On transportation

I could never drive here. When I speed, I drive just above the speed limit (when I'm feeling randy on the interstate I might push it to 9 over). I also stay in my lane, brake early, and rarely use the horn. I also like to let people merge and do not make sudden lane changes. Oh, and I always wear my seat belt! I would be a menace on these roads. Therefore I am reliant upon others.

Taxis- 15 SAR (Saudi Arabian Riyals)
For about four bucks, I can catch the taxi, almost from door to door. Because of the roads here, I have to get across a major street from my hotel- which is quite a production because there is a huge pedestrian barrier in the middle of the road. A brisk five minute walk and a hair-raising sprint across the street to get over. The drivers do not normally run the meter, I have been advised to just give them 15 SAR. One driver ran the meter and it came to 16.80 or something like that. I gave him 20 and he gave me 5 in change. 15 it is!

Some drivers are better than others. One driver was driving like a madman and I swear he clipped the car in front of us. He pulled along side the other car, rolled down the window, and started yelling at the other driver. The other passenger later told me he didn't actually hit the other car and was yelling at him because his brake lights were out. Once I jumped in with a Saudi driver. Even though it was a straight shot to my destination, we went for a tour. Lesson learned.

Some taxis are better than others. Last night's Mr. Toad's Wild Ride found me desperate to buckle up. I had a belt but no latch so I looped the belt over my right shoulder, held it with my GI Joe Kung Fu grip, and stared at the seat in front of me, thinking happy thoughts. Five minutes later we were safely at the hotel but my blood pressure was ten points higher than usual.

Shared rides- 3 SAR
For less than a buck, I can get a ride down the street headed in one direction. This can be a shared taxi (this morning one picked me- I became the fourth passenger in this little taxi) or a private driver (the first morning I attempted to get to work by myself an extremely beat-up minivan picked me up). However, if I request somewhere crazy, like take me to work, they will want more money. This morning I got the ride to the DHL building where I got off. A wild sprint across a busy road and then a 15-minute hike down a dusty, sand covered road. I walked in to work all sweaty (everybody is excited that it is November and now "cool"- I disagree).

Bus- 2 SAR
Cheap fare, but there is one bus that cruises the main drag between Khobar and Damman, but only from about 2 pm on. I've been told one comes by every 15 minutes but I have only seen it one time. Sure enough, it stopped to get me the other night. Well, it didn't quite stop. It doesn't stop. People were yelling at me to jump on as it was still rolling. Did I say it doesn't stop? I went too far past my hotel because yelling at the driver was not enough; I had to get into the "danger zone" to signal my intentions. I jumped off the bus and did a commando roll along the sidewalk. I leaped to my feet and took a bow toward the bus as the Bengali passengers clapped in my honor. At least that's how I remember it. Maybe it was more like a stumbling wipe out followed by laughter. Nope, I like the first version better.

Al-Khobar

I flew in on the morning of Saturday the 3rd. Khobar is a lot like Riyadh- traffic, trash, and cats. Only it seems to be warmer here and since we are on the Arabian/Persian Gulf it is very humid. I have been told that the presence of Saudi Aramco and the bridge to Bahrain has made this a fairly liberal city by Saudi standards. I have seen a handful of men wearing shorts around.

I am staying in a much nicer hotel and from my hotel I can see the Gulf in the distance:

There are mosques all over. In the middle of the picture is a minaret. This guy wakes me up around 4:30 every morning:

I was very excited to discover a universal power outlet in my room. (I neglected to bring any kind of adapter for my laptop and in Riyadh I wore out my battery trying to connect to the Internet. The cord I bought in Riyadh that should have worked from a sketchy store that of course did not work.) Now I was able to recharge my computer and reconnect to the world! I got a phone call from work: take the afternoon and we will come get you in the early evening. So I wandered around, stopped for lunch, and went back to the hotel to get into professional attire. I waited and waited and waited some more and no one came to get me. I have read that punctuality has a different meaning over here so I was patient. After a few hours, I figured out how to call in. They forgot all about me! We'll come get you in the morning.

Riyadh

My first impression of Saudi Arabia can be summed up with three words: traffic, trash, and cats.

I spent three days in Riyadh after arriving in the KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) staying in an "interesting" hotel that reeked of cigarettes. At least it had a bidet. As Crocodile Dundee informed us, "It's for washing your backside!" The first day (Wednesday the 31st) I got medical tests done to prove that I do not have any nasty diseases. These were the same tests I had done in the US to get my employment visa- Hey! Thursday and Friday were the weekend, and then Saturday I moved on to Al-Khobar.

I had a hard time figuring out what to eat. Some Sudanese men employed by the same company and staying at the same hotel took me to eat Sudanese food. This was very interesting but as I gather quite common in the middle East: you break off pieces of pita bread and scoop out from a community plate of "dip." It was tasty. I also had a similar meal at an Egyptian place- there was an egg-tomato dip among others. I also had a pizza at a Turkish bakery. Unable to figure out how to get the toppings I wanted I ended up with a combination of mushrooms, olives, and tomatoes. Precisely what I would not want on an American pizza! I was hungry and ate it anyway. I still haven't solved the food riddle. Most places don't seem to have posted menus or prices which scares me off.

From my hotel window I could see an interesting building in the distance so I hiked over to it one evening. This was the Kingdom Tower.

Riyadh was warm in the daytime and cool in the evening- I found it to be quite pleasant. And there was no humidity! The hotel TV had a station featuring American movies with Arabic subtitles. I watched the Dikes of Hazzard, one which I had avoided in the past. It had its moments but I lost it on this jail scene:

The Flight

Prologue
So this had been a very long ordeal. I accepted this job in June and was supposed to arrive at the end of July. I got everything I needed done for my employment visa in 15 days. Then it became delay, delay, delay from the other end. Until October when I got mt visa and plane ticket. I was to fly United to Washington, DC and then Saudi Airlines to Riyadh on Monday the 29th. Not having access to TV at home, I was only vaguely aware of a presence called Sandy until someone informed me on Saturday night that there was a hurricane making landfall. Every day I had been checking my flight status to make sure it was still there and sure enough- my flights were cancelled. Four months of waiting! I called United and was on hold for about 70 minutes and they produced a new flight schedule: Atlanta to Frankfurt on Lufthansa and then to Riyadh.

Frankfurt
The flight to Frankfurt was a red eye and I felt the suffering: I had a crying baby to the right and another behind me. They took turns to make sure I was miserable. I plugged into the airplane radio and cranked it up to avoid them. I found a station I liked and discovered they only have about 90 minutes before the music repeats. Only later did I realize that I brought ear plugs with me and they were in a secret compartment of my backpack. But they did feed me two meals on that flight!

The Frankfurt Airport was interesting- I have not been there for 22 years and did not recognize the place. Spent a lot of time in my high school years in that airport. The excitement of being back in Germany after all these was tempered by the fact that I was trapped in the airport. It was exciting to hear Deutsch again and while I could understand much of it- I have grown fat and lazy with English. Because I was switching to Saudi I had to pass through German customs into the terminal and then wait four hours before the Saudi front desk finally opened to check in. If I was smart I would've stayed inside the gate area- much nicer- but I did not know. After getting a boarding card at the front desk I went back through customs to my gate to wait for several more hours.

*Lesson learned- always check your full flight itinerary and don't assume that all airlines are alike. United and Lufthansa allowed two free check-in bags for international travel. Saudi only allowed one. So I had to pay for my second bad- twice: once to Riyadh and again later to Dammam. Those who truly know me understand what a cheap person I am: I would've left the second bag behind (who needs extra underwear?).

Riyadh
The Saudi flight arrived late and then we left late. I boarded the flight fairly early and got to watch the circus of boarding and stowing bags. Several German gate agents came onto the plane organize the chaos and to yell at us for taking so long and to get our bags stashed and sit. This was nothing like a US flight: people moving around constantly, blocking the attendants, conversations, switching seats. The people in my row ditched me and so I left alone the whole flight. I was devastated to have the row to myself!

Landed so late that by the time I got through customs I was 90 minutes overdue. It was a relief to see a man holding a sign "Mr. Christopher Rice" at 12:30 am on Wednesday morning. Osama, an employee of the company from Jordan, had been patiently waiting for me and took me to my Riyadh Hotel. He informed me that I would be that it was a holiday week and I would be off until Saturday when I would fly to Dammam and drive to Al Khobar. At the hotel I took a shower and it was good.