Road trip to Kuwait

Over the Saudi National Day weekend we left the country to celebrate- haha. Seriously, never did I think I would one day write about road tripping to Kuwait. That just sounds crazy. But it happened. And it was so fun. Well, the drive itself was nothing to shout about (oh look, more desert...)- we did come across a few tires on fire...and a graveyard of cars:

Arriving at the Kuwaiti border

Waiting in the car at immigration while Brian fills out paperwork for our visas...a slow, slow process...it took us 90 minutes to get through immigration. (We have heard that some have waited 3 hours so we will count our blessings!)

Finally we made it through the border and after a quick drop off of our luggage at our hotel we went to the Scientific Center. There was a small aquarium and discovery/play area that was fun to explore:

Another country- another obligatory handstand photo!

The next day we went to Kidzania with a bunch of friends that had also road tripped up to Kuwait for the weekend. What is Kidzania? Basically, it's a kid-size city where kids get to do some "adult-ing"- the kids explore the city doing various jobs and then they get paid $ (Kidzania $) for doing those jobs. There are also places to spend your $. You can also go to university and get a degree to earn more. The kids were surgeons, pilots, flight attendants, police detectives, DHL delivery service, cell phone salesmen, house painter, vacuum repair specialist, pharmacist, etc. When they got hungry they had to work at the pizza shop or Burger King to make their own food (and they had to pay $ for it too). When they got thirsty they went to the water bottling plant to bottle their own water. Cool, right?! Even more cool is that parents aren't allowed into the job sites. You have to wait outside on the "street."

Mei's favorite was going to the Kinder chocolate factory to make chocolate.

Kaiya's friend Haley was the injured person that everyone else had to help as EMT's (Kaiya's just wearing the neck brace for fun).

Kaiya and Haley graduated with a hospitality degree. Funny story- it only ended up giving them a tiny bit extra money doing hospitality-related jobs. Emi went to university and studied health sciences. When she later did health-related jobs (surgeon, optometrist, etc) she got paid triple the normal amount. Lesson learned- get a health sciences degree!

Cutest police detectives out there!

Busy delivering packages to "businesses" around Kidzania as DHL employees.

Scrubbing up for a liver transplant surgery

Lastly, we stopped at some water towers- the Kuwaiti's have painted all of their water towers in a stripe pattern and it made for a cool photo backdrop. The two oldest kids were not impressed...so they're not pictured.

And that was our quick weekend getaway! I still think there's more to see in this tiny country. Some Gulf War sites, the souq...so maybe we'll take another road trip over there someday.