Entertainment Redux

We went to a party at the British Consulate last night which was their State of the Nation address for their community. It was a black tie affair which was kind of fun to get dressed up and be almost like it is at home even for a brief 4 hours. The party was held outside and it was 85 degrees, so it was a bit warmer than I normally like to see it for nighttime The grounds are kind of uneven so they lay Persian rugs on top of the ground to sort of even out the terrain. When you are in 4 inch heels, I'll tell you, all the rugs in the world don't help. They did lay down an actual dance floor so that part of the evening was not a safety hazard, unless you call dancing at very close quarters with people who have had one too many a hazard.

We learned more than we ever wanted to know about Great Britain however. Apparently there is a big schism between those who have a Celtic background and those with a Saxon background. We happened to be seated at a table with a Scots couple and they did not toast to the Queen nor listen to the ambassador when he spoke. We thought it was a tad bizarre so of course, we asked why. We then proceeded to get a lengthy talk about the difference between the Celts and the English and how we should never confuse the two even though they are all Brits. So apparently the Irish, the Welsh and the Scots are the Celtic people. Toward the end of the night there seemed to be a division around the music with Celtic and non- Celtic . Wow, of all the things to worry about when you are in an armed compound with people with machine guns on the roof and armored vehicles around the perimeter at an unadvertised party for security reasons, that point completely escaped me. It's funny, you just don't see the security anymore when you live here. It's just part of the background. I literally don't even process it on a conscious level. And yet, I feel totally safe here. I feel safer on a street here than I did back in the states. Anyway, some pictures of the event are at the top.

Entertainment

Again, a little different topic. There are lots of things to do but they are difficult to get to and access. One of the big issues is driving. Obviously, I cannot drive, now mind you it's not that it is against the law, it's not. Any woman may drive as long as her husband gives his permission. Therein lies the stumbling block. I do not want to drive here. There are virtually no rules to the road. Traffic laws are mere suggestions, generally ignored. There are very few traffic lights , seriously, I live in a city of 3 million people and I don't think I've seen half a dozen lights in this place. Traffic police are routinely ignored. The level of testosterone evident on the public thoroughfares would just blow you away. People drive on sidewalks, routinely cut through parking lots (seriously, I have seen people cut through an ATM machine lane to beat traffic), and create an "extra" lane to get someplace a second or two faster. WOW!

Now even if you are a guy, as an expat, you have to be gainfully employed and have a work iqama. You then get a letter that enables you to get a license which if you are from the US or UK is kind of a pass. Get a lot of stuff stamped, pay your money, take an eye exam and you're done. No license, no insurance and you have to have Saudi insurance. So now you get to drive.

Now the next hurdle is what to drive. There is no used car market like we know it. You have to go way out of town up to the mountains and it's more like an auction; remember buying and selling here is always negotiation no matter what the item or where you are buying it. People sort of auction cars on the side of the road. Don't think auto auction like where you are. People use car loans to get cash flow. You get a loan to buy a car then sell the car immediately so you have cash. You still owe the loan, but you now have cash money. It's quite different. Most of the car dealers we have here are the same ones as you have there but the models are all different. They look the same in some cases and in others, the car is one you would not recognize. All the big US dealers are here: Chevys are everywhere and clearly dominate the US brands here. Car prices are cheaper than the US, but not by a lot. You cannot buy a car here and ship it back because they don't meet any of our environmental standards. And since gas mileage is not an issue here, people routinely buy big SUVs. Now there are many types of cars here we don't see where you are, mostly from India and China. So for an expat, you have to pay cash for a new car or simply lease one. Once you have a car, you can do things.

Don't get me wrong, taxis are cheap and plentiful and ubiquitous. But there is nothing like your own vehicle. Once you can travel then you can explore and find things. I hear there are golf courses here, I have yet to see one. There are tons of water parks and amusement parks. Obviously there are beaches, but all of them are private and the cost is about $25 US to get on. That is per person, every time you go. Bowling seems to be kind of big. Live theatre and music is available. Parties at the embassies happen with a fair amount of frequency. We're going to a big black tie affair this week as a matter of fact. It's just a nice break from the routine and sort of like being transported to the west for just a little while. I've heard that the expat population where we live is more than half the population, so it is kind of amazing that more western entertainment is not available. There is not a movie theatre in sight, no miniature golf, nothing like that. You have to learn to make your own fun. You have to be social, you have to make the effort to meet lots of people and you have to go the extra mile to maintain relationships. We are working quite hard to cultivate friendships outside of work so we have some diversity in our lives. What's the point of living overseas if you only hang out with people like you??

The Schools

school lobby gym exterior university in distance


general construction from caf. to basketball courts theatre in distance

The schools are about 60-75% finished. The large school is designed to house 1200 students and all of the picture you see are of that specific building. It is hard to imagine at this juncture what the actual finished product will look like but the plans are quite lovely.

Update on the jobsite

looking up a street 2nd floor terrace Viv andI in dining room


kitchen master bath office


master bedroom guest room formal dr and living room


exterior family room staricase from top (24 steps)

We went up to the job site to check it out the other day and I thought I would share some of the photos with you. This is a typical 3 bedroom house. The furnishings come in 3 flavors: Oriental, Mediterranean and Italian. Since we all live in virtually identical housing, it's going to be like the Stepford house or something. The housing is all fully furnished pretty much the way you see it and houses come in 2-5 bedrooms, depending on your need. All houses come with maid's quarters on the first floor as domestic help, especially for those with young children, will have to be live in because of the remote location. The houses are very unlike those in the US as there is a tremendous amount of "extra" space with hallways and atriums and the like. Building efficiency is a non-issue apparently. All of the construction is cement, no wood at all and all floors are tile, usually 18 inch squares with area rugs if there are rugs at all. The back courtyard off the first floor is surrounded by a 4-5 foot wall and has the usual selection of outdoor furniture. There is no backyard "lawn" at all. There is grass in the front of the house as a landscaping feature. Houses are quite close together as you can see from the pictures, with no lawns and grass it would be pretty tough to space them apart, the sand would be everywhere. The AC units are enormous and there are 2, even though you only need 1 to cool the home; they are built for redundancy. The square footage is huge. I estimate that the 4 bedroom homes probably run in the 4500+ sq ft realm. There are no basements and no attics. All ceilings are quite high. They use no ceiling fans at all. All homes have a balcony or terrace off the second floor as well, either off the family room or the master or sometimes both. Family rooms are considered family or personal space and are placed on the second floor or behind closed doors in alcoves on the first floor. Move in date is sometime after May, but no deadlines are set in stone yet. There are 3000 residential units to finish and a log way to go.

Language

K- on to something a bit different. I'm truly trying to learn the language and the spoken language is not really all that hard but the written language is very hard. I can make myself understood at about the level of a 3-year old, sort of the "want, 3, that" variety of speech, but I am getting better. I can pick out words if people talk REALLY slowly.

Arabic belongs to the Semetic languages and the history is thousands of years old. It is one of the oldest of all human language groups. It took root and flourished in the middle east. It used to be thought that the Arabian Peninsula was the home but more recent thoughts are that it started in what is now Somalia or Ethiopia. BOth areas are dominated by the 2 youngest members of this language family: Arabic and Amharic both of which date to the 4th century CE.

The spread of the language illustrates a common trait, it tends to assimilate the parent language and obliterate it for all intents and purposes so it is no longer used in common life.

Sentence structure is different with a verbal sentence being: Verb then Subject then Object. The girl wrote the story is literally wrote --the girl--the story.

Nouns and adjectives are just as different. There are three ways to designate a number, not just singular and plural , but also plural that means two and exactly two. This one makes me crazy. Every body part just about uses this form, likes eyes, ears and so on. In English we add (e)s tomake the plural and just a few nouns are irregular like children and feet. The opposite is true in Arabic, they are almost all irregular. Way too much fun for the beginner!

The word "drink" is made of three consonants in Arabic, sh-r b. The verb sharaba means he drank. You alter the verb to get other nuances. Doubling the second consonant would mean you made someone drink. Sharraba, or he soaked it, or watered it. Lengthening the vowel shaaraba means doing the action with someone, like having a drink with somebody. Add a t to the front, tasharraba, he got soaked.

Other patterns kind of like this are used for nouns and adjectives. Add ma to the root and delete any vowels in the first consonant and you get mashrab and then it becomes the place where you drink, like a watering hole or a restaurant or a trough. Are we having a good time yet?

If you lengthen the first vowel of the root and insert an I between the second and third root letters you get sharib which is the person or thing who does the action, like drinker.

All of this explanation can be found at www.indiana.edu/~arabic/arabic_history.htm

Below is my name...now you know why I cannot read. Yikes!

فرجينيا

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.