Kuwait a minute here!

A "Budweiser NA" at the "Ayam Zaman" restaurant in the hotel in Kuwait.

Recently I was presented with an "opportunity" to go to Kuwait.  Actually, it was more of a matter of being told I was going there to fly an airplane out of there the next day.  I decided to view this as a chance to see another new city I hadn't seen before instead of dreading the inevitable bureaucratic BS that is always associated with entering and leaving any city in the middle east.  So after parking our airplane in Bahrain, myself and the rest of our crew took a commercial flight to Kuwait City on a Gulf Air A320.  It was a fairly painless hour-long flight and before I knew it I was in yet another dirty city located somewhere in a desert.  


Once out of the airport, the fairly quick van ride to the hotel was good.  It gave me a chance to see some of the buildings of the city.  I must say that it was fairly a unimpressive experience.  At least with Bahrain, (and from what I've seen on TV), Dubai, there are quite a few buildings with very interesting architecture and are pleasing to the eye.  Now, maybe I just didn't get to where the cool stuff was but I found that Kuwait was very depressing.


The Crowne Plaza in Kuwait on the other hand, was fantastic.  It is most likely in my top 3 or so hotels I've ever stayed at in terms of pure opulence.  It is very nice to say the least.  During our brief stay, we met for dinner at one of the 4 or so restaurants in the hotel.  It featured very good food and had a pleasant environment.  We chose a spot in the "no-smoking" section which of course I found funny in that there were tables not 15 feet away with many people smoking mu'assel in the big ornate, hookah pipes.  I've always thought that having a no-smoking section in an open air restaurant is like having a "no-peeing" section in a swimming pool.  But I digress...

Taken in the main lobby at the Crowne Plaza.

During our meal, we decided that after our long day we should have a beer.  Of course being in Kuwait where alcohol is banned, we were left with only one "beer" option... Non-Alcoholic.  So we each got a "Budweiser- NA" and to a man decided that it was one of the worst tasting beverages we'd ever consumed.  In addition to the horrible taste, it was fairly expensive as well which made the experience just that much more like a jab in the gut with a stick.  


Overall, the experience is one I won't mark down as "great"... however, it was definitely interesting to see, feel and smell a country where the vast majority of Americans will never go.