Gigantic Sunrise
It must be an accident of atmospheric refraction or some other optical illusion – I did not photoshop this photo, the sun just turned out huge. I took others where the sun is smaller, but this one made me laugh out loud, and I hope it will brighten your day, too.
Good Morning, Kuwait!
For my non-Kuwait, non-Gulf readers, today is like Thank-God-it’s-Thursday. Tomorrow is the holy day (even many Christians go to church here on Friday) and some people also have off Saturday, some don’t.
At 0800 in Kuwait, it is 82°F / 28°C – my favorite temperature conversion, because it is easy to remember, same backwards and forewards. Yesterday, I even saw my first laborer wearing a neckscarf because of the cooler temperatures, LLLLOOOLLLLLLLLLL!
Blogger Mathai, at Just Blog It posted four sunsets, which are lovely, but scroll down his page to the October 6th entry for one of the most beautiful photos of downtown Kuwait I have ever seen. Taken during the Eid, the skys are SO blue!
6 October 2008 Back to Normal
The sound of early morning traffic humming by the house woke me early this morning, early enough to catch the sun coming up. The truth – as I see it – is that this is a very ho-hum, back to normal kind of morning. People are in the back-to-work mode, focused, not all that happy, after the glorious celebration of Eid, to be heading back to hum-drum normal. The sunrise was also sort of ho-hum, but there is a little wave action going on, and the temperature is only 79°F / 26°C and not expected to go over 98°F / 37°C.
I don’t mean to complain. It is a lovely sunrise. I might have had too much caffein this morning!
Sometimes, in the fall, I feel a little restless. Maybe the inner-Alaskan starts looking for a cave in which to hibernate!
Evening Twist
Tonight I was unaccountably organized, and realized I had exactly 21 1/2 minutes to spare before dinner was finished cooking (something it could do in the oven all by itself with no additional help from me) and . . . the light was going to that almost-sunset shade of somewhere-between=pink=and=blue that mesmerizes me.
While out the window on the other side of the house, an apocalyptic sun is setting:
I am telling you, sunrise in Kuwait is a piece of cake. Sunset – now there is a challenge. You still have time. I know there are possibilities. Show me a beautiful sunset in Kuwait. Don’t be intimidated by AbdulAziz – he LOVES photography and has been shooting for a long time. Find your own unique point of view.
As you can see, it is a challenge for me, too. I don’t like industrial looking sunsets, which seem to be fairly standard in Kuwait. There has to be a fabulous sunset possible. There must be!
Meanwhile, did you notice in the almost-purple shot above, there are no fishing boats on the horizon? This is how it looked just an hour and a half ago:
So many boats! And minutes later – they are all gone! For nights, their lights have been a necklace across the horizon, and now they are gone. How do they know? I can still see patches of twitchy water – how do they know?
By the way – look at that sea! Look at the color! Look at the blue sky! Wooo hoooo, October in Kuwait!
Two For One
Oh! I love October! I am so excited to get up in the mornings, go out on the balcony, all cool and fresh! The weather has been amazing, suddenly dry and not-so-hot, not-so-humid, and we can see all the way to the horizon. With the Eid – and fewer factories running, or whatever it is that puts all the junk in the air here – the sky is actually BLUE, not that hazy white we see most of the year.
It’s only 77°F / 25°C at 0800 this morning. I bet some Kuwaitis are shivering! 😉
Here is yesterday’s sunrise, actually taken as the sun broke over the horizon:
And here is today’s sunrise, actually taken a few minutes later (too lazy this morning!)
GOOOOOOOOD Morning, Kuwait! Hope ya’ll have a great day!
Golden Eid Sunrise
At 0600 on this second day of Eid, while all of you are sleeping, I am up with the fishermen. At 0600, the sun has just risen and the sky is all pink and gold. Seconds after I shot the sunrise, the colors totally changed – the sky is totally cloudless, the surf continues flat, except for the twitchy water where small fish are swarming. And the temperature is a mere 79°F / 26°C even at 0800.
It is supposed to be hot today, but the rest of the week will be cooler. Wear your sunscreen if you are celebrating outside today.
Eid Mubarak Sunrise!
When I woke up this morning, it was a little after sunrise and the entire room was flooded with sparkling clear light. Grabbing the camera, I rushed to the window – you can’t see in the photo, but there is an entire flotilla of fishing boats about 2 kilometers off the coastline; I love fishing boats, they evoke something so timeless and serene in my heart. It has to be Eid! Such a beautiful sparkling day, it has to be Eid! And sure enough, it is.
This sparkling, clear, low-humidity, relatively low-temperature day is a blessing to us all! Eid Mubarak Kuwait, and Eid Mubarak (Eid Mubarkhom?) world!
Sulphury Saturday Sunrise
Another sweet, clear morning, a whole blockade of fishing boats between me and the horizon, and a totally different sunrise from yesterday – a very yellow, sulphury sunrise:
It’s a mere 77° F / 25° C, a cool September morning, these last few days of Ramadan. Good morning, Kuwait!
Sweet Friday Sunrise
It’s a temptation to linger outside on my balcony this morning. At 0700, it is a sweet 84°F / 29°C, there is a breeze blowing and look! There are sweet little clouds in the sky! Winter is coming! There is a chop in the surf, the air smells clean, and that band on the horizon is down to a thin wispy layer . . . if only the whole day could be like this.
Yesterday I ended up spending a lot of time outdoors. Early in the day, it wasn’t bad, it was even pleasant, but by mid-day, it was barely bearable.
Ramadan is the season of drawing closer to God / Allah, and thinking on those who are poor, and are not fasting to deprive themselves, but fasting because they have nothing to eat. As I found myself outdoors, unshaded, in the midday heat, I found myself thinking of you who are fasting, and how very difficult this year has been with the heat and humidity. The days of dry heat just leach the moisture right out of you; the days of humidity you drip, losing moisture either way that you can ill afford to lose when you must get through the day without drinking.
It is truly sacrificial, and my prayers are with you, that you find satisfaction in your fast, and draw closer to God.
For myself, at the end of the day, AdventureMan and I found ourselves exhausted and with that little dehydration headache you can get. I am feeling very thankful for the coming of cooler weather, insh’allah.
Glassy Shimmer
This morning, it is once again only 81°F / 27°C at 0700 – it gets hot later in the day, but not so much humidity as before. Yesterday, after being outside only a short time, I felt like my skin had turned into cracked alligator hide – the dry heat just sucked all the moisture out. My eyes also felt gritty, even through it appeared fairly clear.
Another gorgeous morning, just a hint of that sulphery yellow haze on the horizon, sea flat as glass:
A fisherman is trying to snag something for the pot for tonight’s dinner:
Change in the Weather
At 0700 this morning, it is only 81°F / 27°C. What a change! No steamed up windows, the humidity is also down.
I love October in Kuwait, when the temperatures swing dramatically into the comfortable zone, and we can even start eating outside at night. We are yearning to go back to the Souk Mubarakiyya after church on Fridays, or on a relaxed Saturday night. Or Paul’s in the Fehaheel Al Kout Mall, out by the fountains. For six months, Kuwait is a delightful place to be. While my fellow Americans – or at least those not stationed in Kuwait or Iraq or Qatar – are slogging their way through the rain and wind and snow, we are basking in a sweet mostly-warm climate, our reward for the brutality of the summers here.
Although – there ARE people who love the heat! I even notice that I am not so uncomfortable in the summers as I once was. Unless it is humid, I don’t even break a sweat when I am out, or else it is so hot that it is just evaporating off me and I don’t even know it.
Yesterday, when I got up, it was too late to catch the sunrise, but what I did catch was lovely – a whole fleet of boats out fishing. Thanks to Enviro Girl telling me about the enhanced zoom capability on my camera, I was able to get some fairly clear shots, even at a distance:
Here, they’re hauling in something for dinner!
(Or maybe they are just hauling in the anchor. 🙂
If you want to see all the photos from the Souk Mubarakiyya, just do a search in the search box to the right and it will show you all the articles and photos I have taken there.
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on Shampoo Ginger tigerbutterya0c5ff1d… on Shampoo Ginger intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… John on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 