IT'S MONDAY, I MUST BE IN KUWAIT

MY FIRST trip using my Diplomatic Passport. Membership really does have its privileges. Without doing anything, I got picked out of the long check-in line and sent to the First Class counter. I walk with a mixture and pride and embarrassment past the sad stares of those who had arrived earlier. I want to adopt them all.

After a rather crowded and uncomfortable flight, I arrive in Kuwait City. As you step out of the airport, there’s a digital clock that shows the outdoor temperature. It reads 35°. It’s 6:00 a.m. Talk about a warm welcome (ba-da-bing!)

As friends of the LLDD will tell you, I’m a safe, defensive, wussy driver. Imagine then my sheer terror as I get on MY FIRST official high-speed motorcade. I know the drivers are professional, and all the cars are top-of-the-line, but do they have to tailgate so close to each other? At 120+ kph? On city streets? I was so nervous I nearly choked the stuffing out of my armrests.

(saving grace: it is tres cool to travel in a car with your national flag flapping on the hood. Flap, flag, FLAP!)

PLACE KINDA REMINDS ME OF: Because of the wide spacing of structures and sparse number of pedestrians, parts of Kuwait City remind me of the Manila Bay reclamation area (just replace the cogon/weeds in the vacant lots with light brown sand). And there’s this place at the back of my hotel that’s a popular hang-out for Filipinos that’s a dead ringer for Shoppesville in Greenhills, complete with modest atrium, old escalators, bargain stores and bilyaran. All that was missing were LaSalistas cutting class.

Kuwait Towers. Must be their central landmark (otherwise, i'd have missed the point hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.......i kill myself sometimes)

High up and inside the Kuwait Towers. Cool slow revolving floor. A Pinay mans (womans?) the souvenir shop. I ask if she has any “Katas ng Kuwait” mudflaps. Silence.

Sitting at the grown-ups table. For the official photo and write-up, click here (you can tell how important i am by the way my own office gets my name wrong)

Working lunch. See the queasy look on my face? It’s not because the food was bad (the food was great). I just made the ROOKIE MISTAKE of not reading the menu before chowing down. I get stuffed after just my first plate, not realizing there were five more courses to follow. By the third course I had the meat sweats.

Actually, this is the airport V.I.P. lounge in Qatar, right before I commit another ROOKIE MISTAKE: mis-timing a bathroom run. So there i am, lounging, when i decide to quickly pass by the men's room to freshen up . I'm thinking, there's more than 30 minutes 'til the plane is scheduled to leave, i have lots of time. I wash up, comb my hair, fix my tie, exit the room, go back to the lounge and find ... absolutely no one. The place is empty. Apparently, the airport people decided to board the plane early and ultra-efficiently got everyone and their luggage onto waiting limousines in something like 9.8 seconds. Meantime, I'm running around the V.I.P. lounge (it's a BIG lounge) like Macauley Culkin in Home Alone. I finally find the tarmac exit, where i spot the LAST limo having trouble closing its trunk, so i run after it and hop in (the limo, not the trunk) and get to catch the plane. I was literally THIS CLOSE to being stranded in Qatar with no money or luggage. Moral of the story: airplanes have bathrooms too. Use them.