Tragedy: German Embassy runs out of beer!

So I get invited to a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner hosted by Canadians In Kuwait, and decide that I should attend. Pretty much every western person I've met here is from my school, and I feel like it is a good thing to branch out and meet some new people. Plus, I'm a sucker for turkey, gravy, and mashed potatoes, so I figured if all else goes south, I've got a little bit in my belly. I'm not really sure what I expected, but it was an interesting event. They locale was very plush. The event was held on a giant, dry docked ship. It was truly impressive in terms of both scale and craftsmanship (see picture below). The crowd was a bit odd though. It felt a bit like I was on a movie set where people were just extras pretending to be party goers. They were nice, as Canadians tend to be I suppose, if just a little bit stoic. We drank apple and guava juice out of champagne glasses like we were kids playing grownup. Yippee!

Into the hull of the ship we went, and grab a table at random where we knew nobody. We introduce ourselves, order more apple juice, listen to a speech from some attache from the Canadian embassy, and duly stand for a rather poor rendition of the Canadian national anthem, which sounded like it was being played by a group of drunk middle schoolers. We quickly struck up a conversation with the couple sitting next to us. He was German, and she was Canadian. They admitted that they were unhappy with the lack of alcohol at the function (much as we all were), and launched into a story about their previous night. They had been at some function at the German embassy and had had the great fortune of drinking heavily. The night turned into something out of college where they got hammered, drove home drunk (not remembering the drive), but stopping first to get Dominos pizza on the way home. She was on her way to being drunk again having smuggled in some hooch in her purse and pouring some into both her juice and her Coke (I liked this woman), while he launched into a story about his embassy.

He was particularly unhappy that he was told, when he went to get another beer, that the embassy had run out of beer. "Can you BELIEVE zat? Zay told me zat  zay had no more beerah! Since when do Germans ever run out of BEERAH?!?" At this point I have to nod and concede the point. To my knowledge, outside of the siege at Stalingrad, the Germans have never been without ze beerah. And now he is really worked up and enjoying his outrage from the previous night. He talked about how he threw a little bit of a fit and was confronted by the German Ambassador himself, who basically told him, again that they were out of beer. "What an azzhole!" he kept saying. "and he couldn't even speak English well. I agreed again saying that two things I hated were being cut off by those with poor English skills, particularly German azzholes. He got a big kick out of this and grinned broadly, buoyed by my support. Then he turns to his girlfriend and says, incredulously, "Zhen, she goes up to him, with ze BIG BOOBS and ze BLONDE HAIR, and he gives her a BIG hug and (that's right, you guessed it) MORE BEERAH!" I look again at her and indeed, she is an attractive woman who is clearly proud of her boobs, and I can see how she would garner a hug and more drinks. "Zey had more beerah for her, but not for me. Not for ze German. Zat guy iz an azzhole!!"

I need to hang out with this guy more often, and I need to get myself invited to some embassy parties. I need to go to a tailor and get a suit made so I have something to wear. I need ze BEERAH!

"Do you get seasick?"

He asked this of me when I stepped on the boat yesterday. "I don't know," I told him as I tried to think back. I have just never spent much time on the open water, but the times I had, I'd been fine. On the other hand, I am my mother's son (a brief note here: despite being a very experienced traveler, my mom does not do well with motion and gets sick at the drop of the hat. Trains and boats are particularly bad for her). I backed that up with a bold "I don't think so."

We headed out for the 45 minute trip to Kubbar Island where we would be diving for the day, and I would be doing the first two of my four dives for my dive certification. I settled into the back of the boat (mom, you may want to stop reading for a minute here) and got a beautiful view of the path we were traveling as I looked from my backwards facing seat.

No problem! We got to the island in no time. Kubbar apparently means"big" in Arabic, but it was not much more than island with two towers and some beaches that would take no longer than 10 minutes to walk around. There were a couple of yachts already anchored there for a weekend of partying. And I don't mean little pleasure boats, I mean yachts.We hooked up to the buoy anchor and suited up. The visibility was about 3 or 4 meters, but the reef is supposed to make this one of the better spots to dive in Kuwait. We went down about 10 meters or so and the visibility was poor. I lost my instructor once, but found him below and behind me when I saw his bubbles. The reef wasn't really much to look at, but some of the fish were really beautiful. Bright yellows, neon blues, all so close I could reach out and touch them.

I finished up with dive one and got back on the boat to get a new tank and it started to hit a little. I'm not sure what did it. Maybe was the headache from the night before, maybe it was being tired, maybe it was a lack of food, maybe it was the acid reflux that I get on occasion that was brought on  by swallowing a little sea water, maybe it was the rocking of the boat, or a combination of it all, but that feeling started to set in. But, it wasn't bad, just the start of stomach dissatisfaction. So, we start dive two and things are fine for awhile. I do all the underwater tests I was supposed to do, but the feeling kept coming on. I think we all know the feeling. That feeling that creeps up on us when we're sick, or after a hard night of drinking. We think that maybe it will go away if we just relax and ignore it. And I think we all know that feeling when that doesn't work, and the inevitable happens. That's when I hit that point and my mind started to do the calculate all the logistics of puking 30 feet underwater. I'd heard that it's not a problem to puke while diving, and I remembered that while I was down there, but that thought was not exactly comfort inspiring at that time. I was going to do this underwater, one way or another. I was too far down to make it up before I lost it. If you're feeling uncomfortable reading this, you're starting to get it. My instructor was always checking in with me to see if I was ok. I signaled that I wasn't and why. He signaled that we were staying put and that I should try to relax. My brain understood, but it is still a very unsettling feeling and my body was thinking that this was just not going to work. Mustafa - my instructor - did a good job of walking me through it, and after I puked about four times, I felt instantly better.

All's well that ends well though. We got back on the boat, I got some water and a couple pieces of watermelon, and after a few minutes, I was back to feeling normal. By this time, it was party central at the island with maybe 2 dozen yachts there for the young, rich, and restless Kuwaitis to blow off some steam. We headed back and the fast choppy ride back was actually more soothing than the rolling waves.

One last thing. We were stopped by the Kuwaiti Coast Guard on the way back. They checked for Civil IDs and were looking for Iranians illegally crossing the border. I still don't have my ID, nor did I have my passport, so I was starting to wonder what was going to happen to me. They took IDs from the other passengers, but never looked at me, or asked for mine. I guess I don't look much like an Iranian. It seems to be that it is still good to be an American in some places around the world. My companions kind of looked confused and chuckled when I asked what they would have done if they had asked for my ID and I didn't produce any. "What do you mean? You're American, they wouldn't have done anything with you."