Living on a Tropical Desert Island

Since moving to Bahrain, there has been a lot that has been a challenge, particularly in terms of climate/geography, but also, a lot that I really like.  Here is a list of a few of them.

1.  I am from Syracuse, NY. The snowiest city in all of America.  The one that just broke a record low temperature this past February.  The place that is a cold miserable desolate tundra from November to April. That place.

So I am going to say that my number one favorite thing about living in Bahrain is that it has not dipped below 62 degrees all year.  My birthday is in March.  And while my birthday activities usually include being wrapped in animal skins and huddling in doors around flames, I am went to the beach this year.  And not to cross country ski, either (because that's a thing the people of CNY do at beaches, and pretty much all a beach is good for until mid-spring).  This year I sat in the sun and quite literally basked in 70 plus weather.

The previous month I ended every social media post in #flipflopfebruary (obnoxious on several levels, I know).

On the sweatier side of this perk, is July, a month that does not get below 95 degrees, even at night. Bahrain, despite being a desert, also likes to sport 100% humidity almost all year.  This means that I go outside once or twice every few days and has (almost) got me missing mid-December New York. Plus boots have no practical application here, which makes fall fashion somewhat of a bummer.

I have a whole other context for heat.  The warmest month in the whole year for CNY is going to be at least 20 degrees cooler than the temperature of Bahrain at the same time.  The average high in July in NY is 80.  The average high in July in Bahrain? 100.  It has been known to be as high as 110.

Oh, you know.  Just a billion degrees out, nbd. 

2. Which I guess leads me to my next observation.  Bahrain's climate is largely desert, although with the humidity I cannot actually call it arid, but since it never rains...it's climate is confusing.  The main point of this is since it never rains the predominant color of the place is taupe. Sand colored.  Brown. To make matters duller, the majority of the buildings are painted brown so as not to show the dirt. We don't have rain often, but we do have dust storms (sand storm's younger, less threatening cousin), which pelts the buildings with sand, prompting most property owners to paint their buildings shades of tan so all that sand doesn't show.  I suppose this is smart, but it makes for a really really uniform landscape.  I am pretty sure when I land in the States my eyes are going to be overwhelmed by the sheer variety of colors--don't be surprised if I am just looking dazedly around at my surroundings drinking in the color.

Not the end of the world, just a dust storm.  I mean, the shades of tan makes sense,when you are hit with this fairly regularly.  The picture far to the left is about 9 in the morning sunshine trying to burst through all that dust. 

On the other hand, it makes giving directions sometimes really easy.  For example, the odd property owner that chooses fly in the face of the taupe trend.  Friends of mine live in an apartment building behind the blue house.  There is literally only one blue house anywhere near where I live.  So it's like, super easy to find.  Now, if you live no where near an outstanding landmark, directions are actually really difficult.  It makes matters worse in that few of the smaller streets are actually named, instead the road numbers and block numbers just have numbers.  So its like, oh, I live in the brown apartment building in Hidd on block 9759, off of road 2232. Good luck, look for the smoke signals.

Who knew tan could come in so many shades?  The sky is pretty though, and it's always this color (except during a dust storm). 

3.  All that tan does have an upside however, and leads to my next point.  You see a large contributing factor to that tan-everything is all that sand.  Sand equals beach...and everything is covered in sand which means everything can be a beach.  It literally all looks like beach.  Now, being a more conservative society, not all this real estate is used as beaches, but beaches exist and can be found relatively easily.  And get this: there really isn't a time where you can't go to the beach (please see previous points).  Like, it really is never too cold for the beach.  Let me just say this again: beach twenty-four seven, three hundred and sixty five days.

Look at all this beach!

4.  You know what happens when you live on an island the size of Onondaga county?  Or rather, a little smaller, actually.  Well, you never get lost.  I mean at first, sure, you get a little lost, but after you've been here a few minutes, what's going to happen? You drive around enough and you are going to be back somewhere you recognize. Because it's just not that big.  You literally cannot get lost.  I suppose the only fatal mistake you might make is if you wind up on the causeway leading to Saudi, and there are a LOT of signs warning you about that, so you got plenty of "turn the heck around" opportunities.

You also rarely have to factor in travel time to your daily plans (as long as you are avoiding rush hour, because a tiny island with a million people makes for heinous rush hour traffic).  I mean, let's face it, it's not going to take you long to get anywhere because there is just not much of it traverse.

On the flip side of this, you can go ahead and scratch road trips off your list of things to do on a long weekend.  You wanna travel?  You are taking a plane.  You have no choice--where ever you are going to go, you are going to have to fly there.  As someone who is used to hopping in a car (or in China, a train) and taking a nice long little weekend trip to a whole other climate zone, this feels restricting.  On the bright side, however, it does encourage "go big or go home" attitude towards travel.  I mean, if you're flying anyway, you might as well vacation in Tokyo...or Capetown...or Helsinki.

There are some solid pros and cons for living on a tropical desert island, and personally I am about evenly split 50/50 on this climate closing in on the end of my first year here.  I mean, there basically is no winter, there is just a time of about 3 months where you can comfortably be outside without immediately sweating out all of your bodies water reserve and needing to shower immediately after returning home.  The lack of winter is a huge plus.  The needing to shower multiple times per day is a pretty large negative.  The fact that Bahrain is so small, with a large expat community, means anything I might need in my daily life is pretty conveniently located within 10 minutes of me is a huge plus (particularly compared to the struggle-fest that was China).  The fact that traveling anywhere is something that is meticulously planned and will include airfare is sort of a bummer. Anywho, I am willing to give it a couple more years to decide where I all on topical desert island spectrum.