You Know You're in Saudi When...

The difference between men and women is literally black and white

You need to ask the same question in about seven different ways to get the answer you're looking for

(Recent conversation)
"Do you have any al jawal 100 riall phone cards?" ..."no we have no phone cards for you"
"Do you have any al jawal phone cards?"...."no, we have no phone cards..."
"Do you have any phone cards at all?" ....."Yes, we do, would you like a 50 riall phone card you can use with that al jawal phone?...How many do you want?"
"AHHHHH"



You can buy a burberry abaya (yes, there is the burberry tartan down the front)

You find heterosexual very sexually starved single men working in raunchy underwear shops

For that matter...you can't find cotton underwear or underwear without red lace or leopard print

The driver in the middle lane is liable to make either a left or right turn cutting in front of you at 120kmphr and you have to get out of their way.

The American consulate hires Gurkas instead of their own soldiers to defend itself

You meet the most fundamental evangelicals America has to offer...in the most holy country for Islam

You can randomly find the guy who made up your Saudi ID (Iqama) has inserted a new middle name (Muhammad in this case) for you. Which usually means you get through road checks etc. without a problem.

People pull over on the sides of five lane highways for picnics

Ambulances have to drive up the median strip half into oncomming traffic because everyone is driving in the emergency lane

Police officers drive everywhere with their lights flashing...to show they're there

All the young guys wear long emo lookin hair, thobes and baseball caps (and cons)

You're much more worried about car crashes than terrorism

People get convicted for Pork smuggling (yes, it is a crime and yes, the conviction can be pretty harsh)

You get to see the most culturally fascinating misunderstandings usually involving a westerner smiling and giving a Saudi "Thumbs Up" which here is much much worse than the "Finger"

You walk into a store and the sales people look like selling you something would be so hard that they can't be bothered.

You can buy a 20000 riall (8000 AUD) abaya encrusted with diamonds in a normal shopping centre...for that matter you can get a haut couture dress designed in a shopping centre

You can read a newspaper interview with an ex al quaeda member that reads like "What I did on My Holidays as a Terrorist" which ends happily with him getting a pardon during an amnesty, marrying a second wife and living hapily ever after as a honey seller while catching up with his ol war buddys from Afghanistan...yippee (read the Gulf news one day...its called the 'green truth' by some more cynical people)

You think that 30 riall for a meal (10 AUD) is a ripoff.

You wake up every morning and check the currency exchange rate

You talk to rig guys working on the rig closest to Iran who seem a bit..."twitchy" after reading about recent American/Iranian relations.

You see an eastern expat slum where the guys get less than one hundred US a month next to a Saudi mansion where the guys there probably earn a good few million a year...and you get used to it.

You're surrounded by at least 5 mosques at all times.

Everything stops five times a day for prayer

you get pretty blaze about that H2S leak you can smell down the road...well...you can still smell it can't you?...the minute you can't you're dead...(No one visits Qatif that much because the wind blows that way)

You realize that teenage boys are cheeky bastards no matter where they are

The main sites that flash up when you use Saudi Internet Providers are matchmaking and dating sites

Guys aren't seen as even slightly 'suspect' when they hold hands which means those very pretty metro lookin guys in the shops who are very very beautifully groomed get away with it.

Almost every local smells beautiful both ladies and guys...the perfumeries here are amazing

Men get a barber shave every morning

People use malls for socialization rather than to shop.

You panic when you havent seen a shop selling gold and gilt furnature for five minutes...

Your realize that as an athiest you're completely in a minority what with the Muslims, the Christians and the Mormons

A guy named Israel Bratworst applies for a job with ARAMCO and doesn't get it (Seriously not joking)

You really start listening to people's names to work out their religious orientation (very important around ramadan)


to be continued,,,,

Gah!

Our net is really attrocious at the moment. Its taking hours for anything to load. Lots of sandstormy activity mucking with satelites. We're still having loads of visa dramas but are getting more and more chilled out about the whole thing. Inshallah things will work out...shwey shwey and all that. Its either that or go nuts.

There's much to post (mostly photos) but until the net works properly I won't be able to get them up...maybe this weekend. Jo and Laurie are coming down from Khobar to stay for a bit because they are whelching off the Canada to work in a few weeks (fed up with Saudi) so they're trying to catch up lots. So for anyone who wants to visit Canada, they're the people to butter up:)

The cats are here and driving me MENTAL as expected. I'm just waiting for Shinji to fall down the stairs so I can laugh... (pictures to follow upon working net)

Went swimming this morning and the water has changed from about 30 degrees to 10 overnight ...its Freezing! and there are crabs about 20-30cm accross everywhere...I got mightily bitten by one because I was rude enough to step on its head. The water here is really murky unless there's no wind so I'm pleading innocent.

All the winter Saudi fashion is in the shops and I'll take some photos of the Thobes. They look like Royal purple and brown robes. Pretty cool. We've also been invited to a Halloween party here...going to see how that goes.

Feeling pretty uninspired today...this whole waiting game for visas is tiring. They've also begukked up my temporary one today because it expires today but they're sending it to the government on Saturday due to a change in the rules. Anthony got somewhat shirty and might have been rather undiplomatic... Yet to see. So anyways when we have better net and less stress I shall post many photos and all the other interesting stuff that's happened the last week or so. (There is some...just can't think about it ...hmmm if I remember rightly it all involves food:))

Eid Mubarak! (belated...oops)

For my Eid present I got a shipment which included a king size bed which I have done my best not to get out of for the last four to five days. Its been just wonderful:) For a belated Eid present I'm going to get two very smelly and surly cats tomorrow. What fun! I'm expecting all manner of drama extracting them from what is bound to be the airport beaurocracy of doom but hopefully all will be well.

I've also got myself all my books. So I can set up my office and get going again on my currently hybernating thesis. (Once I remove the aramco bed of doom from my study!) Expect to see a whole lot more of me on here and on facebook the procrastination is bound to kick in after the first week of so of enthusiasm.

So because I'm feeling like sharing the love that is my almost un-aramco furnatured house, here's a photo of the bed of joy (More far more interesting photos of our house to follow but its taken 4 hours for this one to upload). I'd also contibute some photos of the pretty amazing Eid shindig they held here on Sunday but there were so many ladies around I didn't feel comfortable taking any. If you don't already know its really not good form to photograph Saudi women in any way shape or form unless you ask specific permission and I didn't feel like asking about 4000 ladies if I could have them all in a group photo:P Anyways half of the east coast of Saudi decended on our beach on Sunday and there was much much shawarma (roast meaty goodness) and popcorn to be eaten and a lot of traditional Bedouin dancing and music to hear. It was pretty cool from what I saw. We didn't know it was happening so I turned up relatively innapropriately dressed (t-shirt and jeans instead of longer sleeved shirt) so we left a bit earlier that I would have liked. (Mind you there was a Greek family getting round in bikinis in between all the Saudi ladies which was a rather humerous sight to see!) But estimates are there were about 14 thousand people through the gates. There were guys in thobes and ladies in the full getup everywhere so it looked pretty trippy. Like a black and white party and everyone parked out having a picnic (or riding the party camel). If there was one thing that characterizes Saudi culture (other than the Islam thing oh and their love of shopping centres) I'd have to say its their love of the picnic. These guys will have one anywhere and on any given night you see huge families out down by the beach. There were so many cars that parking extended a few kays away. The vibe felt like Australia Day in Kings Park. And the kids! My god are there a lot of children in this country! It looked like there were about 6 kids to every family.

Anthony's Monolith

For all of you out there who've heard the Anthony lecture about not needing a large tv. He caved on the weekend. We now have our own modest sized monolith in the loungeroom so feel free to give him hell!

Vanshing Visa

Well here's another one for the books! The beaurocracy here is ingeneous. I mean it... It allows a large number of people to minimalize their workload by disguarding any government applications that don't have precicely the right information included. Baring in mind, no one tells you what the right information is. So, due to a minor technicality, a government official has been able to throw out my visa application so we have to start again. Gah! you learn I guess...

You would have to live here or in a country like it to truly understand how ingrained this is (anyone here who's lived in India, Pakistan and Nigeria are very used to this). No one tells you anything and I mean anything. You don't know how to set up your phone when you get here, where to go for food, how to apply for new ID cards, how to arrange for doctors appointments, set up a bank account, catch a bus...anything unless you talk to other people and find out what they've done and did. And most of the time, they're going through another round of trial and error with something else so they don't have the time to tell you. If you don't fill out the right form at the right time in this country things can often go very wrong. The horror stories abound. So we're getting very very good at asking multiple questions.

The first thing you learn is that if you fill out a form to tell the government something, don't assume that they'll pass the form on. You have to make multiple copies and walk from department to department placing copies on people's desks. In fact if you want anything done the best way of getting it done is to find the guy in charge of it, going to his office/desk and sitting there patiently staring at him until he does it for you. The required skill here is to look like you'll grow a strange contangeous fungus sitting there for the next week or two until he does what you require. This tends to be highly effective and Anthony has already put this into practice on a number of occasions.

So needless to say We're rather exasperated at the whole visa thing...means it might take another few months although I'm crossing my fingers and hoping it'll come through asap. We'll see...

Fatwa on Pokemon!

Get this, an Imam here placed a fatwa on Pokemon a few years ago so there's an under-the-counter black market in picachus! No kidding, if you walk into a toy shop you have to ask to see the 'special' merchandise. Mind you this little guy does look somewhat dodgy:P

Oh, and the service station on camp, next to the world's largest oil refinery has been out of fuel for two (maybe three days). Fuel You wan't fuel ma'am? No problem No problem!

Chris Mainwaring Dead?

Someone update me please. I just saw it on yahoo. Did the guy die through an accident, suicide, drug od??? I used to worship the guy as a kid in the early 90s in my pre-Dockers days. He was a legend! (I'm willing to excuse the later tacky media career...)