Kuwait, my country number 77, didn’t expect it to be amazing, so I went in with no expectations, when being completely honest. Let’s see how it really was!
How was it arriving?
Arriving from Abu Dhabi, for just 10 Euros, so basically nothing. The airport was weird, while applying for the visa, we had to print our passports. Not the workers at the visa shelter, we had to print them, the printer was standing in the room. When that was done we had to find our way out, but that was not complicated.
Out of the airport, our host was waiting for us already.
Where was I staying?
We were staying with Maget, a host who is originally from Egypt. He is living in Kuwait City, in the part called Sabah Al Salem. This is located a bit off from the city center, which was not bad.
Maget is having a one room apartment and let us sleep in his bedroom, while he was sleeping on the couch in the living room. He wanted it like that, but we would have been fine, sleeping on the couch as well.
What did we do the first day
After getting picked up from the airport, we were exploring the city a little bit. First stop were the water towers, which were covered in colorful light and located in a park. This was quite nice to look at, but we honestly just went there to take a picture, because the scadual from the host for us was really packed for the night.
After this it was time to see the Kuwait towers, where I also flew up with my drone, which was maybe not even legal, but he said that it is no problem. This was basically the only thing, which I knew existed from Kuwait. They are located right at the ocean and when being in the air, you can have a nice overview of the city.
We went to eat some local cuisine, which was amazing, it was super delicious and my favorite was probably the arabic pizza, which was filled with a lot of cheese! I was more than just full. The place was near the biggest bazaar of the city, which was great. It was cool having locals wandering around and being a part of it.
We tried many things out, from local cruise, over to local tea & coffee, to seeing local life, great!
Supermarket
We went cruising around the city a lot after arriving and before going finally home, we were in the supermarket a bit. Some things, like soft drinks, were cheap compared to Germany, 25 cents per can. Also others were really expensive, for example fruits.
What I found the most funniest, was when we were checking out of the supermarket. In most European countries it is the section where you are able to buy cigars. A section like this was existing, but not for cigars, they were selling in that section safran.
We bought basically things for breakfast and snacks for the day.
Second day
Today was starting really slow, Maget was working and we were not really motivated to explore so much. We were applying for the visa for Oman and were tired from the night before!
Just relaxing, making a good breakfast and enjoying the start of the day. We had to be quiet, because no woman should be brought home, he had problems because of Couchsurfing with his neighbors already.
After he got back from work, we went out to explore more! We went to the grand mosque of the city, or better country, and were having a tour. It was really interesting to learn more about the country and religion.
At the tour were also some tourists, so the tour was a mix of Arabic and English. We went right after the tour to a restaurant, to eat falafel and hummus burger, before going to the desert. The burgers were good, but the falafel was a bit too spicy for me, so I ate it!
We had to cross an extremely long bridge and drive through darkness, to then arrive at the desert. Many people were also visiting and we were surprised how cold it was there. Luckily there was some fire, otherwise we would have not survived so long, with the clothes we had on us. When thinking of the Middle East, you are not thinking of freezing.
We met some other couchsurfer afterwards, but we were not fully excited. I had the feeling none of us was really excited and just wanted to go home, due to exhaustion from the day.
The last day
The last day was not that fascinating, due to the flight back to the UAE, but after a relaxing half of the day, we went meeting up with the same people as yesterday. They were inviting us for lunch at their place. The whole table was filled with food and he was living in a luxury looking place with a great pool.
It was amazing to be invited to that place and be able to meet some new people, while sharing an amazing meal. We had as a starter donuts with tea and coffee. After that we had normal food, which was local. The time was great, just a bit stressful at the end by getting to the airport. Sadly going into the pool was due to time reasons not possible, next time!
They ordered a taxi for us, including another German couchsurfer. The taxi was really fancy, even a bottle of water was part of the ride, never had that before. In general, I’m not the biggest fan of taking taxis.
My most favorite thing
I would say having a host, who was really nice and wanted to show us around was really great. But in general having an experience from Kuwait, which was great. It was not what I was expecting, so I can totally recommend it for a few days, there are some things to discover. Also people are really friendly, but of course it is not a cheap country.
My least favorite thing
Going to such fancy places sometimes, because that is nothing I enjoy. Of course they wanted to present things which are the best possible, but that was not necessary, so that was mentioned by me as well.
Which will be next?
In the next personal blog post, it will be about the arrival in Oman, including the hitchhiking from the UAE to there.
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