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.

Senor Pacos

i already talked about Senor Pacos, i know...but i'm going to write about this great restaurant just because its so fantastic. The first thing to be ordered at Senor Pacos is a couple of double margaritas, but since my parents and myself were pretty thirsty we went ahead and got a pitcher.
After the drinks were ordered and the chips and salsa were placed on the table we ordered their fiesta platter. It has a little bit of everything, but all i really eat are the cheese quesadillas. i've been to this mexican restaurant like a million times, and all i've had for the main course are the ribs and the mixed fajitas on a sizzling platter. This visit was not different and i got myself the fajitas. i hate refried beans though, but i have this 'clean plate' complex and i always find myself eating it....
Every time i have been to this place the manager is always there. i'm not sure where he is from, but whenever my mom sees him all she can say is,"he's as black as night!". i'm sure it doesn't help that he wears a white suit. He's super nice and i can always count on him to give me some free Senor Pacos merchandise...at least a cheesy yellow hat.

In The Land Of Sand

After waiting for several weeks my parents and i had finally gotten our visas to go to Saudi. Originally just my parents wanted to go by themselves and about a month before they were scheduled to leave my mom was like,"hey, why doesn't lazy son come with us?".

It was such a mess getting our visas. My dad couldn't schedule a flight for me to leave on the same day as them, so he got the next flight available which was the day after. Since he wanted us to all fly together he went ahead and moved his and my mom's scheduled flgihts to that day as well, which costed like a million bones. The next dilemma that occured was that our visas did not get processed in time so we had to move the flights back another week costing another million bones. Lemon.

As i have said before my mom is nortorious for packing unbelievable amounts of food when she travels. British Airways weight quota for suitcases is still 70 lbs/32 kg. Since my dad and i travel pretty light we let my mom use one of each of our two suitcases to pack stuff. She had four suitcases, a total of 280 lbs of storage...and she still asked me if could pack a few things in my own suitcase because she didn't have any room...ridiculous. The items in her bags ranged from surgary cereal and rice noodles to 20lb pieces of frozen prime rib. What a nut.

After doing all the fun checking in and stuff, i finally felt like i could relax when i found my seat at the the bulk head next to the exit...until i realized not even four feet from, there was a couple with what looked like a 2 yr old and another baby that looked just a few months old. Of course if one of them was quiet the other was freaking out and crying...seems like there is always a crying baby when i travel overseas.

Since the drinks are free on the flight i told myself i was going to ridiculously drunk to numb the pain that was from the tag team of the two cry babies...but all i had was a little bottle of wine. i spent most of the flight watching The Kite Runner, which was pretty good, and The Water Horse. The water horse movie was pretty lame, it was basically Free Willy but with scottish people and a plesiosaur instead of an orcinus orca.

From the flight from UK to Bahrain i slept most of the time. At least as much as i could since i was sitting next to my dad this time and his snores were shaking my chair.

My oldest sister was suppose to meet us at the Airport but she wasn't there when we got out of customs. We waited for about 15 minutes before my dad went an purchased a phone card to call her. But for some reason he couldn't get the card to work, and when he did get a hold of her the phone was busy...so about 45 minutes of waiting around we finally met up with my sister and her driver she had hired. If you didn't know already, women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia...what a wonderful law.

After all the bags were stuck in the mini van we all decided to get something to eat at Senor Pacos. Its pretty much a tradition we go to this place whenever we are in Bahrain. Of course none of us knew how to get there. My dad thought he knew...but he didn't. We went around circles for like 30 minutes. Cheri was trying to talk us into going to another mexican place that she likes better, because its cleaner, the food is better, and the music is more professional...Cheri please, i don't care if Senor Pacos only serves poop on a stick...i'm going there to get a frozen margarita and a free hat. Actually i was kind of curious about the other mexican restuarant...maybe i'll hit that up when i leave.

Didn't get into Dhahran until 10 something...i was welcomed by my sister's three cats. She only had one cat before...but then realized her cat, Saudi, could die any day now so she got another cat, Sushi. She then 'cat sat' or something and ended up keeping her, Siagon, too. In my book you just have to be single and have more than 2 cats to be considered a crazy cat lady.

i took some pictures but i'm kind of too lazy to upload them on this unfamiliar computer and crop them and all that fun stuff right now. But maybe later i'll add some photos to this post since my writing is less than entertaining. Peace peace in the middle east.

Here is the stall i used in the philly airport...not sure why i took a picture, i was kind of tempted to write on the wall, because everyone else was doing it.
In London Heathrow Airport i grabbed me a sandwich. It said it came with a salad, those few green leaves is their 'salad'.My dad's meal look a lot fancier. Some scrambled eggs with salmon, pretty sure i've never seen that combo before.
At least i had a beer with my meal. It was technically morning, but its 5pm somewhere...