Bahrain - Day 1

Left my apartment at 1:30pm on June 7th and arrived in Bahrain at 12:15am on June 9th (another year older - oofta!). Houston, Texas. Frankfurt, Germany. Doha, Qatar. Manama, Bahrain. 2.5 days, (what seemed like) 25 screaming infants, and 4 airports later, we were at customs in Bahrain. Helluva trip, but we finally made it. The hotel was beautiful, but we all crashed knowing we had along day ahead of us.

Our first day in Bahrain was anything but boring. We visited several places, met some people, and drank water by the gallons (or should I say liters?) in the 109 degree heat.  That didn’t stop us from having a fantastic time, though. We started our morning with an incredible breakfast spread. I felt very spoiled! Once the group was ready to rock and roll, we headed to the Bahrain National Museum.

The whole crew in our hotel lobby prior to departure.

I could have gotten lost in that museum for hours (and not just because I’m directionally challenged), however, our time was limited unfortunately. I feel like I took a lot of new very interesting information away from the tour though; some of the most interesting things that I enjoyed learning about were the lifestyles and cultural traditions that the Bahrain people celebrate – everything from the birth of a baby, to school-life, to pre-wedding and wedding ceremonies.  It is so eye-opening and refreshing to see a different ritual practiced during an occasion that we as Americans are so used to being as vanilla.

After the Bahrain National Museum visit came to a close, we had several “mini-museums” – if you will –to see. This allowed us to walk along the streets of Manama which was a neat experience. We got to see the business and daily lives of some of the local people in the area. Our destinations were monumental used-to-be homes. The homes had been transitioned into museum sites and libraries. They were beautiful and relaxing. We got to see and read about everything from Bahrain newspapers, to Pearls.

The next stop on our busy day took us to an all too familiar (and quite dangerous) territory for yours truly – yes, the mall. We had some free time to shop around and grab a bite to eat. Luckily, not enough time to do any serious damage to the bank account. We left the mall and headed to our next destination: Qal’at al-Bahrai (Fort of Bahrain).  I was bummed that we didn’t get to spend much time at this archeological site – but the heat was pretty intense at this point in the day. I wish I would have gotten to learn more about it. What we saw, though – awesome.

Our final destination was the Al Areen Parks and Wildlife. This was a really fun way to end the day. It was neat to see the variety of animals that live in the desert terrain. I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t love going to the zoo? 

I don’t know how today can be surpassed – it was top notch! A wonderful day spent in a beautiful city with great people. I am so blessed. Pretty remarkable way to ring in the big 2-5! 

Surprise cake from the amazing hotel staff.