Protests, Food, and Cats

I'm sure most of you have been reading about all this unrest in the Middle East.  First it was Tunisia, then Egypt, now almost every other country in the Middle East and North Africa is protesting its government...except Saudi Arabia.  I think the locals should begin protesting the fact that there are no movie theatres.  I mean there are a plethora of other things that could be protested here, but I think a movie theatre is a pretty reasonable request. 

One good thing (maybe the only good thing) Jeddah has going for it is their food.  They have Lebanese, Turkish, Chinese, Thai, Indian, Moroccan, Italian and everything in between.  There is definately a wide variety of restaurants to choose from.  They even have McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, and Baskin Robbins.  But no matter what restaurant you go to they will always serve you french fries as the side dish.  I don't understand the fascination but I can tell you I am already sick of eating them.


McDonald's here does not have McNuggets :(
but they do have a chicken BigMac!

The restaurant culture is very different from the US.  Nearly all restaurants have two entrances, one for women and families and one for single men.  Once inside, families and women are segrated from the single men.  Most of the time the entire area upstairs is reserved for families.  At McDonald's it is similar.  There are two entrances but only one ordering counter with two cashiers.  A temporary wall seperates the two lines.  The families go to one cashier and the singles go to the other.  Very different.  I am always weary that I will walk into the wrong door and get yelled at, but the entrances are usually pretty clearly marked.

One downfall of the restaurants here is the terrible service.  Everything takes a long time and don't even try to substitute your french fries for rice because they either won't let you or won't understand you.  It seems that everyone knows just the menu and if you ask them for anything more complicated than exactly what's on the menu, you probably won't get what you asked for.  I guess this is similar to how it is in Europe as well.  The 15% service charge is built into the check so you don't have to worry about tipping.  Maybe the service is bad because they're not working for that tip.



DO NOT DRINK!



Some days I have gone over to the grocery store to pick up some snacks and drinks.  Everything is cheap.  I bought a bag of about 6 pitas and it cost 1 SR which is about 30 cents.  I also discovered my new favorite snack, Ketchup Pringles!  You may have a disgusted look on your face, but I'm telling you, they are delicious.  I'm not sure if they have them in the states but if they do, I will find them.  Another section in the grocery store is for all the non-alcoholic beer.  Now, this isn't like O'Douls which has a hint of alcohol, this is 0.0% and it says that on every can/bottle.  I decided to try a Budweiser NA Apple which only cost the equivalent of about 67 cents.  It was the worst drink I have ever tasted!  I had to dump half of it down the drain it was so bad.  I'm sure the non apple flavored taste a little bit better, but who needs beer when you have combination orange and carrot juice!

Now, when you think about all the food that is being eaten at all of these restaurants, you must be thinking

that there is some food that is wasted.  You realize that this food is probably just tossed in the dumpster for a bunch of rats to feast on.  That is where you would be wrong, it's not the rats, it's the cats, EVERYWHERE.  Sometimes they will follow you down the street meowing at you looking for food.  Most of them are very skinny and very dirty, as you would expect.  Kind of sad, really.



3 of my cat friends



Well, I hope you all are enjoying the things I can't enjoy because I am enjoying the one thing most of you can't...



My feet in the beautifully warm sunlight.

Football, not Futbol

I didn't get to watch the Super Bowl a few days ago, but I'm glad to see that the Packers won!  The Lions beat the Super Bowl Champs, just sayin'.  The game started here at 2:30am and hardly anything is open at that time.  I went to the front desk of the hotel to see if my room would get the channel that the game was on.  The concierge had no idea what the Super Bowl was.

"Super bowl? What is Super bowl?"

"You know, American Football."

"Oh no, I don't know that."

Unbelieveable.  All these people know is soccer.  There are 3 sports channels in my room, soccer is on each of those channels 24 hours a day.

So I missed the Super Bowl and I'm not allowed drink alcohol and I'm not allowed to wear shorts outside and I'm not allowed to talk to women and I'm not allowed to eat bacon.  Now, I bet you're asking yourself, "What the hell is there to do out there for fun."  Well, I haven't figured that out yet, but when I do I will let you know.  Oh, did I mention alcohol is illegal?

Tonight is Wednesday which is the equivalent of Friday in the US.  Weekends here are Thursday and Friday.  The work week begins on Saturday and ends on Wednesday.  Most people get into work around 8:30 or 9 am and work until 6:30 or 7pm.  The Muslim community will leave around 12:30-1pm for a few hours for a siesta-type thing (I don't what is Arabic for siesta) and come back to work around 3pm.  Everyone eats dinner really late, around 8 or 9pm.

The Muslim religion requires that you pray 5 times per day.  Once before sun up, once mid-morning, once around noon, once before dinner, and once after sunset (or something along those lines, I didn't do the research).  Anyway, a couple times a day during working hours the PA system in our building starts letting out some Arabic singing/prayer which signifies to everyone that it's prayer time.  This doensn't really affect my workday because I work with a bunch of Brits.  The announcement that goes over the PA in our building actually happens outside as well.  I guess it's throughout the entire country?  I'm not really sure.  During these prayer times most businesses close for about 20 minutes and reopen once prayer time is over.

There aren't many locals that work here and definately no women working at all.  Women also can't drive.  Basically, if you are a woman living here you don't want to be a woman living here.  All women must wear what is called an "abbaya" which is a loose-fitting black robe that covers them from head to toe.  Some women have their entire face visible while others have just a tiny slit over there eyes.  Apparently, it depends on how strict a specific family is, but you will never see a woman in public not wearing an abbaya.  I would take a picture to show you, but I'm told that is frowned upon.

Below is a picture of King Fahd's Fountain, the biggest fountain in the world.  It reaches a height of 312 meters.  The picture doesn't really do it any justice but I saw it on my plane ride in and it is pretty impressive.  There are also a few pictures of the view from my hotel room.

King Fahd's Fountain

Some buildings, kinda lame.

Looking out onto the Red Sea, the fountain is just out of the frame of this picture to the left.

  

Hopefully, I can start being more consistent in posting and not post such long, rambling stories once a week, but things have been pretty busy over here.  This isn't a bad thing, seeing that there isn't much else to do here.

Congratulations on the engagement Mike and Katie!

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!