Saturday 2nd June 2007

Hello again!

Well I’m just back from our weekend away, and it was FANTASTIC!!

It was actually less than 24 hours in the end. Our flight was at 3.50pm Thursday, but was delayed by two hours. We got into Bahrain at about 7pm, and went straight to the pub! From there we went out to a lovely restaurant and on to a club.

The drinking was awesome, although I must admit I felt like a serious granny inside the club!
Betty and I had both brought our “going out” tops to wear for the occasion, but both of us felt they were too revealing to wear in Kuwait, so we wore our regular clothes to the airport and changed in the pub loo.
Now, we both thought we were wearing quite dressy, revealing clothes, but then when we got to the club we realised that a year in Kuwait has really warped our sense of propriety!
The girls in the club were wearing little strappy tops and boob tubes and halter tops – nothing you wouldn’t wear in England, but poor Betty and I were there in our below-the-knee skirts and shirts that still fully covered our shoulders and backs!

We are so used to being fully-covered all the time in Kuwait that we really thought we were quite risque with our calves showing and everything!

Anyway, it turns out neither of us could remember how to dance either, which ended up being highly amusing, and didn’t stop us at all!  (Neither Betty or I have been in a proper club since we were shamed out of dancing in a salsa club in Beirut last April).

Hmmm, what else?
Oh yeah – Betty saw her first bar fight! Well, actually it was one of the lamest fights ever – no actual punches were thrown! Two guys standing next to Betty just started shoving each other (exactly like the kids in the playground!) and after about 5 mins of angry shoving, one guy grabbed the other guy around the middle and tried to push him over in a rugby tackle.
Unfortunately, the other bloke was bigger so he just stood there while this guy pushed him, until eventually they started knocking the rest of us over too! I went into uber-protective mode and grabed Betty in a bear hug (cos she’s only little!), but Betty is pretty feisty and decided that she was NOT giving up her spot at the bar for anyone, least of all some poncy blokes shoving each other!

It all ended fairly calmly, and Betty got our drinks, so everyone was happy!

The next morning we woke up feeling a bit rough. I went to the bathroom and on the way discovered that I had lost all motor control! I was staggering around like Frankenstein – my mind was saying walk but my legs were a few seconds behind!  I suppose that if you haven’t drunk any alcohol for a while you’re should really ease back in gently, but
instead having a massive binge left my body completely battered the next day!

However, we made it to the champagne brunch on Friday morning, and although the first sip of champagne didn’t go down easy, once we mixed it with orange we were away! The food was excellent, the mimosa’s even better, and the fact that we were buzzed by 1 o’clock made the Phillipino karaoke cover band a lot easier on the ears!

We were back in the airport by 2.30pm, and I floated through duty-free on my way to the bar for a last drink before our flight took off.

It was a totally awesome night out and has completely revived my spirits for the last two weeks of term – mostly exams, reports and marking, but it seems a lot more manageable now!

I really never thought I would miss alcohol nearly as much as I do. I thought it would be easy to give up for a year, but it really has been a struggle. Sadly, I think I’m much more likely to become extremely alcoholic when I get back home, despite the protests from my liver!

Ah well, only two weeks to go now, so I shall see you all very soon for some more drunken antics around and about Suffolk!

Hope you’re all well and happy – here are some piccies for you too,

lots of love
Granny Maya
xxx