Najran Trip

Wow, I just checked the blog and realized that I missed a whole trip. Najran is near Yemen and we could actually see Yemen from where we were. The border is not an easy one so there are checkpoints everywhere. The picture above is taken at the dam and directly on the other side of the river is the Yemen border. The other picture is taken at the women's souk.

Najran is much more local culture than we see where we live. On Thanksgiving day we ate a traditional Arab meal which included whole sheep, all kinds of fruits and vegetables and great pastries. Not exactly turkey and stuffing, but it was good.

The entertainment was dancing with knives. David actually DID the dance with the knives. I'll post the video on Windows Live if anyone wants to see it. I think it's a bit large for this blog. We sat in a large hall covered with carpets and seated on the floor with cushions. The pre-dinner is coffee and dates. The coffee is super strong; I don't like coffee anyway, but this is too much for me to even attempt to drink.

We went to a dagger souk which sells, ding, ding ding, you guessed it, daggers. We bought a beautiful dagger with all of this embroidered fabric covering it. It is an entire market and all they sell are daggers. They are very typical with the curved end and come in mostly smaller size blades and are considered a hand weapon only. They are exactly what was used in the dance I referenced previously.

We also visited the Empty Quarter. That's me with an endless sea of sand behind me that goes on for miles and miles. This one camel is part of a huge herd that we saw being driven through the desert by a herder. They crossed the road right in front ofus.


We visited ruins that were thousands of year old. One of the ruins was a Christian site that was obliterated during fighting and the figures you are looking at are prehistoric.

Vacation

We went to the Czech Republic, Germany and Istanbul. First of all, back to the wonder that is air travel here. Most of us left the country for the holiday and every single one of us had a flight that left between 1 AM and 5 AM. Do they even fly planes at the hour of the day anywhere else?? So the challenge of getting up at 2AM to get to an airport that is 20 minutes away starts our fun-filled adventure. Can you say bone tired?

There are very few airlines that serve this airport so you have to take what you can get. We flew Turkish Airlines, with mixed reviews. Outbound flight was not good but inbound flight was very good, so who knows? Istanbul was very nice and was our first hint of Christmas, big tree in the airport and all of the stores decorated. We spent most of our time in Prague, which was truly lovely. We have tons of pictures so it will hard to pick the ones that go up here. I may simply post the Prague pictures in Snapfish or something as we have too many to count.

First of all, public transportation is a dream. You can get anywhere you want to go, cheaply and easily. A five day unlimited pass to use subway, tram or bus is about $5 US a day. The smarter way to do it is simply pay as you go, it's about 75 cents a trip.


The astronomical clock is amazing. It was built several hundred years ago and they actually blinded the man who designed it so it could never be replicated. Check out this website for the complete scoop. http://www.orloj.com. The clock was built in 1410 and has the ability to track solar movements, lunar movements, and tell time in addition to having the march of the 12 apostles at noon and all of these other things to watch and look at. It's worth standing there to see it chime at least once.

The Christmas Markets are everywhere and while it's mostly about food there are some great traditional Czech crafts such as marionettes, wooden puzzles and chess sets, and lots of Bohemian crystal jewelry. There are also linens and beautiful pashminas for sale. I managed to get some beautiful handcrafted items for presents.

Traditional Czech food is what you wold expect. Roast pork and dumplings or goulash. Soup is a standard with any meal and the deserts are excellent. Portions are so much smaller than in the states. We also visited a lot of foreign restaurants while there. Believe it or not we went Czech-Mex restaurant (I mean really, with a name like that wouldn't you have just had to go?)and it was some of the best Mexican food we've ever had.

We also spent one day going to Dresden, Germany and visiting the Christmas Market and some of the bigger sites. Since Dresden was leveled in WWII it is simply amazing the amount of older architecture that has survived. One of the places we visited was almost completely restored according to the original plans even though a single wall was left standing.

EID holiday

I decided to write about EID in general as many of you who are following this may not be familiar with this Muslim holiday.

Eid ul-Fitr or Id-ul-Fitr ( عيد الفطر ‘Īdu l-Fiṭr‎), often abbreviated to Eid, is a holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. Eid is an Arabic word meaning "festivity", while Fiṭr means "to break the fast" (and can also mean "nature", from the word "fitrah"); and so the holiday symbolizes the breaking of the fasting period. It is celebrated starting on the first day of the Islamic month of Shawwal. Eid ul-Fitr is a three day celebration and is sometimes also known as the "Smaller Eid" (Arabic: العيد الصغير al-‘īdu ṣ-ṣaghīr‎) as compared to the Eid ul-Adha that lasts four days and is called the "Greater Eid" (Arabic: العيد الكبير al-‘īdu l-kabīr‎). (From Wikipedia)

First of all, let's talk calendar. It is called the “hijira.” It starts in our year 622 CE on July 16^th. The Muslim calendar is not our calendar in much the same way as the Jewish calendar is not. It is shorter, only 354 days and therefore holidays move unlike being on a specific date because the calendar year is actually shorter and the months are based on lunar cycles, exactly 12 of them in a given year. So your seasons change too and that is on a 34 year cycle. I have a very funny story about my visa because I didn’t understand the dates on all my papers are done in this calendar and not in the western calendar. Funny now but not funny at the time.

So anyway, it is a really big Holy Day here and our offices were closed from December 3-13, hence a holiday break. (Next post I'll talk about where we went and what we did.) So anyway, part of EID is that all Muslims if they can afford it and are in good health are obligated to go to Mecca and partake in the hajj. The picture is of the Ka’Ba, considered to be the core places of Islam and the place where the divine revelations began. There are 5 pillars of Islam (declaration of faith, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage to Mecca.) There are a series of rituals that take place and they can cover 3-6 days. Literally millions of people come through Jeddah to do this during this time. There is a huge multi-acre site which is near the airport which is built to accommodate these travelers even though it is only once a year. The number of people are almost unbelievable.

Social Life

As ex-pats, our social life is somewhat different. Since all of us live almost exclusively on western compounds, the vast majority of our social life is centered on activities within the confines of the compound. Hundreds of people live on any given compound so there are lots of events. Some of the things have included Halloween parties (that one is organized by the Brits and that was a trip). David, in his usual dry manner came as an American ex-pat, which was actually pretty funny.

There has also been a jazz concert with the No-Name Band...and they are actually quite good. Most of the guys in the band work at my company and it's kind of funny to see these straight laced guys up there on stage. I've put some pictures of this concert here. There were probably a couple of hundred people there. There were hot dogs and hamburgs and non-alcohol beer. I bet you didn't know that virtually every beer has a non-alcoholic option. I can get you a Heineken, a Bud, you name it, all in non-alcoholic form. There were other more questionable contents floating around. These are more commonly referred to as the white stuff and the dark stuff. (Seriously.)

There are also house parties. The picturee here are taken at a birthday party for one of our friends. With the upcoming holidays there are tons of options in the compounds for children and adults as like and you are free to participate as much a or as little as possible.

First Beach Trip

We live right on the Red Sea and we've been here over a month and we finally actually made it to the beach. We have to go to a beach for westerners because women have to wear their abeyahs into the water at the public beaches. It sort of makes swimming a bit of a trial. It was a day trip even though it is only 30 minutes or so across town to get there. It was very different from the beaches back at home. First of all, the actual beach area is quite small, no large expanses of sand on the private beaches. This beach was perhaps a couple of hundred feet across and no one lays on the sand. Everyone has a lounge chair underneath a palm frond umbrella. As you can see, from David's picture, it was a really strenuous day.

The water is azure, extremely clear, with 20+ feet of visibility. The fish are beautiful, vivid colors and designs. I truly wish we had an underwater camera so we could share those views with you.

The beach is totally self enclosed and requires ID cards to get on and security is pretty tight. There is a restaurant and snack bar on site. You can rent a little cottage that is literally on piers and is constructed completed over the water for $300 USD a night. We thought the price was outrageous but it was pretty.

The end of the day was gorgeous.

Dubai trip

Wow, what can I say? I went to Dubai on a recruiting trip, I know, I know, tough job, but someone had to do it. Dubai is spectacular; the architecture is breathtaking and the setting is just unreal. It's a big city, has the feel of any large city anywhere, like Manhattan, except that it is all new and clean and gorgeous.

Dubai has the tallest building in the world as well as the largest mall. The building is 2800+meters, more than half mile. Pretty darned impressive. The buildings in general are stunning in design.












The Mall of the Emirates is also the largest in the world and as an added bonus, you can ski. The Gold Souk has more pretty, shiny things than you can imagine. There are jewelry stores carrying jewelry you cannot even imagine. I found these enamel pieces that were unique and really wish now I had bought some.



I happened to be there for the opening of Atlantis, the new resort. They had fireworks that were unlike anything I've ever seen.

Some of the things I wish I had pictures of, I missed. In all of the grocery stores there is a separate shop within the store called the The Pork Shop which is clearly marked for non-Muslims only. Every kind of pork product you can imagine is in there. Living in a country where pork is not available, it was like I'd gone to pork heaven. And yes, I took advantage of this and purchased bacon and chops and sliced ham and keilbasa. We are just not going to discuss how I got it all back home, but to paraphrase, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Abha Trip

We went to Abha last weekend. My job subsidizes weekend getaways within the country about once a month. You pay a minimal amount to participate. So, anyway, we went. It is about 10 hours southeast of where we are and we had to fly because the roads are really bad (not that you would want to drive that distance, but truly it's not an option.) The outfit to the left is local dress. The gorge is where the hanging village is located, and that house is the reason it's called a hanging village. It's built into the side of the gorge. It is about 1/4 mile straight down a steep gorge. The inhabitants got up and down on ropes. While very safe from intruders, totally scary. The right hand picture is a well pushing water in the interior of a building.

So we get to the airport and everything is going swimmingly well except they don't give you any information. Gates are announced at boarding time, in Arabic only. Those spiffy little boards we have in the states listing all the flights with their gates and times are nowhere to be found. So our 6:20 flight eventually got called at about 8ish. You deplane and board flights out on the tarmac so you have to trek out there with your stuff. We get on the plane and they tell us there is bad weather and it will be a 10 minute delay. That turned into an hour and finally we had to get off the plane and trudge back to the terminal. Because it was delayed they had to feed us...I must have had the international special; my meal consisted of an egg roll, a slice of pizza and French Fries. David had a piece of roast chicken, rice and something else that I don't remember, same line, right next to each other, go figure. Anyway back on the plane at maybe 10:30ish, sit for awhile and then someone discovers the plane is leaking, don't ask for details please, and there is a big to do about whether the plane is safe. Finally they agree to give us a new plane. Back to the terminal. Finally about 1 AM we get on a third time and we finally get airborne. We arrive at 2:30 in the AM and get to the hotel at 3:15 or so and they have held dinner for us. Like anyone wants to eat at 4 in the morning but it's the thought that counts. This is the hotel from the outside. Weird conifers, are they not??
This is the view from the restaurant on the Green Mountain overlooking the city.

We visited museums as well. The pictures you see are either the museum or home interiors/exteriors and of course David and I with the museum guard.

Now here I am in the Souk looking at, what else, jewelry. Notice my saleswoman is completed covered up. The woman's silver belt costs 25000 SR which translates to about 6200 US dollars. Now this is a remote place and women wear their wealth so to speak. That belt weighed about 20 pounds, I swear.

Communications

Communications are a whole different world over here. The things we are used to simply do not work the same. For instance, when you move into a new place back in the states, you call all of your utilities and arrange to get everything turned on and it just happens. It really doesn't matter what it is, cable, telephone, Internet, whatever. Well, it doesn't quite work that way here.

First I'll talk about internet access. The country is basically wireless, hard wire connections in private homes are not usual. There is no cable modem option nor a DSL option as we would think of it. You basically go to the mall and buy what is referred to as a wireless stick. There are tons of companies selling them unlike the very limited options back home. So you buy a stick that will work with your computer, easier said then done. We have Macs, so our journey to find the stick was a 3 hour adventure at several stores over several miles. But unlike the states, the person who was selling us the service, does not sell the stick. He sells you the sim card in the stick. But because we had so much trouble finding something, he literally left his kiosk, put us in his car, drove us across town (we'll talk about driving another time) and went with us until we found one that worked and then made sure it worked before it even left the store. Talk about customer service! Service is monthly, no contracts, and your sim card has to be recharged by taking it out of your stick and putting it in your phone, then dialing a number. As far as cost, the sticks cost anywhere from 150-300 dollars US. The monthly charge for unlimited connectivity is a little more than $100 a month. Now getting signal is another issue. Sometimes the signal is great and at other times an exercise in frustration. So that said, things that take a lot of bandwidth, say downloading music can take literally an hour or so for a single song. Skype sometimes works great and other times disconnects after a minute or so. <> We are thinking about getting a DSL line for home which moves at the lighting fast speed of 256k, and that is the best speed, so we can hook up the Vonage line. This will be another adventure but since our e-box with our phone in it is not yet here, no worries.

OK, on to phones. Everyone uses an international cell phone. Again, no contracts and it has to be re-upped on a monthly basis the same way as the stick. If you don't re-up within the month, your phone number changes. Trust me, those dates are circled red on the calendar. There is no charge for anything incoming only for outgoing so everyone tries to get eveyone else to call. However text messaging is free so guess what you all do. The phones look and act NOTHING like phones at home do. Learning how to use the phone is another task. You better not forget your number because there is no personal page, after all your number could change next week if you forget to pay. Boys and girls communicate in public places by turning on the Bluetooth to discoverable and communicate sub-rosa. That's how you get introduced to someone you don't know, they accept the Bluetooth signal. It is really hard for single locals to communicate so you see cell phones out in public places all the time. Cell phones are usually pretty solid as far as communicating and rarely do I ever see a dropped call except when I m calling someplace remote like Laos. That call was a little tricky. Why would I be calling Laos? Another post, another day folks.

Land lines do not exist as we know them. We have a phone in our villa but it can only be used for local calls. There is no long distance service. And you cannot call us direct, you would have to go through a switchboard and ask for us specifically by name or villa number. By the way, you have to use David's name as my name appears nowhere in the paperwork. At work we use only IP phones, thank heaven for Cisco. My work phone is set for international calling, but I do have to use a PIN number to activate long distance every time I use it for that purpose. I've gotten to be an expert at country codes and connectivity. The first few calls were a little rough, trying to navigate the system. As an added bonus there is no voicemail here, because after all, your phone number could change. As irritating as voice mail might be, it does beat not having it at all. Phones simply ring forever. They don't even time out or give you a little message. Not a thing. The phone book has no addresses in it and really is only like our yellow pages, no individuals at all, because they all use cells. Tracking down a number is impossible unless you know the person or know someone who knows him. There is information but they really don't speak English all that well so maybe you get the right number, maybe not.

Television is yet another topic. It is all satellite televison but not quite the same. First of all it is very expensive. It's about $500 US for them to do an install. Then you have to contract for either 6 or 12 months and pay it all up front, again several hundred dollars. Basic satellite comes with your house. The stations you get are not the same as the person right next door gets. It seems to depend on what satellite they hook up on the roof, and the roof is covered with dishes. NO there is no cable at all. Our basic cable gets CNN, AL Jazeera and BBC news and something called SkyNews out of Dubai. There is no such thing as local news. Then there are about 4- 5 Arabic stations including talk, drama and religious content. There are another 3-4 French stations and the best movie station is the French one with subtitles in Arabic, dang. There are a ton of sport stations but again, a little different. One is soccer all day, one is extreme sports and one seems to be equestrian events and the other drifts between rugby and cricket. Some folks get the miltary station which gets American sports, we don't. There are a couple of Asian stations. The remaining few stations are English with Arabic subtitles. Home makeovers, old American series and movies you have never heard of before make up the bulk of those stations along with Tyra, Oprah and Dr. Phil. Rght now the only thing even remotely current is Burn Notice, which I at least like. We have been trying to follow John Admas on HBO, no we don't get HBO, we just get that mini-series on one of the stations. I do watch Good Morning America before I go to work, but it is the broadcast you got yesterday. Well, day old news is better than none at all. There is no need for the weather channel. It's pretty much 90 during the day and 75 at night every single day. All of the weather is international so if you ever want to know if it's going to rain in Paris or be cloudy in Johannesburg, I'm your girl.

Last but not least is the mail. Again, we can receive no mail at our home. Mail must be sent to my office and the guy only checks the post office box once a week. Seriously, once a week and over 200 people work in this building. On the up side, there is no junk mail problem here. If I want to mail something I give it to the mail guy and hope it gets mailed. I have not been brave enough for that yet. There are no street numbers anywhere. If you get mail, it is at a box. I have seen a UPS store, apparently brown does go everywhere you want to go. I'll talk about the lack of house or building numbers later when I talk about getting around and transporation.

Shopping

This is retail heaven. There is a multistory mall every mile or so. The one above is the Red Sea Mall. It is so large you could actually get lost in it. I am not exaggerating. It is enormous. They are not set up anything like our malls and again, lack of signage is an issue. There are no mall directories, no you are here, basically no navigation. The reason the mall looks empty is that I went when all the stores were closed so I could take pictures easily. Store hours are 9-12ish, open again at 5 and stay open until around 1 AM. However, they do close twice during that evening time for prayers.

Malls tend to specialize. One of my favorite malls is almost exclusively jewelry stores and women's clothing. And when I say jewelry, I mean Tiffany's, Harry Winston, Cartier and the like. Tahlia must have 30 + jewelry stores in it. Great fun to window shop for things so far out of my price range it's impossible to describe. I am going with a friend to Qatr in February to go to a jewelry show which is supposed to be wholesale fine jewelry. I am already saving my rials. (There are 3.78 SR to an American dollar, add that to they use metric and it takes me a while to figure out what I'm paying.) I have started to think in terms of SR so that part has come easily. At first you have a mini heart attack with the high numbers but you get over it.

Most food is chaper here as long as you buy local food. American sweet potatoes are 28 SR a kg or roughly 3.50 a pound, very spendy. White potatoes that are local are less than a dollar a pound. Some of the brand names are familiar, I can still get Jif peanut butter. Other things you won't recognize a single brand. Kellogg's cereal is popular and many American cosmetics are available. The chickens are quite small, about the size of our Cornish game hens. There is lots of lamb, some beef and quite a variety of seafood. We find ourselves eating much healthier here.

However, the picture of the Burger King and the Coke ads up top proves that fast food is everywhere. Every fast food chain is here: McDonald's, Pizza Hut, KFC, you name it, but we do not go to them. We go to local fast food which is Morrocan, Lebanese or similar.

We buy local for most items. The grocery stores would remind you of a super Target. They sell everything except clothing. The bakeries are to die for. They are enormous and the baked goods are unbelievable. I avoid them because I would spend my whole grocery budget there. The cookies are amazing.

Clothes shopping is almost all designer clothing. I am still trying to figure out why when everyone is covered up, but apparently when women socialize together at home, they dress for those occasions. I needed a long sleeved white shirt so I stopped by Liz Claiborne at lunch the other day and a shirt that I know sells for $29 back home I picked up for less than $10 here. These are not discounters, clothing is simply less expensive.

I will try and go to the mall when it is closed tomorrow to take some pictures of the gowns. Those are worth their very own post. All of them are made to order and you just go in and pick fabric.

Sunday Sight Seeing

Well actually that would be Friday. We went out and about last Friday to visit the beach and see a little of the city. Women swim in their abeyahs. Children up to about 10 or so all wear bathing suits and of course men do but women...no. There is an international beach where I could wear a swimsuit but I have had no time to go. The architecture is stunning and the area is truly pretty.

The pictures above are taken in the center of the city so you are seeing the harbor, one of the new hotels and a mosque that is right on the ocean. The hotel is very upscale, think flat screen TV in the bathroom. By the way, the traffic was moving at about 60 so those cars aren't parked and they do drive that close to each other.

Taking pictures is tricky as they prefer you do not take pictures of buildings and people...I kow, what else is left? At any rate, you have to be very careful when shooting photos.

The Office

The offices are beautiful. The pictures to the right are the foyer, they are all marble and every floor is similar except for color. The wall shot is one of the five core values. Each floor has a huge wall mural of one of the values. What you see is about 8 X 12 feet just outside my office. In the large picture above you see a computer screen on a pedestal. Everyone's screen saver is a countdown to the day KAUST opens. The picture with the numbers on it is a close up of the screen saver. Seriously, every clock has a countdown on it. No pressure just a constant reminder. The King was on site last week and I don't think disappointing him is one of the choices.

When you enter you do have to go through something similar to airport security, everything gets x-rayed and you must show ID even if they know you. The building is 5 stories, quite tall by local standards where little exceeds 3 stories except hotels on the Red Sea.

Addresses are another challenge. There are no markings on our building nor are there street numbers on any buildings. You have to give directions by referencing other buildings. Given that I don't speak the language except for hello, how are you, well, please, thank you, and the phrase "How do you say" and then I point, it does make life interesting. David had to come to the office one day and I'm trying to give him directions like, "go past the traffic circle where the bookstore is and when you pass a the big construction site look for a NAST gas station..turn right and there's the building. He got here, but it required intervention on a cell phone with the driver. I'll save communications issues for another whole post.

Anyway, the offices are spacious and we are grouped by departments so you are with your own work group but as I said earlier in another post, there is a great deal of walking around the building to get things accomplished. We have elevators but I walk up and down the stairs...I figure the exercise is good for me.