Today was an eventful day, but not everything comes out as planned… The day started with a $2.00 breakfast consisting of a Spanish omelet (no tomatoes), toast, and coffee. This is a weekend tradition with me, unless of course I have the famous Dining Hall waffles or perhaps the pancakes. Well, the coffee is a tradition. After breakfast, I caught the 9:00 am bus to Al-Khobar with “no photos please” Dave, Koen, and Andrej. We visited my favorite gift store to make some strategic purchases and tried to stay cool in the 116 degree heat. The staying cool part didn’ [View Full Entry]

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I know that I haven't had much to say lately. It’s been pretty much all work and no play, so I don’t want to bore you to death with that. Although it’s a bit of an oxymoron, happy Memorial Day. Pat is a Mac freak and has had some fun taking my photos from February, April, and the ones in Qatif and Tarut and has made a montage movie from them. And it’s all set to some really rocking pseudo-Arabic music. It might take a few minutes to stream down to you, but it’s kind of fun. Here’s a list: * [View Full Entry]

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I’ve just spend the morning visiting two fascinating places: Qatif and Tarut. As I write this, it is 109 degrees outside and it is HOT. A bunch of us went to explore these two ancient towns with Hal, an Aramco person who lives here. We took Hal’s Land Rover and rented a taxi for the morning. The first stop was Qatif, where we took a tour of the town to find the market. Fortunately, the taxi driver figured out where it was and we explored it for an hour or so. The first part was the live animal market. This included [View Full Entry]

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It’s Wednesday after work and if you are in Saudi, that means it’s Miller time. Oh wait. Not quite. But it IS the weekend and that’s something to rejoice in any country or culture. Today it’s was 107 degrees. No, it’s NOT a dry heat. It’s actually humid because we are about a half hour from the Gulf. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be about 114 degrees and I will be ON the Gulf at a place called Qatif. According to Wikipedia, “Qatif is a historic, coastal oasis region located on the western shore of the Persian Gulf in the Eastern Province [View Full Entry]

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OK, this is perhaps one of the most bizarre things I’ve seen here. I turned on the TV and I watched this for at least 10 minutes before grabbing my camera. Yes, I understand the “honey” reference (I think), but whether this is a commercial or a TV program is beyond me. All I know is that this guy is very strange, by any national standard. I have a short video because the dialog is equally strange. Thankfully you missed the part when the woman in the video starts singing. Trust me, it’s wasn’t pleasant. [View Full Entry]

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I set a new record for travel to Saudi. I left on Wednesday and didn’t arrive until Friday! I got to Steineke Hall about 12:30 am this morning. Dave, who is an American but lives in Geneva missed his connection in Frankfort, Germany to Bahrain and he had to fly to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and change planes for Bahrain. So we needed to wait about 30 to 45 minutes for Dave. Also, because Koen (pronounced “Coon”) hadn’t been to Saudi before, we needed to stop at the Saudi border on the Causeway (long bridge) to Saudi to have him finger-printed. Koen [View Full Entry]

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Here we go again. (6:00 pm, Wednesday, Minneapolis time): I'm sitting in the Minneapolis airport (Northwest/Delta "Princess Lounge") waiting to begin my third trip to "The Kingdom," aka KSA, aka Saudi Arabia. To get there I fly first to Amsterdam, change planes and fly to Kuwait and then on to Bahrain. From Bahrain I will take a taxi over the causeway (a very long bridge that has the Bahrain/Saudi Arabia border in the middle) to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It will take about 24 hours of real time, 32 hours of clock time (Saudi is 8 hours ahead of Minneapolis). For those [View Full Entry]

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Well, it’s my final night here. I’ve just packed up most of my stuff and I’ll need to take it over to the SAC Center tomorrow morning. As soon as we’re done, Don and I will jump into a cab and head over the causeway (a long crowded bridge) to Bahrain, which is an island country off the coast of Saudi Arabia. It from there (at 10 pm) that I’ll fly to Amsterdam and then switch planes for Minneapolis. And so it ends. Two nights ago, Don and I headed to Khobar. He had bought a Persian-style carpet and runner, but [View Full Entry]

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I need to divide this entry into different sections May 1 Part 1 - Aramco Exhibit: We are Family - Not Let me explain. Aramco has built a museum to showcase the history of the oil industry in Saudi. One assumes they spent a few barrels of oil to build this facility. One might also assume that they would want people to visit it. Not so much. Five of us piled into our rental car, which I think is a converted Yugo. We arrived at the exhibit at about 1:00 pm and found out that it is opened from 3 pm [View Full Entry]

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This morning Werner, Pat, Don, and I headed for Khobar. I am now an official Khobar tour guide. However, one place that I had seen - and had even been in - is Latif (La-teef) bakery. It has been recommended to me by several people, so I wanted to give it a try. The place is really a hole-in-the wall. I suppose the most decorative attraction is the box of stacked water, or perhaps the discarded industrial size mixer that is by the door. However, if you ask nicely, you can get a box of tissues to use as napkins (that’s [View Full Entry]

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