Back to Saudi Arabia

Okay, on this trip that everyone warned me to be careful about, I never felt my life was in danger by terrorism. The only time I felt in danger was on the roads in Saudi Arabia. These people cannot drive! They are complete maniacs and they create their own lanes by driving on the shoulders. Most of the people we met were very nice and very welcoming. We spent an evening at Peter's friend Aziz's house. He and his wife are both from Saudi Arabia. They are what you would call modern muslims. His wife (he only has one wife) is a doctor and they have four kids. They love to travel the world and entertain in their beautiful Morrocan inspired home. It was by the neatest house I have ever been in! It has brick domed ceilings in all of the bedrooms, beautiful lamps and carpets everywhere. They were very welcoming and friendly people.

During our stay in Saudi we visited houses Peter used to live, in his old schools. It was a trip down memory lane for him. We also got to fly on one of the company planes out to Shaybah to the worlds tallest sand dunes. It was so incredible and the kids had fun running up and down the dunes. They also got to go in the cockpit during the flight and talk to the Captain who was an American.

The company, Aramco really did spoil us while we there. We were showered with gifts, dinners, luncheons and activities that were sponsered and paid for by the company.

When we did go out to go shopping out of the camp, the women had to wear abayas, which were like black flowing robes. My had some weird snaps so it was never on me the right way, I struggled with it each time I wore it. I was happy to hand back my loaner abaya at the end of the trip. Any time we were in the camps, the women could drive and wear what they want. They try to make it as much like the United States as possible in camp. Even the electrical outlets were the same.

I could really see why Peter loved living there - especially since his backyard was the ocean! I have to admit I was a little sad to leave. The people that live there in the company camps (the Americans) have such a great bond with each other and it has such a community feel. People seemed happy to live there, maybe because they all had houseboys coming over to cook and clean everyday! :)That would certainly perk me up a bit!

It does make you appreciate the freedoms we have here in the United States. Especially for women.

We did have an incident leaving Saudi Arabia for Egypt where they were not accept our ticketless travel confirmation. They demanded a paper ticket although they could see our reservation in their computer system! We had to buy four tickets to get on the plane. Peter is now dealing with Orbitz trying to get them to refund our additional tickets.

Flying on the plane with a bunch of Saudi men was quite interesting. I could imagine the whole time what my parents would be thinking... The funniest thing was, as soon as the plane touched the runway while landing in Egypt, all of a sudden everyones seatbelts came flying off. I am talking the instant the wheels hit the runway. People started standing up to get their luggage from the overhead bins as the plane is still racing down the runway. It was almost comical and I wish I had my camcorder on. Something about the situation told me I better brace myself for when the doors opened. Sure enough, there was a stampede for the door. I have never seen anything like it in my life and I have been on a lot of flights!!!

Oops, I accidently put a picture in sideways, you may have to turn your head until I can figure out how to fix it!

Okay, more on Egypt later.

A little more on my trip

I never have gotten back here to finish writing about my trip. We came home and suffered all kinds of jetlag and sicknesses! We were at the doctor three times and the kids both had bronchitis and we were all on zythromax. The kids went to school one and a half days, then our spring break started on Friday. Then we had a lovely incident of a snake coming up in our shower drain. Peter was in the shower and I was on the phone chatting away to one of my friends. Peter gets out of the shower and tells me, "Get off the phone now... There is a problem." He didn't sound very cheerful either. I went in the bathroom and there is a snake squirming around in the bottom of my shower. I was ready to pass out! Peter ended up killing the snake (by throwing drano and bleach on it). He wasn't about to hack it up. Bailey (our lover of all animals) was in the background sobbing because Peter was trying to kill the snake. 45 minutes later, Peter takes a shovel and removes the snake's body to the driveway. The next day a company called Critter Control came out to do an inspection. They labeled it an isolated incident, as if that is supposed to make me feel better! Today it has been one week and I am took my first shower in my bathroom since the "isolated incident". I did put a large sponge over the drain, although I am being told that probably would make a big difference. Oh, well, it gave me a little piece of mind. By the way, I have showered the past 7 days, just not in that shower!

back on again...

Okay, I decided to let the family sleep a little longer before we get up to go to the airport. We have been so busy this whole time I haven't had time to write. I will see what I can do right now...

We are going to miss our house on the ocean. You can throw a rock from the back patio and hit the water we are that close! We have been staying a friends of Peter's Dad's and they moved out and are house sitting for someone else so we have the entire place to ourselves. Plus they gave us a car to use! We have enjoyed listening to the waves crashing at night while we sleep. During the day the water is calm and blue like the caribbean.

The second day were here we took a bus tour to a town call Hofuf. We toured some caves, went to a date factory and had lunch with prominent Saudi business men. Everyone loved Jake! He was entertaining everyone the whole day and then let him talk on the microphone before the lunch to the whole tour. He welcomed everyone to the Hotel Intercontinental - it was so cute! They smile at Bailey but since she is a girl they pretty much leave her alone.

We attended a welcome dinner at a country club owned by a prince. They had tables set up on the beach - it was very lavish. I will upload pics when I get a chance!

We have had several lunches, a dinner set up a in tent in the desert complete with camel rides, henna tattoo and dancers (male dancers).

We have gotten used to the amount of security here! Everyone time you enter one of the company camps you go through 3 security check points. I would love to take pics or film this but it is not permitted. They have big metal barriers that rise up and down and you enter. They have huge spotlights at night shining right on the cars. They have bomb dogs, mirrors to look under the cars. They search the trunk, they look at ids. They also have landcruisers with built in guns off the back of the open end with guys waiting in them ready to chase someone down if needed. Crazy!

The camps are nice. They all have restaurants, movie theaters, bowling alleys, grocery stores, libraries, pools, fitness center. Everything you could need. After seeing how Peter grew up he makes a little more sense to me now! :) When we were looking for our current house and he saw our neighborhood that is gated with a guard, two clubhouses, restaurant, pool, fitness, elementary school and organized community activities he knew right then that is where he wanted to live. That is what he was used to growing up! Except our guards do not have machine guns and uzis.

The first day we were here we pulled up to the first checkpoint with our driver we were met with 5 guys running up to the car with machine guns and bullet proof vests - quite the greeting!!! They quickly backed off thought as soon as they saw our passports. However, they wouldn't let us in camp with the driver until we had our host meet us at the gate and drive us in.

More on the driving later... I probably will write more on all this next week when I get back. I really have to get everyone going. Today we are flying out. Orginally we were going to Cairo for four days but then decided there is so much in Luxor we want to see so we threw in another flight from Cairo to Luxor. So we will do two nights in Luxor and two nights in Cairo then home!

Finally adding something to my blog...

Well, it has now been a week since we have been gone but feels much longer. Which is good because most vacations fly by too fast. Our couple of days in London were good but we really weren't there long enough. This was the kids first time to London and there was so much more we wanted them to see. I guess we will just have to go back!

From London we flew to Bahrain and it was mostly uneventful except for the bathroom incident. We booked our seats so we can have two windows and two middles so each kid could look out. Well, Jake and I had a larger man sitting on the aisle, and he was spilling over into my seat, so Jake and I switched - Jake was good about switching with me. Well, after the food was served and we ate, Jake decided he had to go the bathroom. Bailey had to go to so I tossed Jake over the seat back to Peter and he took the kids back to the bathroom. All, was well. Not 10 minutes after back in their seats. Jake whispers to me that he has to go poop - great! I glance back at Peter who is sound asleep or at least pretending to be, because I tried to get his attention. The man on the aisle was asleep too, so I had to wake him up... We go in the bathroom and Jake really did have to go! At least three days worth - the mushy kind!!! The problem was it all landed closer to the front of the inside of the toilet bowl, so we I tried to flush it down - it would not go!!! I tried flushing it several times and there it sat! So then I wadded up toilet paper around my hand and attempted to push it closer to the hole! The entire time I am gagging and Jake's butt is covered in mushy poop! Finally it went down but leaving a trail, oh well! Next I had to deal with scraping this stuff off of Jake's butt. The bathroom had clorex wipes for wiping down surfaces and yes, that is what I used on Jake. 15 flushes later I had the situation under control. The bathroom reeked, however, I didn't throw up and Jake was as clean as he was going to get and most of the poop went down the toilet. Okay, out the door we go only to be greeted by a line of people waiting to get in. The first person in the line was the man sitting next to us! We hurried back to our seats and we pretended to be asleep by the time the man came back to our row!

Later when Peter "woke" up I shared the lovely story with him and I told him he was lucky it wasn't him back there with Jake. His response to me was that he would have just come and gotten me to handle it....

Mom and Dad, if you are reading this you may want to stop here and read the rest once I am safely home....

Our seats each had the televisions so we were able to watch movies, track the flight etc. After my movie, I decided to watch the map as we flew over all the countries you hear about in the news, the ones my Dad warned me about as far as staying out of their air space. We even flew right over Baghdad, the entire time my Dad's voice echoed his warnings in my ear. Well, we landed safely in Bahrain, got thru customs without problems. Once we had left the baggage claim area there were throngs of men just standing there by the doors staring at us. Peter said it was because of my hair - nice! The hotel sent a driver to meet us at the airport, a very nice Mercedes with bottles of cold water ready for us. When we got to the hotel, the front desk agent walked us to our room and checked us in up in the room. A huge platter of fruit was there. It was probably the nicest Ritz Carlton we have ever stayed at! Thanks to Peter's job at the corporate headquarters for the Ritz Carlton Club we get to stay at these nice hotels for less then the price of a Best Western! Peter also has some sort of VIP status listed on his portfolio with them since he works at corporate so we get the little added perks.

Okay, the next day we had a driver take us on a tour of Bahrain and then drive us over the causeway into Saudi Arabia. The causeway is 18 miles long and customs is in the middle of the causeway. We had to go thru 4 customs check points. One for leaving Bahrain, another for looking at our passports, then next one we had to get out of the car and walk over to a building and get fingerprinted and have our picture taken (only the foreigners had to do this), the next one the car was searched. There were several lanes of traffic and the whole time people were honking their horns. The building we went into looked very run down. I felt like I was in a movie.

Okay have to finish later!

Here in London!

Okay, we made it to London and stopped into an internet cafe because Peter had to check his email for a confirmation on something on Bahrain so I decided to jump on another computer. We didn't bring laptops on the trip! Too much stuff to haul as it is! Our flight last night was good but I did not sleep at all! I am not sure how I am managing by missng an entire nights worth of sleep! It is a pretty nice sunny day and around 50. We are having fun seeing the sights but more on that later as I am having a hard time with this keyboard. Just as they drive on the other side of the road, most of the keyboard functions are opposite too! This much typing is taking me forever! I sat there wishing earlier that my kids would have a British accent so they would sound nice. Peter pointed out they would still whine and fight just the same! Oh well...

More later on hopefully a better keyboard on our next destination!

Cindy

Heading out on our big adventure....

Okay, in about 45 minutes we leave for the airport. I started the day off by getting a mani/pedi. I figured if the only parts of my body people can see in Saudi are my toes and hands, then boy are they going to look nice! I am pretty sure my face can show although I am being told my long blonde hair could be a problem over there! In case I have packed my Life is Good baseball cap!

So there are a few last minutes things I need to go shove in my suitcase so I am making this short and sweet!

Hey check back though - because if time allows I will try to update while I am gone and add pics!

Bye for now!

A day at Tarpon Springs

Last weekend we spent the day at Tarpon Springs. It is about 1 1/2 from my house, just north of Tampa. It is a Greek Sponge Fishing Town. We usually go there about once a year at least. It is a fun place to walk around and look at the shops, eat wonderful greek food and go out on a boat ride. This year we went with our friends the Maphis's. We have also taken family members out there when they have been in town.

We always eat at our favorite Greek restaurant there called Hella's. They have wonderful greek food! Attached is bakery with to die for desserts and they are huge!! They are perfect for sharing!

It was crazy trying to get pictures of all five kids looking at the camera at the same time! Then of course there is Jake who is a goofball for the camera!