"NO FREAKIN' WAY!!!!!" Not in the "this is SO AMAZING, WOWEEEE" sort or way....but in the "ARE YOU KIDDING ME, WHAT THE HEK?!" kind of way. According to Phil and I, Kuwait has lost it's place on the Middle Eastern pedestal of organization and efficiency. Contrary to previous opinion, the country is right back down there with Egypt in terms of "event management". Here's why:
Remember our post about scoring TWO tickets for a first-time-ever Cirque du Soleil performance?! Remember our feelings of excitement and suspense that went with it? Well - it happened on Thursday night and ten minutes in I was whining, "I hate Cirque du Soleil".
Like other events with unassigned seating, attendees were asked to arrive early to get "good seats". The ticket said "doors open at 4, show starts at 7", but we assumed a 6:00 arrival would suffice in the land of inshallah. We left the house at 5:30 and set out to find "Entertainment City" - a place that sounds popular and easy to get to. Well - it took us several phone calls and lots of patience to find the venue. We arrived at 6:30.
After we parked the car, we worked our way towards the "door". Hmmm.....well, there wasn't one. But, there was a fence! Guess what?! The performance was outside. Okay.
Not wanting to miss any of the performance, I decided that I should go to the washroom before the show began. Kristen and I found the washroom together, which turned out to be an easy task, as the line-up was a massive one. Why was it massive? Because there were only two stalls for thousands of people....and 12 year old "babies" were cutting the line with their mothers. It took us 45 minutes to get to the front and it took an aggressive approach to get us there. I really regretted that final tea before we left the house.
While waiting in the epic toilet line, we missed half of the "Moscow Circus", who served as the opening act for Cirque. Of course, Phil missed that half too because he was worried about us and kept his eyes in our direction to make sure he didn't lose us!
Moscow Circus had some great acts, but by the time they were finished it was around 8:30 and everyone was starting to get really cold (yes - desert nights are very, very cool here!). Since we didn't know the event was outdoors, we weren't exactly prepared for the evening's drop in temperature, but our excitement for Cirque kept our minds off the weather and on the stage! However, just before Cirque was supposed to go on stage....an announcement declared a 30 minute waiting period. WHAT?! Over half of the audience left due to the cold, but we decided to stick it out.
"Sticking it out" entailed finding ANYTHING warm. Our automatic thought was "coffee and tea!", but of course, neither of these items were on the menu. So - we found the next best thing - nachos with WARM CHEESE. Too bad the cheese wasn't actually warm. We walked back to our seats and huddled. Phil thought he had frost bite on his toes and I was getting to my "I'm so cold I could cry" point. We ate the nachos and crossed our fingers for a shorter-than-anticipated wait. More and more people left, and the ones that didn't were bundled up with friends or running around with light-up toys. In retrospect, I should have purchased the latter and joined the fun.
When Cirque finally began, I was beyond the point of "coping well" and within only a few minutes, I was telling Phil how much I "hated" Cirque du Soleil. This made him laugh, but he could tell I wasn't finding the situation that hilarious anymore. He sat on my feet and I hid my face on his shoulder to protect myself from the cold. Bah - it made me think of Kilimanjaro....and we are in KUWAIT! We considered getting a taxi, but "Entertainment City" was an odd location and little traffic passed the area we were in. Brrrrrrr!
I missed the visual part of the first two acts and then said "to hek with this". I stormed off to make friends with the shwarma man, who let me stand right beside the gross meat-machine thing. You know how much I hate meat - especially meat that is dripping something suspicious....but I was FROZEN, and in my mind, this was my only option for survival. Phil came and joined me. After downing a "thank you, sir" shwarma, Phil and I decided it was time to find a ride home. We secured a lift with a bunch of sympathetic event organizers, who saw me shivering near the meat concession and Phil ran to tell the rest of the gang we were leaving. It turns out they were freezing too, and so we were able to kindly decline the ride home and pack into Kristen's car. THANK GOODNESS her car had HEAT! I am not sure I would have made it otherwise.
I have had a few days to get warm, calm my anger, and thinking logically about the whole night. And still, my opinion is this: I HATE CIRQUE DU SOLEIL. Baha - Kuwait, you've really done it!
BOO!!! that totally sucks because i am sure that under normal circumstances you would have LOVED it! maybe you'll have to give cirque another try in another country someday! xo glad you've warmed up!
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