Travels

Hello everyone. Well, it’s been over two weeks since we got back from Saudi Arabia, and I figure it’s time I try to make sense of the whole experience and maybe give people a sense of what traveling a bit in the Middle East is like. We had a lot of people ask us about our trip, and I was never really sure how to answer that question. The general answer was simply ‘different’. How can you summarize a place that is literally worlds away from your own home? Although I’m still not sure I can fully illuminate everyone, I’ll do my best to shed a little light on this corner of the world. For starters, I’m happy to report that we’ve got all of our pictures posted now in a single collection. There are pictures from Jody, myself, as well as pictures Andrea snapped with her new fancy-pants camera that she got over the holidays. Feel free to check them out on flickr. As an added bonus, I even put up a whole set of videos you can check out and laugh at. After you’ve gotten a suitable sense of our travels, come back here and read on.

Back in Riyadh. Back in the diplomatic quarters. First couple days in the new year, last couple days in Saudi Arabia. So will go this tale. The time has come to wrap up the adventures in the desert for you all. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to write these posts, as time has elapsed since the events have occurred, and my memories and thoughts aren’t as fresh anymore. In spite of that though, I will be able to write to you all about our last couple days, as we did a number of interesting things that are worth writing about, including trips to more souqs, some more street food, some excellent shopping adventures, as well as a visit to Saudi Arabia’s national museum, a gem of a building. Rather than split the last couple days into two posts, I’ll just put them all in this one, and try to keep it succinct. After all, it’s time to move on 🙂 In an attempt to make it easiest on you, you may also want to just browse through the many pictures that we’ve put up from those last days on flickr. They’ll give you a good sense of what we were up to without even reading. However, when you’re done, come on back to see if I have anything interesting to say.

Greetings, and Happy New Year to one and all. This blog post of course is a little after the new year, but what can I say, I’m still playing catch up. Believe me when I say that everyone near and dear to me was in my thoughts as the clock struck midnight on New Year’s eve, in spite of the fact that I couldn’t be with everyone to celebrate. However, this did mark yet another year where I would be ringing in the new year in another far off land. Last year saw me turning the calendar over in one of the earliest areas to change years, New Zealand, and this year, I was spending that time with family in another part of the globe, Saudi Arabia, and specifically, Jeddah. How cool is that? I think I should make this a new tradition if at all possible. Although I do like to be close to friends on this most auspicious of days, it’s also pretty cool to be able to experience a new place. However, I’ll have to admit that Saudi Arabia may not be the most ideal of places for New Years. For starters, they don’t follow the Gregorian calendar, which means that they don’t consider that date New Years. Secondly, as a very strict Muslim country, There is absolutely no alcohol to be found or consumed. Besides those minor details though, it’s a great place to be 🙂 Read on if you’d like to hear a little more about how we celebrated.