38 degrees

its nearly 4 pm and the termostat display on top of awtad tower is telling me that it is 38 degrees outside.

summer is still a few weeks away and temperatures are already soaring.

its gonna be a really hot summer :0(

Traffic Tuesday

i jinxed my luck after posting about traffic lite.

today it took me 1.5 hrs to get to work since there was a major accident on the road i take.

since the last three weeks, i have noticed that there is an accident every tuesday at the same spot - the exit for the 3rd ring road on route 50 (while coming towards city from the airport).

every tuesday - same spot - kind of wierd !

I hate you dusty

It has just got too dusty outside.

Have a nice weekend !

Rising rents

recently we were informed by the building haris that rents in our building will be increased by kd 35!

rents all across kuwait have gone up for residential apartments. but has this increase really been because of 'market forces' and 'demand'?

the way i look at it, the number of people in kuwait has increased...albeit a little bit. but i just get a feeling that these rent increases have been just because the land lord wanted more money.

it's not as if the buildings are maintained and kept in excellent condition, so it should not matter even if maintenance costs have gone up. nor does the land lord pay for electricity or water, so no bother for him there either.

the main reason why people are paying such high rent is mainly because they have to, and not because they want to (which would not be the case had this increase in rents been due to real market forces).

there are loads of buildings that are there lying empty, so there is no problem of supply. since the last six months there has been a building on mugheera street that is going for rent - kd 350 for a 2 bedroom apartment !

i am searching for some global data to conduct a comparison of rental rates - i have a hunch that one might be able to rent a similar apartment in some beautiful european country at the same rate.

Only in Kuwait...

on my way to office this morning, i saw a lady driving her mercedez on the highway - smoking a cigarette with one hand, and talking over the phone with the other - look ma, no hands!

All of us for Kuwait...

"Apartment available for rent in Salwa - only for foreigners and locals."

That's an ad in Waseet this week - there were a few more with the same tone. I called up to check on what 'foreigners' meant. As expected - it is "Americans and Europeans".

After Kuwait was liberated after the Iraq invasion, the national television used to run a song nearly all day long. It had the following couple of really interesting lines:

"Kulluna li al-Kuwait,
Al-Kuwait li kullina."

Translating it in English:

"All of us for Kuwait,
and Kuwait for all of us."

I think that now reads as - ....and Kuwait for all of US

Funny. Really funny.