Today is the third and final day of the Bahrain Gulf Air Grand Prix.  The event is huge here and officially started on Friday, continued on Saturday, and will finish today, Sunday.  It is Formula One racing.  For those who don’t know, Formula One is the “funny-looking race car” racing.  It’s the kind, when you got one as a Matchbox car as a kid, and you said, “What’s this funny looking car?” your parents said, “It’s a race car.”  It’s the kind that looks like somebody squished it.  But I like them.  I think they look cool and very fast.

So all this week Bahrain prepared for this event.  The hotels and restaurants raised their prices.  Normally a hotel room is around 40BD for a night ($106.40USD), but for this event they charged 200BD ($532.00USD).  Ouch!  That’s a lot of money for one night.  It’s called “price gouging” or “charging what the market will bear” or “supply and demand” depending on who’s doing the talking.  It is clear that Bahrain understands capitalism very well.

The government was hoping to cash in on the money coming into the island as well.  It was reported in the Gulf Daily News, an English-language daily newspaper, that “Big-hitters in charge of assets worth more than $1 trillion” would be at the event.  It went on to say that, “Bahrain is hoping to convince them to invest some of that cash in the country, said Economic Board chief executive Shaikh Mohammed bin Isa Al Khalifa.”  We’ll see if Bahrain managed to draw any new investors.

The drivers started arriving the week before the race started too.  They were met at the airport by dignitaries and given VIP treatment.  Their pictures were in the Gulf Daily News.  I was going to name them here, but there’s too many.  They all arrived Wednesday and Thursday and then participated in meet and greet sessions, dinners in their honor, and other typical VIP “wining and dining” events.

Fans started arriving Thursday.  And there are a lot of them!  It’s estimated that 100,000 people are attending the races.  It seems that most of those people arrived via the Saudi Causeway from other Gulf countries like Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.  That means they all brought their cars.  And that means they were driving on our streets.  And that means that traffic, which is usually crazy, was downright insane.  They even came into Juffair.  Juffair is a part of the city that sits on a peninsula, so it is kind of separate from it too.  It is where I live.  And it is a fair ways from “the action.”  But there were a lot more people in Juffair Friday than usual.  I guess they came looking for restaurants that weren’t outrageously expensive.  American Alley or the Juffair Strip, a section of street which has a lot of fast food restaurants, was busier than usual too.  It is usually very difficult to drive on that street owing to its normal high level of traffic, lack of parking (so people park on the street), and narrowness (so there’s no room to park on the street without blocking traffic).  Friday, when I attempted to navigate that street, it was insane!  I was driving so slow I could have walked faster.  Literally!  Even though there were a few traffic jams I managed to get through without hitting anything or anyone hitting me.

By the way, in case anyone cares, it was reported that George Lucas would be at the Grand Prix.  And, before anyone asks, no, I haven’t seen him.  But he did get his picture in the Gulf Daily News.

There’s all kinds of other events associated with the race.  There’s a lot of parties, both private and for the public.  There’s concerts and performers–like jugglers and stilt walkers on tall bicycles.  Race attendees will also get a chance to drive a Formula One car at a simulator.  Some schools and three universities–Bahrain University, the University College of Bahrain, and Gulf University–are giving their students Sunday off so they can attend the race.  The newspaper said that Bahrain University was expecting a lot of students to attend the race anyway.  Other schools will still have class but will let out early.

The Bahrain International Circuit is expecting tickets to sell out.  The Grand Prix in 2007 was sold out, and they are expecting the same thing this time.  By the end of Thursday, 90% of the tickets had been sold.  In case you were wondering I did not go to any events.  I did not want to deal with all the crowds and all the expensive prices that the various thieves vendors would be charging.  I’m not that into racing anyway.  I just mentioned it here because it’s such a huge event here.  Most of this information has come from the newspaper.

Maybe tomorrow or the next day I’ll be able to post information on the results of the race.  I’ll get that from the newspaper too.  Of course anyone who wants to beat me to it could probably look it up online.

Happy racing!

We did take pictures, but you’ll have to wait until I can get them entered into the computer before I can post any.  Hopefully it won’t be long, but it may be a few weeks.

It was a really nice visit, and I’m glad she came.

If anyone else wants to come, you’re more than welcome.

Yusef sat in the back trawling. This means he dangled a fishing line over the back of the boat while we went slow.

And I took pictures. So everybody had a job.

You can find more pictures than are included in this post on the sidebar, under Pages, under “Pretty Pictures,” under “Bahrain by Boat.”

I took pictures of the shoreline,

of the Islamic Library which isn’t open yet,

and tried to get a picture of our building. I finally did.

You’ll notice tall buildings–not the left most one, but the second group–there’s a white one with a white and pink one directly next to it. If you look closely you can see it looks like it has a little gazebo thing on the roof. That’s our building. If our apartment were high enough you’d be able to see our windows–but we’re on the second floor (in American that’s the fourth floor) and so the other buildings cover it up, I think.

I also tried to take pictures of the ship yard which is just on the other side of the base. As usual it wasn’t very busy.

And I also took a picture of the bridge connecting the main island with Muharraq, name of the island and the city on it. This is also where the airport is, so if you ever come visit me, you’ll travel across this bridge, or actually, probably across one of the other two bridges linking the two islands. They don’t look as nice as this one, though.

We also saw a big boat.

Yusef called it a dhow, and it did look like the smaller ones,

only bigger. We couldn’t tell what the cargo was. Notice the laundry hanging out to dry on the back.

And then we caught a fish! It flopped around a lot. Here’s Jeremy with the fish at the end of the trip after we came on shore. In case you’re wondering what kind, it was a mackerel.

After that we had some engine trouble, but Yusef was able to get us going again so we drove around the water very fast. I even took a turn at the wheel.

We also passed the Arad Fort.

We haven’t been there yet. I didn’t know it was so close. It seems farther away when getting to it by car, I guess because you have to go around the water instead of cutting across it, like we did in the boat.

We went under the other two bridges to Muharraq, and after this we came back in, but the tide was out, so Yusef let us out on some rocks and we climbed up. Then he anchored his boat and waded in. After this he got some knives and proceeded to slice the fish up and gave us some of the slices. So now we have mackerel steaks in our freezer. Anybody know how to cook mackerel? Anybody want to come over and cook for us? All you can eat fish steak if you do!

I took the header picture (picture at the top of the blog) on November 11, 2007.  My husband, Jeremy, and I went boating, and I took the picture from the water, facing back to land.  This is of part of the city of Manama, the city we live in.  It is also the capital city and where most of the people live.  The tall buildings are just an example of Bahrain’s skyline.  There are a lot of tall buildings.  We live in one.  When you live on an island and can’t build out, it only makes sense to build up.

The boat in the foreground is a dhow.  It’s a distinctive, local design of ship and was used in the past for fishing and pearling.  Bahrain is famous for its pearl beds, although now with all the “land reclamation” (creation) the environment, which includes the oyster beds, are being damaged.  I think pearl divers still go out, at least they sell pearls in the souk (market, also mall).  They still fish too.  So I guess it could be said dhows still are used for fishing and pearling.

In-shah-allah (God willing) I will post an account of our boating trip real soon.

P.S.  In-shah-allah is a common Islamic/Arabic expression meaning “If God wills.”