Encapsulating Days 1-11! (part 4 ;)

Next subject: Drink

After a long, hot day, in this kind of environment with plenty of stresses and confusions thrown at you - what does an Englishman hanker for? Yep - an open-air, terrace, feet-up, cold.. BEER. Well - t'aint that simple....

To drink alcohol (as you may know) in this country (or this state to be exact), you need a licence, right. That licence can be held by you as an individual, or also commonly by a bar (in a hotel). If you want to BUY alcohol, you need that licence. To get that licence you need to be a resident, or on a working visa. So that means that your drinking possibilities are pretty much limited to the hotel bars, where a G&T costs typically 12 quid, and a beer 5!

I'm sure this will all change when i get my licence, and an apartment, but for now, out of necessity, I am on a beer-free (virtually!) diet; probably losing weight.

One must (I s'pose!) talk of other drinks: typically juices are great (like most of the world these days), Moroccan type tea is everywhere, some weird soft drinks (like Root Beer, 100 Plus, "Something Sweat"... etc.), and many zero % beers (not actually too bad, considering).

Drinking & Driving: It's a big NO NO. You get caught - you go in the slammer; pretty much without exception (unless you know Sheikh Bin..... Zayed Mohd....). So everyone plans their night out with that in mind. It's tricky for us Europeans... but yep; it's a good thing overall of course.

Tea or Coffee, Tea or coffee?
At my place of work (a site office on a construction project in the middle of nowhere), there are Tea Wallahs - yes, Pakistani/Indian guys ready to make you a cup o' tea or a coffee at the touch of a buzzer. Problem is... tea needs to be made very particularly for us English men, coffee i suppose less so, and these lovely guys have a very very basic grasp of English. Anyway - the conclusion is that I'm kinda getting used to very sweet tea made with powdered milk... i hope I don't get totally used to it!

Signing off... The Ed Venture