Tree Of Life

Rob and I are in Bahrain. For those of you that are not familiar with Middle East Geography, it is a small island near Saudi. The reason we decided to come here from Kuwait is due to the fact you can actually drink here. Well, that and we thought that their shopping here would be better then Kuwait also. Wrong! The shopping here is really less then desirable due to the fact everything is ridiculously expensive and the sizing is way off from what we are used to. And as for the drinking, it is also like crazy expensive (in our mini-bar a airplane bottle of top shelf whiskey is $15.00) We are staying in a nice hotel, so last night we decided to go to the Irish Pub in the hotel. We had pretty good time playing pool but it sure isn't like home! You have to be careful what you do and say here and you totally get the vibe being Americans isn't the most popular thing to be. I am ready to get out of the Middle East! But that also seems to be a problem. The way we flew to Bahrain from Kuwait was on a open ended ticket. We did not think it would a problem to get back to Kuwait on Sunday to catch our flight to Athens. Wrong! Yes, again we were wrong. Apparently, everyone in the Middle East is on "Holiday" and they all want to be in Kuwait. Don't ask me why. So, all flights are booked. Our options are to hire a driver to get us to Kuwait via Saudi which means we need to go to the Saudi Embassy and get a visa. Or, buy another plane ticket and leave for Athens from Bahrain. The driver that was called about driving us to Kuwait said he would do it but to warn us that it is dangerous for Americans to be in Saudi. Really, what about in Baghdad? Anyway, not wanting to put ourselves in any more danger then necessary and not really wanting to make the 4 hour trip we have decided to book another flight and leave here on Monday for Athens.
Ok, so the title of this post. I am sure you are asking what's up with "Tree of Life"
Rob seen on the map we received from the rental car company that the "Tree of Life" is here in Bahrain. Now, I really had no idea what this was but he explained that it is in a bunch of movies and how it is this tree out in the middle of the desert and no one knows how it lives and where it's water comes from. So, we had to go check it out. We left this morning in the Volvo we rented with our trusty little rental car map. Well, let me tell you the roads on the map are not labeled so it brought on a whole new form of navigation. I am not really good at classic map navigation. We did start seeing signs for the "tree" so we felt good and that we were on the right track. Wrong! Yes, again somehow we end up almost to the end of the island according to the map where there are these old abandoned towns. Then, we thought we were on the right track again and ended up in some huge construction zone. I have no idea what they were building in the middle of the desert it looked like they were just moving rocks around with these big TONKA trucks. By this time, I was getting quite irritated and really did not care if I seen this tree or not. But somehow we finally made it to this tree and it was a even bigger disappointment. Sure, it was a big tree in the middle of the desert but it was totally defaced (graffiti and trash everywhere). We did take pictures of us with this great "Tree of Life" so I plan on posting them soon.
Let's all hope our time here in Bahrain is not a forecast of what's to come in Europe. Really, it not all that bad but again I Want Out of the Middle East!