In Bahrain I have learnt that...

... the name of the country has a tiny pause in the middle and you put some emphasis on the h making it sound stronger: Bah-rain
... Bahrainis drive like crazy people. Saudis drive even worse. Kuwaitis may be the worst. They all have huge American cars.
... you can fill the tank of a small car for less than 3 Bahraini Dinars (€5.3, £4.8, $7.9)
... there are lots of reclaimed lands. This is fairly easy since the sea around is not deep at all and when the tide is low, the water uncovers kilometres and kilometres of sea bed. It is then when they work to reclaim land I guess. When the tide is up, I can walk until I get bored straight into the sea and the water is never above my waist.
... there are very few natural public beaches and they are not very clean. The best ones are artificial and belong to hotels although they are open to visitors at a reasonable price. They bring the sand from Saudi Arabia.
... the building crisis seems not to affect too much to this country, where every day there are new towers and there are some huge projects to build entire towns on reclaimed land.
... they keep reclaiming land to build more but the southern two-thirds of the country are absolutely desert or have only small and poor villages (but very cool and with friendly people).
... there are PLENTY of shopping centres, most of them very close to where I live. There are PLENTY of American and European expatriates in the shopping centres. You can use very short trousers and women can uncover their shoulders in them but not outside. However, they are also the favourite places of many very rich Bahraini and they are quite traditional so their women dress in black covering their whole face and the men often wear white robe and head-dressing. Men look like nuns and women like walking tents (with all my respects).
... there is a shopping centre where they have two men just waiving-goodbye to the customers when they leave the parking.
... the white head-dressing is traditional in Bahrain, the red and white is that of Saudi Arabia, the black and white is that of Palestine and in Oman they usually wear a small cap. These colours are also used in other countries. The black ropes on the head were traditionally used to tie the camels' legs so they could walk but not run. The Omani is my favourite one.
... women have baths in the sea in the public beaches with all their clothes. Westerner women should not uncover their bodies in public beaches. There are no problem for men to use a normal swimming-suit, not even for westerners. Women can use bikini in hotels.
... codeine is banned here.
... you shouldn't shake a woman's hand unless she has offered hers first.
... when you eat with your hands, you must use only your right one. Also, when you give money, you should use the right hand. Using the left hand is very impolite since it is the hand they use to wipe their ass with water coming from a small hose.
... there are small hoses in all the toilets to clean your ass, even in the very modern shopping centres. There is not toilet paper in all the toilets, especially in those where foreigners never go (except me).
... they don't know what hand I use to wipe my ass since they never refuse my money nor a handshake.
... the United Arab Emirates used to be 9. They are 7 nowadays: Bahrain and Qatar separated in the early 20th century or so.
... my beard is very 'Quranic' and I grow it according to the holy writings: full long beard without moustache. Some locals are surprised when they see it and ask me why I have it. They find funny that a non-Muslim foreigner has it and respect me for that.
... you don't have to swallow the smoke of the water-pipe! My throat always gets very dry after smoking sheesha and that's the reason.
... they can understand and respect perfectly if you are a Christian. They like to ask questions about other religions, they are very open in this sense. They can't understand that you might be atheist and don't believe in any god though. That's somehow unthinkable for them. So I better say I am Christian. Due to my education in Art History -which involves a lot of religion- and my years 'working' as an altar-boy (yes, I did it several years in my small village's church), I can answer most of their questions, probably even better than true believers.
... there are A LOT of Indian, Pakistani, Tamil, Bengali and Philippino immigrants here. Really, a lot.
... there is no public transport. Buses only carry kids going to the school and immigrants from the Asian sub-continent who go to work.
... the sound 'p' doesn't exist in Arabic and they change it for a 'b'. So Spain sounds something like 'Isbania'
... shirt is 'camisa' (exactly the same in Spanish) and trousers is 'bantalón' (pantalón in Spanish). They call the recipe 'factura' (like in Spanish) and they took it from the Portuguese traders (it comes from Latin actually). I wonder if they also took 'camisa' and 'pantalón' from Iberian languages since these words probably didn't exist in Arabic as they didn't use to use them, they wore the robe instead.
... Shiites are the majority but they are poorer. Sunnis are the minority but they are richer. Shiites sometimes light barricade-bonfires in front of some Sunni houses few seconds away from where I live. It is not dangerous for us though and they don't last long. Bahrain is a very safe country.
... mosques have different lights at night: green for Shiites and red for Sunni.
... there are blocked websites, like some of those to download torrent files (music, video, software) or those of gay topics for example. I guess, sexual contents are generally banned no matter the gender.
... you can find alcohol in some bars and hotels. Not that I am interested though.
... 'halal' is something like the ritual by which an animal is killed to be eaten. You put the animal facing Mecca, give it some sort of special water and then proceed to the sacrifice saying something like the name of the god or some prayer (I didn't understand it very well).
... there are not accurate road atlas not even in bookshops!! Only the silly and simple ones for tourists, not very detailed.
... I never get tired of learning.

These facts may apply for other Muslim countries, or not.