Travelogue

Well my friends, here it is. A worthy blog post about travels within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Not only would Jody and I be undertaking internal flights, but we were actually bound for Medina, which is one of the two holiest places for all Muslims. In fact, the city centre is completely forbidden to entry by any non-Muslims. Luckily, the airport is located outside the city, and our transport would be taking us all the way to our hotel without ever entering the city. Of course, the actual purpose of our traveling to this area was not to visit a holy Muslim site, as that is a very bad idea. We were bound for two very special places, one known as Al-Ula, and one known as Mada’in Saleh. These are areas of archeological and historical significance. Mada’in Saleh in fact has just recently been declared a UNESCO world heritage site, the first one of its kind in all of Saudi Arabia. We would be visiting these two sites together on the same day, but I would argue that each of them on its own is worth a blog post, so that’s how I’ll write them up and present them to you. For your pleasure, I have of course put up a whole boat-load of pictures to check out on flickr. So why don’t you do that, then read my story?

When you last left ActiveSteve, I had filled you all in on the excitement of Christmas in the Kingdom, which had us wending our way through the camel souq, and then dining as we watched the horse races at the Riyadh racetrack. As you might imagine, after several days of action, it was time for a little bit of downtime on the homefront. Luckily, Boxing Day is just the sort of thing for that. So, although I do have a little bit of storytelling I can share with you, for the most part it was a chill day, with time spent with family. In spite of all this, we were set for a supper gathering with more of Andrea’s friends, in particular, we were dining with some Swiss diplomats, and as you might imagine, Fondue was on the menu 🙂 yum yum. Read on for a little bit more about our day, and don’t forget to check out the album of pictures up on Flickr.

Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas. By the time you actually read this, it will of course be late on boxing day, but I have a good excuse for being a bit behind. I’m in the magical Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and have better things to be doing than blogging all the time. However, I can’t seem to help myself. When everyone else has gone to bed, or whenever I can steal a few minutes, I try to fire up the old computer machine and try to dash off a few lines, which brings me to this post. I wanted to get this fired up and online before we left for some internal trips for the next week. We’ll be away from Riyadh, and I’ll be unable to do any blogging while on the road. So this post will have to keep you entertained until we get back here to the Diplomatic Quarters. However, I can assure you that this will be a great little post, as we did some pretty unique things on Christmas day over here. Last year, I found myself at an all day cricket test in Auckland, NZ, and this year, I have a similar experience to share with you all, but you’ll have to read on to find out exactly what it is. You might also want to just check out the pictures on flickr that were put up from the day!

Another day, another series of little stories to share with you all. I’ll try not to get too long winded as if I do that, I’ll never actually get these posts done 🙂 At the end of my last tale, we had just wrapped up day 1 with a great view of Riyadh at night, and head headed off to slumber to get ready for another day of fun. Andrea had to work once again, but only for a half day, but it was long enough that we had a chance to head out for a little more exploration with Patrick and Helena in their SUV. The target of our exploration this time around was to be the Wadi , or creek-bed that lies around Riyadh and the DQ. This area only gets rain a few times in the year, but when it does, it causes flash flooding sometimes. This is the area where it would happen, but for most of the year, it is actually a roadway of sorts. Read on for a little bit about that as well as some other things I did on Christmas Eve. As usual, don’t forget to check out flickr for more great shots!

Hello everyone! I figured it was time to give you all an update on the happenings of me over in Saudi Arabia. As you likely pieced together from the last couple posts, we had a very smooth arrival in the Kingdom. Unfortunately, the Internet connection from here is rather slow, making it difficult to fire off too many emails or do other things. In spite of this, I’ve still managed to post quite a few pictures on our flickr page, so feel free to head over to our sets page and check out the latest while we’re over here. I will also attempt to give a little insight into our first few days over here in Riyadh and the Diplomatic Quarter. I’ve decided that although these are the same physical place, life is much different in the DQ than in Riyadh. Namely, I am on ‘Canadian soil’ when I’m at the embassy and in the house here, so we have a lot more breathing room in terms of what we can do while here compared to traveling around the city. I’ll try to keep this post on the short side, as we are leaving shortly for the camel souq and the horse races, and I’ve only got a little time to sort out my thoughts. Read on for the details.