We took a trip to the Economic city which is about 15 minutes north of the campus. WOW..talk about an ambitious project. It is slated to be the third largest city in the kingdom with a potential population of a million and a half people. The city will be 1/8 the size of the country of Lebanon and boasts. a financial district, a port city, an industrial center in addition to resort amenities and residences. The timeline for the build-out is 20 years. The following link will take you to a website that gives you an overview. http://www.kingabdullahcity.com/en/InsideTheCity/CityOverview.html
As it was explained to us, one of the goals is to change the way real estate is held in the Kingdom. Right now if you buy a house it is handed down for generations. Unlike our society where you buy a starter home and then buy larger as your family grows and then downsize as you become empty nesters, that is simply not the way it is here. They would like to encourage real estate turnover as an economic stimulus and the residences in this city have all kinds of sizes and locations. It is also open to folks outside the Kingdom to purchase, another first. Jimmy Carter is supposed to visit in May along with other international types so we'll see what happens.
Anyway- thought you would be interested...fascinating project.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Diving
We completed our PADI diving course a week ago. The course is fairly thorough but still I think it's like flying; you really have to get your hours in before you can get good at it. I learned how to use a compass underwater to find my way back to where I started. That was kind of eerie, it's just a bunch of water with no landmarks, made me really think about diving out in the middle of the water far away from anything.
The water here is very clear; we had pristine visibility from 55 feet down all the way to the surface. It is very easy to get deep fast without realizing it if you don't pay attention. I was stunned to see I was down to 55 feet.
One of the more hilarious moments happened when I couldn't sink on the first open water dive. I let all of the air out of my BCD and I'm still bouncing around on top of the water. My instructor had to yank my feet to get me under and then he started stuffing all kinds of extra weight in my vest. In the pool I only need 6 pounds to allow me to sink. Apparently between the wet suit and the salt water I'm just a buoyant individual. I ended up with 16 pounds. David was only using 18 pounds, go figure. We definitely want to buy our own equipment, just seems like a lot less guesswork.
The reef here runs up almost the entire coastline. You walk about 100 meters out from shore in a couple of feet of water and then boom, it drops off to 30 feet in one step. No gradually getting deeper, just there all of a sudden. The fish are plentiful and gorgeous. Lots of color and they will swarm all around you, almost like swimming through a rainbow at times. Where we were diving is quite popular. You need to be in the water by 7 AM, because by 11 AM you need a traffic cop down there to keep up with all the underwater traffic. I'll try to get the pictures posted next week.
We would like to dive in Egypt and are hoping to get there for a weekend in the near future and then perhaps dive near Cypress, both areas are supposed to be quite lovely. Unfortunately we can only do weekend jaunts from now until opening in September because there is no leave allowed. We have already booked our September vacation and will be going to South Africa to stay at one of the big game preserves and we are counting down the days.
The water here is very clear; we had pristine visibility from 55 feet down all the way to the surface. It is very easy to get deep fast without realizing it if you don't pay attention. I was stunned to see I was down to 55 feet.
One of the more hilarious moments happened when I couldn't sink on the first open water dive. I let all of the air out of my BCD and I'm still bouncing around on top of the water. My instructor had to yank my feet to get me under and then he started stuffing all kinds of extra weight in my vest. In the pool I only need 6 pounds to allow me to sink. Apparently between the wet suit and the salt water I'm just a buoyant individual. I ended up with 16 pounds. David was only using 18 pounds, go figure. We definitely want to buy our own equipment, just seems like a lot less guesswork.
The reef here runs up almost the entire coastline. You walk about 100 meters out from shore in a couple of feet of water and then boom, it drops off to 30 feet in one step. No gradually getting deeper, just there all of a sudden. The fish are plentiful and gorgeous. Lots of color and they will swarm all around you, almost like swimming through a rainbow at times. Where we were diving is quite popular. You need to be in the water by 7 AM, because by 11 AM you need a traffic cop down there to keep up with all the underwater traffic. I'll try to get the pictures posted next week.
We would like to dive in Egypt and are hoping to get there for a weekend in the near future and then perhaps dive near Cypress, both areas are supposed to be quite lovely. Unfortunately we can only do weekend jaunts from now until opening in September because there is no leave allowed. We have already booked our September vacation and will be going to South Africa to stay at one of the big game preserves and we are counting down the days.
Reflections on news
Sorry- time just got away from me and it's been a while. I was exchanging some email with a friend of mine back in the states and I was talking to her about how different news is here. It's interesting to hear about the US from different perspectives. There is only one "local" newspaper here which is printed in English, and it is a general newspaper about the gulf region, not about this country specifically. There is also no local news as we know it. Back in the US there is generally local news and that's followed by national news. There is also cable news like CNN. There is no such thing here. The closest we get to a local TV news show comes from Dubai, and there is NEVER any news about the Kingdom on it. It's kind of like the whole country doesn't exist. Most of the news we get that's truly local is completely word of mouth.
There is also the issue of distance in this country. The eastern province is a 2-3 hour flight from here and driving is 1) incredibly long, 13 hours or so and 2) not exactly great conditions. The roads here are nothing like they are where you are. There are regular reports of truly horrific accidents with people going off the road because conditions can be quite bad. Even doing the 1 hour commute we have to the site is sometimes at very low visibility because of the sand. Our current vehicle has 2 gas tanks because it can be a great distance between gas stations. I say all this to tell you that internal travel, which is a way that news travels, is also difficult here. You don't get internal travelers the way you do in other places. If you are traveling internally it is usually because you have to for business.
So back to the topic of news. Generally we watch the international version of CNN, which is quite different than what we see in the US. The news is truly from around the world and there's not a preponderance of airtime devoted to US news. I used to watch BBC America back in the states and here we watch BBC straight. Again, much more news about world events especially news from Africa and Asia, which quite frankly, we don't see a lot of back in the states. I've been exposed to stories that simply don't make the newscast back home.
The other really big difference is trying to see US news events through a totally different filter. We only see US news as reported by foreign nationals, whether from London, Hong Kong or wherever. It is so difficlt to tell if the news is just the news or if it's editorialized at some level. I read US newspapers online and quite often a story that I read in the US papers is almost unrecognizable as the same event we have heard on a newscast. The perspective is just different. You are hearing about the event from the slant of how does it effect the home country of the news cast which is a very different way to look at the story. Truth be told, I have no idea what things are really like back home. I only know what I think they are like.
A good example of this is the "Tea Party" event on April 15th. If you look at online news it was this grass roots protest that took place in 700 cities across the country and involved tens of thousands of people. The Atlanta and New York coverage of the event was fairly detailed in the NY and ATL papers. It didn't even get a single word on international news here. If I hadn't read about in in an online newspaper, I would never have known it happened.
So my question is, if the news I get about the US is filtered or missing because I am out of the country, how much of the world news that I used to get at home suffered the same fate? Was it accurate? Was it the whole story? What stories were missing completely? Anyway, food for thought...watch this clip as it makes my point pretty well.
There is also the issue of distance in this country. The eastern province is a 2-3 hour flight from here and driving is 1) incredibly long, 13 hours or so and 2) not exactly great conditions. The roads here are nothing like they are where you are. There are regular reports of truly horrific accidents with people going off the road because conditions can be quite bad. Even doing the 1 hour commute we have to the site is sometimes at very low visibility because of the sand. Our current vehicle has 2 gas tanks because it can be a great distance between gas stations. I say all this to tell you that internal travel, which is a way that news travels, is also difficult here. You don't get internal travelers the way you do in other places. If you are traveling internally it is usually because you have to for business.
So back to the topic of news. Generally we watch the international version of CNN, which is quite different than what we see in the US. The news is truly from around the world and there's not a preponderance of airtime devoted to US news. I used to watch BBC America back in the states and here we watch BBC straight. Again, much more news about world events especially news from Africa and Asia, which quite frankly, we don't see a lot of back in the states. I've been exposed to stories that simply don't make the newscast back home.
The other really big difference is trying to see US news events through a totally different filter. We only see US news as reported by foreign nationals, whether from London, Hong Kong or wherever. It is so difficlt to tell if the news is just the news or if it's editorialized at some level. I read US newspapers online and quite often a story that I read in the US papers is almost unrecognizable as the same event we have heard on a newscast. The perspective is just different. You are hearing about the event from the slant of how does it effect the home country of the news cast which is a very different way to look at the story. Truth be told, I have no idea what things are really like back home. I only know what I think they are like.
A good example of this is the "Tea Party" event on April 15th. If you look at online news it was this grass roots protest that took place in 700 cities across the country and involved tens of thousands of people. The Atlanta and New York coverage of the event was fairly detailed in the NY and ATL papers. It didn't even get a single word on international news here. If I hadn't read about in in an online newspaper, I would never have known it happened.
So my question is, if the news I get about the US is filtered or missing because I am out of the country, how much of the world news that I used to get at home suffered the same fate? Was it accurate? Was it the whole story? What stories were missing completely? Anyway, food for thought...watch this clip as it makes my point pretty well.
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