This is the begining of a travelogue...Of a journey from Kuwait to the edge of the arctic.
The first leg of the rehla has already landed me in Toronto, a trip I almost didn't make because the check-in desk at Kuwait airport was closed when I got there. The man at the desk was very upset with how late I was and kept asking me 'why, why? Why are you so late?' I wondered whether getting on the plane would depend on how good an answer I gave. But, I didn't wonder about that until after I had already blurted 'I don't know' .
Tip: Getting on the plane after check-in has closed does not depend on your answer but on the check-in person's mood. And of course you could get there on time and avoid the whole fuss.
After way too many hours in the odd position that you somehow get into on a plane seat, the sun was setting over a huge sea of thick clouds and we dove slowly into them and suddenly there were gold lights all over the landscape. It looked like what Kuwait used to look like from the sky back in the 80's. Just gold lights with bigger golden lights snaking through them to indicate highways.
I am writing from a little, empty internet cafe in the Kensington market district of the city. Enya is on the radio, which makes me want to step outside until the scary music is over. Imagine the love child of Portabello Road and Souq il-Jum3a, and you will know what to expect from K. Market. It is sandwiched between Chinatown to the south and The univesity of Toronto to the north.
Chinatown here is huge, and has a more lived in less touristy feel than in NYC or London or L.A. Hardly anything but logos are in English and it takes over blocks and blocks of the city, which is nice.
Walking in this February winter is an act of bravery for desert dwellers, no matter how much we might like the cold. My attempt to blend in falls flat here, because no one else has ski mittens, a huge hat and a long scarf wrapped several times round their face. I'm not even at my arctic destination yet, so let's wait and see how a warm weather Kuwaiti woman will do there..
Till the next internet cafe playing late 80's music, bye bye..