The Adventures of Sophia: Hotel Motel Holiday Inn

Today was our second day of orientation! Yesterday was fun and we met a lot of people, but by 3 o'clock EVERYONE was EXHAUSTED thanks to jetlag, so yea...

BUT TODAY! was awesome. We all met downstairs (there are 13 of us hotel motel-ers) and hung out for a bit and were picked up and taken to The Avenues. It was a lot of fun walking around the whole, entire mall (which I hadn't done before) with the girls and going shopping. I got to talk to some of the O-leaders and they helped clarify the dress code a bit more! After Avenues, we were brought back to our hotel and had an hour to hang out and then we were picked up and taken to the Grand Mosque. It was super awesome! We had to dress in abayas and hijabs! YEE!! I was soooo giddy and excited about the whole experience and I think it may have rubbed off on other people a bit (that or they just got annoyed with my huge smile and endless giggles). Our tour guide was AMAZING. She explained a lot about Islam and Kuwait and I think it really helped everyone get a bit more acclimated and stuff. Cool!

After the mosque, we were brought back to our hotel and I ran M&D's keys to the P's so that their apartment can get cleaned tomorrow and came back right away because a bunch of us went for a walk to the Kuwait Towers at night! We were badasses and crossed Gulf Road ... at NIGHT! Got to the towers and walked around them and took pictures and stuff and got to the area where the water park is! And saw they had PAINTBALL and GO-KARTS!!!!!!!! So exciting. So, I was so excited. I mean, I think it was a combination of the company and what we were doing (walking around Kuwait randomly with no schedule at all). Trevor and I were able to figure out how much Go-Karts were and we convinced most everyone to go with us!!!! IT WAS SOOOOOOO MUCH FUN!!! Man, huge smile the entire time and Christine and I teamed up because we were in the slowest cars and we tried to block everyone. It was a great time. Afterwards, we walked back to the hotel and stopped for some shwarma for some people. Came back up to my room to prepare this blog post (because I was/am SOOOO happy and excited) and got a message from Martin asking what we were all doing. All of us were still awake so we had a "pool party" down at our pool. Basically, we hung out and had some outrageous conversations. It was a lot of fun.

I feel really fortunate. At first all of us were a bit ticked that we were in a hotel and not able to fully settle in and stuff, but I feel so fortunate because it has automatically given us a group of awesome people to get to know and be tight with. I'm not saying we won't meet new people, but we have been able to spend a lot of time becoming solid with each other and it's great. I'm pretty happy.

I guess I should post pics from the mosque. I'll do it as soon as I upload them! Oh! Oh! I forgot! I lost my phone tonight. Left it in the cab. When I realized this, I tried not to sweat it too much and had the hotel guy call my phone. By the time we got back from Go-Karting, he had a HUGE smile on his face and said that it will be returned later tonight, and GUESS WHAT?! Yep! I HAVE IT BACK!!!! How lucky is that? Man oh man. Great day/night/people/country.

Peace, love, & AWESOMENESS

Edit: Pictures!