Nerbelly, or Day 123 in Bahrain

This is basically just a placemark post to tell you I'm alive, it's way after my (new) bedtime, I'm exhausted but having a lot of fun (and I didn't even have any alcohol).

I'll update you later on how I basically biked all of Manama, how the guys here are even more friendly than Oman, how my feet got "tan", and what nerbelly even means!

But now, goodnight, and I'll see you tomorrow back in Doha.

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So, back in Doha, a bit tired from two days of frantic cycling around the northern part of Bahrain.

Here is what happened on Day 123: After a restful sleep on the foldout bed/couch, I get up, scrounge for a bit of food, then head toward the mosque and the marina.

My host was kind enough to allow me the use of her bike while she walked to the Navy base for work. That bike made Manama much more accessible.

The first sight was Al-Fateh Mosque, named after the first of the current line of kings ruling Bahrain. It had an indoor section "in the Turkish style" with a dome overhead. (It's true, I remember seeing a lot of dome in Turkey.)

This mosque required that each person have a guide, so me and two possibly-French ladies walked through. Different than other tour guides, he really focused on Islam and its practice. A Quranic lesson was being taught in the prayer hall, which he explained to us, as well as the directions on how to do the five-times-a-day prayer.

When I say that the men are friendly, it just means that I got a lot of honks and a few "hey baby"s. At first I thought the honks were because I was biking on a busy road. And some might of been. But, let's just say, all of those honks were coming from cars driven by men.

After that, I continued northward along the "corniche" and marina. It took me until I was nearly at the causeway connected Bahrain to the island of Muharraq to find some sidewalk that was right on the water.

However, along that sidewalk I found the Bahrain National Museum. I'm not a huge museum fan, but this one had some interesting exhibits. (I also went in because there is not much to do in terms of sight-seeing, so a little bit of time wasted is a good thing.)

I'm also glad I went because there was a really cool art exhibit by Rashid al Khalifa (or something similar) called "Convex" after his unique canvas style. I like modern/abstract art, so the lines and circles where nice to look at.

I continued up the coast and crossed the causeway, headed to Arad Fort. After the worst mushroom burger from Jasmi's, I made it to the picturesque for by the sea.

There was a group of four tourists who were there as well, and they were making their visit to the fort an entire photo shoot. The guys snapped a few for me, so I could complain, but ever angle needed at least one victim for the others to shoot at.

A little bit of random biking later, and I was back. (I actually ended up on the west side of Manama when I needed to get to Juffair, where I was staying, the east. But no foul, it took just 15 minutes to get re-oriented and in the right spot, during which I fought a quaint, raggedy amusement park.)

My feet were covered in dust from the bike, and I had new criss-cross imprints from my sandals. I thought it was all dirt, but turns out that the sun hits everywhere.

I met my host and her longterm Surfer and we went out for some shisha with her friends from the Force. They were almost all linguists, so they were off swapping stories and complaints and food and shisha.

My host showed her Wisconsin roots when she started a story by describing someone as "nerbelly" or "nerbly." The definition falls somewhere close to wimpy, emasculated, and weak, but when you pronounced the word as "ner-blee", you just form a mental picture.

Yet, it was only 10pm when we got home, but I was tuckered out (and someone else was using the internet), so I just feel asleep, with just enough willpower to post that post a few hours later when I randomly woke up.