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!