The Gold Souk

It's been an absolute whirlwind of a few days! 

Stella started school, we rented a car and started trying to find our way around, we've gone house hunting, and we've met up with one of our best friends whose ship is here for a port call. 

Today, after Stella got out of school, we ventured out to the Gold Souk (a Souk is an Arabic market or bazaar) to do a little shopping with the guys from the ship. 

Now, Christopher has been there before. Multiple times. But, he's never driven himself there; he's always taken a taxi. So we plugged it in to google maps and were on our way... and then google maps failed us beyond belief and took us through this INSANELY tight and twisty half streets, all around the city. It was absolutely wild, to say the least! We'd turn down one tiny street that was packed with people and muscle our way down only to turn down another street packed with more people. Other drivers would just stop in the middle of the road andget out or just throw it in reverse and start backing up. I literally can't describe how crazy this was... and it lasted for like half an hour (though it felt like a hell of a lot longer than that!!!). 

We finally got there and, mercifully, found a close parking spot (and even more mercifully, some super nice guys gave us their parking pass that still held 30 minutes on it when they saw us scrambling around trying to find change) and headed in. It was really neat! There were lots of different vendors who had rugs, shawls, scarves, pottery, jewelry, wooden boxes and trunks, treasure chests, figurines, lanterns, and so much more. It was a lot to take in and a lot to look at but it was really awesome! 

We talked to one merchant about rugs and he showed us some hand woven silk rugs and explained that each rug pattern is done by one family and it takes them up to, and sometimes over, a year to complete. Then they sign them. It was fascinating. And yes, before we leave we'll have a rug! Today we bought a Turkish coffee pot and a gorgeous handmade pomegranate for our bookshelf! 

We also were walking out of one shop and the merchants came walking after us and gave Stella this little green ornament as a gift! It was so nice! We've found that the Bahraini people absolutely adore children and will try to spoil them any chance they get! Stella gets offered dessert or candy ALL the time! 

After walked around some and the guys got gifts for back home we left and entered the chaos that is that part of Manama. It took less time to get out of all of it but it was still crazy hectic! Seriously. The Bahraini's give no shits. They'll walk where they want or do whatever they want in their vehicle. Learning to drive over here is going to be interesting, to say the least! But hey, it's all part of the adventure, right?