good talk

California State Employees receive a paid holiday for "Cesar Chavez Day," there's Washington, Lincoln and ..... As small as Kuwait is it possesses 10% of the world's oil reserves. I flew to Manama, Bahrain. Bahrain is an island and has good things to see but not nearly as many as Kuwait. The National Museum is real good, both Kuwait's and Manama's National Mosque are real good. Generally speaking I prefer a great Mosque to a Cathedral, there's nothing in it to speak of and you can admire its grand simplicity. The Arabs love to dicker, you can bargain about anything, hotel rooms, taxi rides, you name it. From my hotel I wanted to go to the National Museum and I expressed this desire to a taxi driver and he said 7 Dinar (a Dinar is 2.50). I raised 2 fingers and said, 2 Dinar. Onlookers smile as they like the interaction. After awhile we settled on 4 Dinar, it was worth about the 2 but I'm not a very good bargainer. Due to the oil riches throughout the Gulf States you can see beautiful big buildings and more of them being built. Any place is worth 3 days, even Qatar. I flew to Doha, Qatar and there's close to nothing to see there. Even a hotel concierge would tell you this. I liked their Mall, I ate there every day. I took a boat ride into the harbor, big thrill. But just to be in a place where there's all these beautiful skyscrapers and just as many being built is very interesting. An English guy recommended a Souk (market) where they had all these falcons. The best of these would cost several thousand dollars and they are very beautiful birds, I really enjoyed seeing them. I flew to Abu Dhabi, which has 9% of the worlds's oil reserves and is one of the 7 United Arab Emirates, a country which has existed since 1958. Abu Dhabi is better than Dubai, not nearly as congested, decent air. Good things to see, the best of which is the Emirates Palace Hotel, a 3 billion dollar hotel and much better than anything in Las Vegas. And very friendly personnel who act as though they enjoy your walking around gawking at everything, that's our kind of place. I took a bus to Dubai, 2 hours, and I should have gotten a hotel around the Gold Souk (a zillion shops selling gold jewelry) instead of a hotel out a ways, due to the bad traffic it was hard to get to. Eh, got to look around. Went to the Jumeirah and Burj al Arab Hotels to look around, they're shaped like boats. Went to this mall where they had a long indoor ski-slope and a lot of people were using it. The Gold Souk and its vicinity are real interesting and I enjoyed their History Museum. I was getting bad misdirections on where to take the bus to Muscat, Oman and I commented, "These people don't seem to be too bright." Hearing me say this a guy from India said, "You've got that right," and he showed me where to go.