Oh what an experience it has been!

So I guess the time has come where I’m meant to be reflecting this experience.  I think I will be digesting this past year for a while.  It has been so exciting and entertaining to say the least.  I am so thankful and happy for the experiences and opportunities that I have had!  I have had so many wonderful trips, met friendly people from all over the world, and experienced cultures in a way I never expected!  In Saudi Arabia I have seen a culture that is so closed to the outside world, I have had the opportunity to even experience a little bit of this very different world.  The expat community of Riyadh has never failed to be entertaining with desert trips and embassy parties!  And work, well I’m happy to be heading back to the western way of practicing medicine, but it will allow me to further appreciate the advances in medicine that are actually practiced in America.

I will miss my friends here in Riyadh and the fun that we have shared!  But we have been making plans to get together and do more traveling or visiting, so yay!  I will miss the lack of responsibility.  The things I’ve worried about this past year has been, ok where will I go for all my 55 days of vacation!!??  Which since I’m such a good vacation planner turned out to be 101 days of vacation out of Saudi Arabia to 14 countries (if you include USA), 4 continents, and oh I never even got sick on any vacation!!  I must have a steel stomach because every travel companion was sick at some point, and I love eating the local foods!  I have learned that people all over the world are really funny!  Everyone seems to have a sense of humor that we can share with each other!  I have learned so much in such unexpected ways; it has been a beautiful experience! 

I have had enough religious chats to last a lifetime it seems.  But it is still interesting to hear people’s opinions.  Every country, every people practice their faith in such different ways.  Sometimes it seems to be more of a forced doctrine and other places religion is more private, personal, and natural.  I have a great respect for those who have faith.  As we learn to respect each other’s differences we move closer to living in a more peaceful world. 

My friends and I have been reflecting together about the state of Saudi Arabia as a whole.  In a country with all the money in the world it seems unequally allocated.  I suppose this wealth has only become available in the last several decades so maybe they are still working on updating infrastructure, healthcare, education, and civil rights to a modern level, and I hope that this country is working in that direction.  I feel empathetic for the women in this society.  It is not easy to be a woman here.  For me though, as a foreigner, as an American, I can leave anytime.  I know that I have rights and freedoms in my home country.  I know things are different in other places and I know I will have all my freedoms and rights handed back to me as soon as I leave here.  But for the women here, they can’t leave without the permission of their guardian, they can’t have jobs, they can’t drive, they have to cover.  They are citizens without rights covered from the world without a voice, stifled by their own government, the entity that is meant to protect you and provide for you is taking everything human decency away from you.  Women can’t even order from the same counter at a coffee shop as the men, if the coffee shop allows women at all.  Women are blamed and oppressed.  I am hopeful that this is changing.  Women are speaking out as much as they can by driving and protesting and through social networks.  With the wave of the past year, the Arab Spring, I was hopeful that Saudi would jump on board, but the government is strong, the King is well loved, and I think people are both fearful and even mildly content. 

As far as the expat community goes, it was unexpected entertainment galore!  I have lived out of the USA before but never in such a way as this, and probably every experience is very different.  I think in such a closed society we had to bind together and try to make our little oasis of western normalcy.  Lots of parties at embassies and compounds.  Desert trips for hiking and camping and dune driving.  The community is pretty small as far as those who go out end up continuously running into each other at various events.  This is both comforting and also at times a bit hilariously like high school.  Again, it has been a fun and entertaining year!

What am I looking forward to back in my homeland?  Oh my my my!!!  As much fun as this has all been I am excited for the next adventure, as always!  I can’t wait to see my friends and family, hike with my puppy, go out with friends, be in the outdoors, listen to music, ride my bike, drink yummy microbrews, and just simply be!  I’m sure there will be a lot of reverse culture shock.  But hopefully I will handle it gracefully!  I am sure to appreciate all that I have in terms of freedom so much more having had this experience!  Thanks for coming on the journey with me! 

High Tea at the Ritz Carlton!

The Ritz Carlton in Riyadh is this huge beautiful monstrosity of a building by the Diplomatic Quarters, which I have been passing and dreaming about since arriving here to Riyadh.  It just only opened two or three months ago.  We heard it was beautiful and that they serve high tea.  Being the fancy Riyadh ladies that we are (uh hmmm), we went to their high tea this past Saturday (which is the first day of the work week in Saudi Arabia).  This place is gorgeous!!  So very sparkly and dazzling.  Kind of what we had thought Saudi Arabia would be like before arriving.  Something you would find in Dubai. 

So anyways we were sitting having our tea, crumpets, and clotted cream and we noticed there were a lot of people around, well men, que music, “this is a man’s world”….  Anyways and some had tv cameras.  Kelsey, my Canadian roommate bumped into a Canadian Senator by the bathroom who said his wife, a national Senator was there for the Speakers G20 Conference!  How very exciting.  Just as we were thinking this was a big deal and talking about how we wondered if our friend Yavuz, Turkish diplomat was there, he walked by with the Turkish speaker of the house and was being photographed!  How very exciting.  I feel like this is a place where one should be reserved and act like someone who belongs there….but….I was so excited I was jumping up and down frantically waving my arms at him….good thing he nor anyone else really notice before I got a hold of myself!  He came over and confirmed that this was the G20, and how excited we all became!  Oh diplomacy at work!  I kept joking about how I wanted a pass to get into the conference, and what should appear, but my very own pass!!!  I sat in on the conference!!  EEKKSS!  Yes I was trying really hard to act like I belonged, but really I was just a giggly girl.  So this speakers conference was the G20, talking about the economic status of the world.  I listened to the head of the UN parliament speak about how he was grateful for the opportunity for a new outlet for discussion on the global economy as in the speakers getting together this time instead.  And then the speaker from Brazil spoke and I got to use the translator head phones!  Yay!   Meanwhile, Kelsey was interviewed by an Arab TV program about her experiences in Riyadh and asked how she enjoyed the Saudi culture, etc, etc.  This was practice at speaking in a diplomatic way!  Later we were asked to be interviewed for a French radio station, but we declined, since we don’t know the language.  Once we thought things were calming down and we were about ready to leave there was a huge sandstorm outside, day turned to night it was so sandy!!  And the roads were closed.  Then it started to rain, and people were really scared of going out in the weather.  Rain here is like a big snow storm in Louisiana!  So we were ‘forced’ to stay at the Ritz, what a tough life!  We put our feet up and enjoyed the glitz some more.  We met all the representatives from Canada.  They were very friendly talking about the day to day of a senator and special interests that they are involved with.  When they asked us about why we were here in Riyadh, somehow all four of us turned into 17 year old giggly school girls, star struck maybe.  Oh also I met a member of the Shira Council (the governing body of Saudi Arabia) because he heard I was from Oregon and he had spent several years there for education and has sons/nephews still there at Lewis and Clark, Reed College, and so on.  Small world.  He gave me his business card, maybe I should get in touch with him about what I think about women’s rights in the kingdom!  Maybe after I’m safely back in my mother country!

So the diplomatic fun does not stop here.  Since Yavuz is good friends with the ambassador of Kuwait, he got us into the Kuwaiti National Day Dinner, also at the Ritz, this past Monday evening.  We went since it was going to be a delicious meal and so we could check out the happenings at such an event.  It seemed to be the fancy who’s who of Riyadh socialite society.  This was a womens only event.  This is kind of how things are in Riyadh.  Everything is separate.  No mingling of opposite sexes, because let’s be honest, how could unrelated males and females possibly function in each other’s presence!  But now at least we know what is underneath an abaya and niqab!  Glitz and glamour!  These ladies were dressed to the nines, their hair was professionally done, their eyebrows were recently done, arab style.  Good thing we three ladies broke out the nice jeans for the occasion!  So at the entrance there was a big mirror and ladies gathered around it to fix their hair and makeup after taking of their abaya, scarf, and niqab.  Little girls were dressed up in traditional clothes and sprayed us with scented lotion and gave us a rose as we walked in.  Then we went through the receiving line where we were welcomed by the ambassador’s wife, etc.  Music videos with Kuwaiti artists were playing, the videos had scenes from Kuwait which was really exciting to see and recognize since Kelsey and I had just been there in December!  There was just a lot of national pride!  Flags were placed on every seat and many of the women came in wearing red, green, and black (the national colors).  So we were sitting in the room for about an hour and a half as everyone was arriving, good people watching.  We were served tea and Arab coffee and sweets from ships that sailed around the room!  Kuwait has a proud shipping history, as we learned when we were there!  Then we were welcomed and feasting began!  HUMMUS!  Yay!  I will miss the Middle East and the hummus!  We sat with some Saudi women who were pretty interested in what we were doing there, being the only non Arabs in the bunch.  One woman kept asking me if I was there with my parents….again being confused for a child, gez!

Diving in Sri Lanka

Before I even came to Saudi I had hoped to become dive certified.  So Kelsey and I booked a trip to Sri Lanka to take care of that during a weeklong vacation!  Yay certification and vacation at a beautiful beach in January!  This was a really lovely week!  Relaxing and entertaining!  Our instructor was Sri Lankan and had tons of diving experience.  He actually said lots of Sri Lankans don’t know how to swim because they have been taught from a young age that the water is dangerous with dangerous creatures living inside of it.  Even fishermen who go out on boats that look like big rocking horses don’t know how to swim!  And as far as the dangerous creatures, Kelsey and I both were actually stung by jellyfish in the water.  Her experience was a bit more traumatic because it was right before our first dive and she was nervous already, then got stung by a jellyfish and the instructor jokingly convinced her she was sure to lose her arm.  Our instructor was actually our cultural guide as well!  He took us out for a local dinner.  Delicious!  The food was similar to Indian food, which I love so much! Yay!  At dinner I think we got the local amount of spiciness, not tourist amount of spiciness and we were hot and sweating and couldn’t drink enough water, but it was delicious!  He claimed it wasn’t hot at all to him.

During our dives we saw so many beautiful fish and coral!  It was an amazing world underneath the water.  We saw lobster, huge sea turtles, and schools of fish swimming together, tons of neon colors!  Just all very exciting!  We went to coral gardens and rock gardens with boulders the size of houses and a oil tanker ship wreck!  The water was warm and clear.  However I kept complaining how cold I was, guess I will not be diving where it is not tropical because it doesn’t get much warmer.  We met a couple that dive regularly in Sweden, 4 degrees Celsius, brrrrr, no way!!  I will have to share pictures from this trip later when I do a little computer recovery!  Eeeks!

Dubai! New Years 2012!!!

For months seven of us girls have planned to go off to Dubai to ring in 2012 together!!  Yay!!  We were all off for the festive days and spent them in sparkly, dazzling, over the top Dubai.  It really is pretty.  A very well planned city, very very very clean, actually the whole time I felt like I was going to slip on the street, sidewalk, inside floors because everything was so sparkling clean.  No, actually, I did slip going up a slippery set of stairs and still days later have a big knobby bruised elbow! haha!  But ya the architecture is beautiful, every building has something special about it.  The metro system is fast, convienient and again, super clean!  Honestly I never thought I would notice a city for it's cleanliness but this was hard to miss, also I think it was something about the intense sun making everything glisten!  ahhhh!  So we stayed by the Burj Khalifa (currently the tallest building in the world) and gezz it towers over the rest of the cities sky scrapers!!  Also we were by the largest mall in the world that had every imaginable store....if, that is, what you dream about.  But I being a nonshopper was mildly to extremely overwhelmed.  Maybe that's why I, along with several husbands/dads/boyfriends found sanctity standing in front of the worlds largest peice of plexiglass (four stories high) starring at the fish and sharks.  Yes that's right, there is an aquarium inside the mall.  Not only an aquarium, there are 6ft plus sized sharks, stingrays, eels, scuba divers feeding the fish in a cage, scuba divers checking out the fish (kind of as we are checking them out....who is watching whom?).  Also there was a glass bottom boat full of people skimming across the surface of this fish tank.  Ya, maybe it wasn't so strange as I was standing there, but now thinking back, this was kind of a unique experience to have inside a mall.  So at anyrate we rang in the New Year at an outdoor cafe of delicious Lebanese food right by the lake and the Burj Khalifa!! Oh just lovely!  Remenesing about what a great and wonderful year we've all had together!  So lucky to be doing all this traveling and exploring!  AHH! yay!  At midnight we witnessed the best fireworks show I've ever seen!!  They had put fireworks all up and down the Burj and had it rigged so they would flash going up the building and going down the building, shoot out of the building, all different things.  I was like a kids, I think I screamed, giggled, and jumped up and down through the whole show, OH MY GOD, AHHH!!! Yes, it was that good!!!  And then there was this weird and funny techno/dance trance show on the lawn nearby that we checked out!  An overall amazing way to bring in 2012, sure to be another fabulous year!!!

Kuwait City!

My faithful travel companion/roommate Kelsey and I headed to Kuwait City for a few days just before Christmas.  It was our Christmas getaway!!  People kept asking me what we were going to do in Kuwait....I don't know, just going to check it out see what's going on there!  In the airport I spotted my first public Christmas tree on display!  YAY!  This was on Dec 21.  Saudi Arabia is a strict state controlled muslim country, actually during prayer that is broadcast throughout the city on loudspeakers the Omen was warning against celebrating Christmas, new years, and drinking, all things unapproved by Allah.  At any rate, there was some Christmas spirit on display in Kuwait!  The city was a much less strict version of Saudi Arabia.  We didn't have to wear abayas and men and women were seen out in public together, mostly people were on the conservative side but nothing compared to here.  There is a really long nicely built boardwalk type thing that runs along for about 10miles of the Persian Gulf.  We walked all up and down this to visit the aquarium and famous water towers.  The aquarium was really awesome!  They had boa constrictor, sharks, stingrays, jellyfish, penguins.  There was a huge tank full of all types of fish found in the gulf and we were just in time to see the shark feeding!!! ahhhhh yay!!!!  It was us and 30 little Kuwaiti school children!!!  AHHHH!!  yay!  Also for friday brunch we sat out at the harbor where there were tons of outdoor cafes, tons and tons of people were doing the same thing!  This was very unlike Riyadh!  It was very very nice and liberating to be in the Middle East and have just even the smallest freedoms:  drinking coffee, sitting at a cafe outside amongst the people!

INDIA!

A week on the beaches of Goa, India!  Delightful, peaceful, restful, and invigorating!  My friend Annalize (from South Africa) and I stayed at a yoga retreat right on the beautiful beaches of Goa on the west coast of India.  This was in early December and the weather could not have been more perfect!!  It had been getting chilly in Saudi (lows of 5 degrees celcius, and highs in the teens).  The weather in India was warm beachin weather, actually it is high season for this very reason.  We spent the week laying on the beach, attending spectacular yoga classes that were excellent for the mind, body, and soul.  We took long walks on the beach, drank beers in the sand, watched the sun set, hula hooped like mad on the beach, enjoyed a beautiful total Lunar Eclipse.  Actually this lunar eclipse was really really amazing.  It was red as it started which I think is quite rare and could maybe be best seen in Asia, oh check that out, that's where we were!  It was the longest lunar eclipse in 10 years, quite a lovely treat!  Also this place has delicious fresh foods and fruits and veggies!!  The people there were super interesting.  A lot of Europeans doing wellness tourism.  They came to this yoga resort to do yoga but also Ayurvedic cleanse.  This as a big deal it seemed and the best Ayurvedic doctors are properly trained in the art in India!  One guy had just graduated from college two days before arrival, actually he was from Akran, Ohio and had attended Kent State, small world.  It was so wonderful to actually take a vacation!  This was the most relaxing of all the traveling I've done so far!  A great get away!!