenes show and a little bit of There Will Be Blood, but i've already seen it so i didn't watch it for very long.

Since i slept for the entire flight to the UK, i was wide awake for this flight and couldn't sleep. At least that meant i could be awake for when the flight attendant came around with food and drinks! i was so pumped, i was going to get trashed or at least buzzed...i was set, ready to get obliterated...and the flight attendant asked me what i wanted...i had a whole list in my head, and the first drink i would get was a gin and tonic! Woot! Party! That was the last time she asked me what i wanted to drink...What was that all about!? They usually come around with drinks at least 3 times! Bummer. i did get wine with my meal but it seriously just tasted like watered down juice. i doubt there was any alcohol in it.
This flight seriously felt like forever. i got the the airport, a little depressing there was no one to pick me up...but i headed over to the shuttle pick up, got dropped off at the parking lot (fastrack), and jumped in the minivan to drive home. Took my bags in and went straight to bed at 9pm.

Last Meal

For my last meal on Middle East soil, it was Bam Bu! in Bahrain. Another fancy restaurant where you pay a flat fee and all you can eat and drink. What's that? Sounds like a buffet? Yeah, it does but the food comes to you! You just pick stuff out of the menu and bam! Its in front of you in a few minutes and you can enjoy.

For starters we got some crazy thing with wantons, egg rolls, sea weed, dumplings and some crepe thing...all of which were very good.
We ordered a bunch of stuff. One of the main dishes was chicken curry with some gangsta peanut sauce...at least it tasted like peanuts. I always thought peanut sauce was weird...using peanut butter for a sauce.i picked the spicy mixed stir fry. Which was essentially lo mein with shirmp, chicken, and beef...but it was still pretty good, nice and greasy.

Since the drinks were included i couldn't pass up a free beer, too bad they had a poor selection. i ended up sipping on a Stella. It was cold and delicious. The food was very good, sure beast airplane food.Looks like my parents were experiencing The Itis. Though don't let my dad's closed eyes fool you, he's so awake and just closed his eyes last second to make the picture 'cute' or something.

Visiting the Old Jr. High

Even though i don't consider myself a 'cat person', i just had to get a picture with the sack o' potatoes that is Saigon. She is so fat compared to Sushi. you can really tell that she loved getting her picture taken with me.
Another stop i wanted to make was a visit to the Jr. High School i went to when i lived in Saudi. It looked pretty different. There is a wall around the whole thing with a security box, new paint on the buildings, concrete torn up with grass and brick put down, and a bunch of shade things.
i also wanted to see the pond i built for my eagle project. It looked like crap, if i ever go back i'm going to rev that thing back...clean up that water and get a new pump and filter.

Below is the school rock. i'm sure there is some history about it but i can't remember it right now.

The sign here was another eagle scout project, sure it looks better than my pond now...but my pond in its prime would rock this sign like nobody's business.

More Training Junx

On my last day in Saudi, my dad and the family were invited to a some Training thing. i was hung over and sleep deprived and i had to show up to this thing at 8:30am. Speaker after speaker kept talking, and then there was an awards ceremony...i felt like i was at a North Penn Graduation, i thought it was never ending.

Luckily whoever organized this thing took in account that people would get very bored, so they had one speaker that does toast master contests. He wasn't ridiculously funny but it was nice to have something that i could stay away too. There were also two breaks that lasted about 10-20 minutes. Gave me sometime in the 90 degree sun to get my body temperature up because i was freezing in the room. i also got to sit in some fancy seats, i felt like royalty.
Lunch finally went down at about noon. i was excited for some old school arabic dishes. Boy was i in for a treat. The main dish was lamb kabsa which was pretty good. My mom makes it better but i was satisfied with this particular dish. The other kabsa dish was fish, that was really good. There were also a bunch of kebabs and deserts that i haven't seen for years.


The morning was pretty painful, but was made up for with the delicous lunch. My dad and i even got to enter the room before everyone else and sit at the VIP table with all the general managers. Pretty bad ass i know.

Reminiscing the Old Sandbox

i had some free time and decided to take a stroll on old memory lane, or in my case Rahima Drive (my old streeet). While growing up there was not a lot to watch on tv, there were maybe two channels in english. Channel 3 and AFRTS. Most of the time Channel 3 played documentaries and AFRTS, sports. i did not have any video games so i found myself playing in the sandbox aka the desert.
Something about these Saudi stop signs, i love them. i should have stolen one and mount it on my wall. The desert, looks endless, though about a mile out there is a fence and you can't go any further.
Below is a picture of some water drain, for some reason i played in this crap. i'm surprised i didn't get sick more often than i did. While kids have their creeks and forests to play in, i have thorned bushes and sewage water...awesome.
i thought it would be nice to have a picture of myself while in my old play ground. There was just one problem, i was by myself. All i had was some dinky mini portable tripod that was almost worthless. Took me like a million tries to get an acceptable picture.
One of the memories i have out here is this jebel. i bunch of kids from the neighborhood and myself would walk our bikes up this thing and ride it down. i could have sworn it was bigger, must of eroded or something, yeah thats it.
Another thing i would out there was build forts, i think i built like 4 out there. But they got torn down or flooded. Bummer, but they were pretty sweet. The best one was made out of a trampoline frame that was flipped upside down. i built it with joe and aaron. We tried making a fire in it, but didn't have anything to burn, until aaron had to poop and when he was done squatting behind a rock we brought it back to the fort and lit it on fire. It burned so easily, as for the smell...less than pleasant.
One of the landmarks out here is Lake Lanhart. i probably spelled that wrong. When i was little i would go out here all the time, but i couldn't get close to the water because it was fenced off. i always wondered why, and then i found out it was more sewage. At least it looks pretty. i actually found a hole in the fence one time and crawled through but was soon yelled out and quickly bounced.
Here we have one of the many critter holes that i no idea what it belongs too. Could be a snake, lizard, scorpion, beetle, camel spider...or something deadly. i seriously should have died out here, i used to poke around these holes all the time thinking that there was no way i could get hurt. One of the cool animals i saw out there was a desert fox, blended perfectly in the sand it was pretty cool to look at. Another animal was the kangaroo mouse. The kangaroo mouse has to be the cutest thing ever, especially when it hops around. When i saw one of these guys i had to catch it. It was fast and clever, but not too fast for lazy son. i caught him and took him home. i thought i had a new pet, until my mom found out about him. She flipped out and i had to return him to the desert. i'm surprised he didn't bit me, like that mouse i caught a couple months ago...
Another hang out spot was the Spray Fields. i used to walk Daisy out there all the time. She loved walks, and i would let her run free and she would just have a blast sniffing all kinds of stuff and playing fetch. Its kind of depressing seeing the spray fields now because they don't 'spray' anymore. The water that used to keep these fields a luscious green is now used to water the golf course. Bummer. Well i guess its for a better use since the spray fields were just a product of treated sewage that needed to be sprayed somewhere.

i remember jumping in this thing...

One of they many horrible things i would do to Daisy would occur out here. When the sprinklers were spraying, i would get behind one of them and and spray the crap out of Daisy. These things were like a fire hose, and poor Daisy would just take it and get soaked. Again, not sure why i didn't get sick from playing in this water. i owe it to these sprinklers to perfecting my dance, the sprinkler.
Here you can see how nasty the untreated sewage water was. If only you could smell it, it smells horrible and i used to play in this stuff. i would come down here and catch frogs and bring them home and put them in pond in the backyard.
i used to play with this crazy plant too, and get sap all over my hands and they would be sticky for hours. Its probably poisonous or something, its probably all this water and stuff that has stunted my growth...ugh.
i spent almost an hour in the desert and it was nice. Later there was a party my mom put together at Cheri's. i missed the beginning because i had a softball game. That's right, i got put on the roster for a single game! i had a couple errors though and the team i was on got slaughtered. We lost 21 to 4 and the game only went to the 4th inning. Bummer, but on the bright side i was two of those runs and i caught one of the two pop flies that were hit to me, man i was rusty. It just so happened that when i was on jon's team, we played against matt's team.

Afterwards matt, his dad, and i headed back to the party to stuff our faces with my mom's delicious food. i forgot to take pictures but it was pretty fancy. The theme was Hawaiian, and my mom busted out a giant hamour fish (grouper) with this tomato sauce, soooo good. Later jon came over and when everyone bounced we decided to break out the hubbly bubbly again.

More Food and Shopping

The next day, always on the move. A lot of pictures taken on this day. Again my mom wanted to go into Khobar to get some more shopping done. i went to a few souvenir stores, all i ended up getting a were a couple of signs and t shirts. Below are some more pics of Al-Khobar.No matter where you go in the world you can't get away from fast food, or Krispy Kreme donuts...

For an afternoon snack we stopped by the Latif Bakery again. Here is a picture of the delicious Zatar bread. Mmmmm, i could go for one right now.
For lunch we had one of my youngest sister's favorite. Chicken Pepitos, or was it steak pepitos? It was something pepitos and i'm sticking to that. So simple but so good. We ordered five.

The only thing missing from this meal was a Vimto and Lion Bar for dessert...

i know matt enjoyed his chicken pepitos.

i use to go to his house once a week for cub scouts. The Den leader was this Scottish/Irish (i have no idea) women Mrs. Kelly. i was the only one from her Den to achieve Eagle Scout, but she had already died from cancer by the time i had acquired it, sniff, but i know she would have been proud. She lived for scouting until her boys went off to boarding school.
One of the many changes back here is the wall that was built around the elementary and jr. high schools. Its so depressing, makes the school look like a prison. So unnecessary, at least i think so.
Wasn't long until we made another trip into Khobar, and the first stop was the Golden Juice for some fresh delicious shawarmas! The guy even recognized my mom and she hasn't been back to this place for about 3 years. This guy is good, he could out shawarma any one. Oh man, if you've never had one of these you have no idea what you're missing.
In this picture below we have the steak shawarma, but chicken is where its at. But once and awhile switch it up to beef but rarely.
At the Golden Juice they also have juice! How about that!? i always get the pomegranate juice. This is real pomegranate juice. None of this pasteurized chemical induced pom stuff that they sell in the states, thats just sick nasty.
We ordered 10 shawarmas, and another 10 to bring home to Cheri. Except Cheri gets them without tomatoes and pickles. Which is just silly, people that don't eat tomatoes are so weird.

My mouth is watering just looking at this picture...

Golden Juice even has a little take out window, you don't even have to go into the place to pick up a palatable shawarma.

After a fantastic dinner it was time for more shopping. i was forced to carry around a giant thing of toilet paper, matt paper towels, and my dad a large box of tissues. i have no idea why my mom buys these things for my sisters. What if they don't even like this grade of toilet paper??
One more place we had to see was the Desert Design Store. The ex pat haven for shopping. Most of the stuff is just 'junk' with a hefty price tag on it, and if you wanted any of these things you could just go to the camel market in Hufuf and find most of them items in this store for a fraction of the price or free.

Poster of the king, for some reason my dad told me to a picture of him.