First Post!

This blog is to share with you all of my adventures, or lack thereof, while I’m in the Saudi Arabia. Hopefully, it will give you some insight about the culture, customs, and activities of the people of KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia).

Let me start with the reason I am here.   My company has a contract for the preliminary engineering design for many of the buildings on the new airport to be constructed in Jeddah, KSA.  I was given the opportunity to travel out here for three months to work in Jeddah on a part of this large project.  There is a small group of others from my company here as well.  I have been here for almost a week now and won’t be back in the US until the end of April.  This could be extended but for now, it's just 3 months.

Some general facts about Jeddah:

·         Jeddah is the second largest city in Saudi Arabia by population, slightly larger than Chicago.

·         It is located on the west coast of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea.  It is very close to Mecca, the Muslim holy city.

·         It is the most cosmopolitan and tolerant of all Saudi Arabian cities, more on this in a future post.

·         The average high temperature in the winter is around 85°F and in the summer is around 100°F.

·         About 1/3 of the population in Jeddah are expatriates, people who have come from outside the country to make their home here.

·         Jeddah is 9 hours ahead of Chicago.  So when it’s noon in Chicago, it’s 9pm here.

·         Approximately 3.8 SAR (Saudi Arabia Riyals) equals 1 US dollar.

·         You will love this one:  Gas here is 0.45 SAR/Liter which is equivalent to..drumroll..$0.45/Gallon.

The only problem with that gas price is that you have to learn how to drive like a maniac to drive in Jeddah.  However, since everyone drives this way, all of the drivers are very aware of the other drivers on the road and there seem to be a very little amount of accidents.

So far the weather has been beautiful.  It has been sunny every day and the temperature has been around 85 during the day and 75 in the evening.  It is certainly better than all that snowJ.

I hope you all are doing well!  I have a lot more information to post on here so check back periodically.  Please comment and ask questions and I will try to answer them in future posts.

PS. Thanks for blog name idea, Kit!