How is Saudi adventure going?

In a word....Great! I can see how people come here on a one year contract and three or four years later they are still here. The job is weird and funny and easy. There is nothing to worry about. What have I been worried about,...um hmm....I think just how am I going to squeeze all the world wide travel into a year! Haha...and will the Saudi government let me visit Palestine because I really want to.

It is kind of like college but without the class commitment. Everyone here is without family. So we are in this strange place and all looking for fun times. It is very similar to the beginning in Peace Corps when we were all in training and just all together before going to our separate posts. We just played a lot and hung out.

I've been getting out quite a bit. Going to parties, house parties, embassy parties, pub/restaurant parties. It feels like home. Well actually I suppose I was in America just last night. The american embassy had a party. Each of the embassies have a party pretty much monthly and you just have to get a ticket to these events. When I went to the Canadian embassy I got in and asked if it was ok to take my abaya off and the guy said, “yes, you can do whatever you want you are in Canada now!” Oh lovely! Haha. These parties are fun! Dancing late into the night and having a good crazy time followed by a late night swim with the ladies and high dive backflips!! Yup I could get used to this!

Yesterday a bunch of us went to this place called the Princess Souke. Kind of an outdoor market with used things. Our taxi driver thought we were crazy for wanting to buy used clothes. He really could not stop laughing at us and saying that only Americans would want used clothes, probably true. The South Africans were were with thought it horrid we wanted used stuff. But it was hilarious! It was pretty much what you would expect from a third world market, even though we aren't in the third world. I think we were very entertaining to the sales men in the market too, just super silly, I mean if you know me you can guess how this all went down. These sales men were just sitting in piles and piles of used clothes, super cute. It was kind of like a huge costume box of fun. This kind of shopping I can get into! But gezz I think we were there less than an hour and by the end I was exhausted, could have been the middle of the day heat.

Oh so ya when I was looking into coming here everyone talked about the heat. I haven't really said much about it. It is warm...95F on most days at least. But it just isn't really a big deal yet. I am strangely looking forward to the day it hits 120-130F, which I hear is common in the middle of the summer. What will that feel like? I hear it is like when you stick your face in an open oven....oh my!  I have been running in the late afternoon and mornings at the Diplomatic Quarters where we can take off our abayas! This has been going well so far, I need a camel backpack for water though so I don't fall over from dehydration.  I literally drink about 4 liters of water a day.  It is very dry, imagine that, in a desert.  Gezz

Oh and we went to this cultural festival like I said. There was dancing and traditional foods, etc. Actually it was kind of like being a celebrity. All these girls in full veils kept coming up to us and asking to take pictures with us! It was almost like who is checking out who....we were watching them and they were watching us. Oh what an interesting place this is.