Into the busy month!

Pictures: Kuwait Air Terminal in Kuwait Airport- notice how many pieces of luggage everyone has. Pictures of the view from my balcony this afternoon- when it gets so humid we get this fog along the seaside.

Back from Kuwait yesterday afternoon. Was training and visiting the stores teams up there since Sunday. I am trying to catch everything up before I start the Saudi Arabian franchise launch this month because I won't be able to spend time in any other markets till that is complete. Kuwait was very hot- in the 40's C every day, so coming back to Dubai where it is only 36-38 C is a welcome surprise.
Booking travel out of Kuwait was difficult because most people leave for vacation this week and then come back before Ramadan at the end of July. When I finally did get airfare out of Kuwait I had to fly Kuwait Airlines. It was an adventure. And that's what we will call it.

First off there is no baggage restrictions so ever person had at least 6 bags! Seriously- look at the pictures. So that made the lines crawl because everyone had to check in 6 bags or more- everyone that is except for me and the 1 other Westerner in the line. Then, as I said it was very busy, so I go to the gate and there are hundreds of Arabian Men and Women in traditional clothes in the terminal, and it just didn't feel like they would all be going to Dubai which is seen as the Las Vegas of the Middle East. There were also many men wearing the traditional "Ihram" which is two white sheets that are unhemmed that they just wrap around themselves (leaving alot of gapping mind you) when they are doing their pilgrimage to Mecca. I looked around to see if anyone else was concerned and found the one other white guy looking at me mouthing "going to dubai?" with a raised eyebrow. I nodded, and we waited. The other part of this; I wasn't thinking that because it is a local carrier, they are locals working in it- means no English. So the gate attendants start talking to the crowd and I can gather "Jeddha" and that's it. Come to find out the terminal was booked for three flights- one Dubai, one Jeddha, and Amman, all within 30 minutes of each other.

So the called Jeddha first, and after that, the flight looked more Dubian, and then sure enough they called for Dubai. But it was chaos that only continued. As we got to the end of the walkway, there were steps down. We were then loaded on buses and driven to the far end of the tarmac where a 777-300 was sitting. This airplane carry's 550 passengers (a fact I've learned as I have traveled) and we were loading this HUGE airplane by bus! Not big buses either- like 40 people a bus! And we're in the desert, so the have the doors open to the 114 degree heat. As you can imagine the inside the airplane was hot hot hot. 45 minutes later and countless buses dropping off passengers later, we finally we ready to take off. Over an hour late, luckily I didn't have any immediate plans when I got back to Dubai. The last of the experience was getting luggage. I had to check a suitcase because I had training manuals for the teams, but normally I do carry on only. With everyone having 6+ bags it took another 45 minutes to wait for my luggage to finally appear.
So lesson learned, stick to Emirates Airlines whenever possible.

An interesting thing that I keep noticing is the language and phrases the British people use versus the US english speakers. For instance here was what the regional manager said to her team last week "Make sure to have enough fill in your kits for the weekend" translation: make sure you have enough change in your cash registers for the weekend". Another one was "service proposition" is "customer service" and finally the one that I didn't understand until a week ago was when they answer the phone they say "are you ok?" and when you meet them they say it as well. It is just their way of saying "how are you doing" but it's so panic sounding that I just assumed they thought I was always in a state of peril.
But it goes the other way too- as we were walking into Avenues mall I said "it is hotter than hell here!" and I thought they were going to piss their pants they were laughing so hard- they said they had never heard that before. And then I had mentioned that I had a new Swimsuit- they again died laughing saying they were imagining me in a "swimsuit" which they only know as a 1 piece ladies swimsuit. They told me I need to call it swim trunks. :-)