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.