First Class Field Trip-Kuwaiti Style

This post should not be as long as the previous, as it is only one days’ worth of stuff.
I am trying to keep up with the blog so I do not have a few days worth of writing. The class and our schedule are really flexible and whatever we are interested or want to do, we can ask to do it. I personally really like it and feels like it makes the entire experience that much more rewarding. We heard that people go out in the desert and camp out, so now we are organizing a camping trip out to the desert and visiting some the tribal camps out there, which should be awesome. Tomorrow we are visiting Kuwait’s Parliament and talking to one of the women who were a part of the first four women to be first elected to the Kuwaiti Parliament. Women just received the right to vote in 2005, so I would say that’s pretty progressive. All of these women went to universities in the United States and have PhD’s, but the woman we are meeting with tomorrow knows our professor and went to University of Denver! Today we went to visit the Arab Fund, which is similar to IMF/World Bank, they lend out money to “Arab Nations” for projects which they proposal and are approved for depending on the budget and the project.
The building was magnificent. That’s an understatement. Everything that was not marble was glass, wood, bronze or crystal. The building was an engineer and architect’s dream. Everything had a purpose; none of the pipes, air conditioning vents or water sprinkler systems was visible. Air conditioning came from vents underneath the walls between the floor and the wall; all the ceilings were large scale pieces of art carved out of wood or painted and the sprinklers were painted into the design. Everything was made with beautiful marble so all the veins matched up. Sound systems, microphones, lighting in all the conference and office rooms were remote controlled and specialized to each desk. There were wood carvings from India, a staircase from Egypt, title designs and fountains from Morocco, it was overwhelming. Even down to the trees in the open lobby were able to turn so during the day each angle of the tree received the same amount of light from a large scale glass four story window so they would not lead to one side.
Everything was planning down to the smallest detail. It was the cleanest building I have ever seen. All of the exhaust in the parking garage was cleaned out each evening through suction and if your car dripped oil, they put a piece of paper underneath it and if you didn’t repair within two days, they would fold up the paper and put it on your desk and tell you to fix your car before coming back to keep the garage clean. Incredible.
We were there for four and half hours, had two rounds of tea (I needed a cappuccino second time around) and the man who gave us the tour knew everything about every detail in the building. He invited us to go to the museum with him in Kuwait, so I think we will be doing that and have him as our private tour guide. Towards the end I was starting to feel disappointed that we heard NOTHING about what the organization actually did and all about how the building was created and what art was from where. A man who was an advisory engineer came and talked to us at the end and I felt bad because I do not think he was ready to be grilled with questions by a bunch of college students, but at least we learned more about the Arab fund.
Afterwards we were so drained, we went to a new shopping mall (they had a HUGE IKEA) and bought something to eat. We sat and talked there for awhile and I am really enjoying getting to know everyone in our group. We are all so different and come from different backgrounds, there always seems to be an interesting story and I am learning something new just by the students. We returned to the hotel, walked around the shopping malls around our hotel for a bit , then Anu and I went back to our room, did our reading for tomorrow. I am really looking forward to tomorrow, Parliament should be awesome.