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Published: February 5th 2009
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Dining Hall at Saudi Aramco
Cafeteria food, Middle-East style. I made it!
Dateline: Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
Yesterday, the borders were actually very easy to pass through without any hassles. The drive from the country of Bahrain to the Aramco place in Saudi Arabia took about an hour, including getting finger-printed at the border (that's a one time thing), so I got here at about 11 pm (local time) and went to sleep at about midnight.
It's very weird seeing people dress in Arab clothing. The women are dressed in a mix of western clothes for westerners and partial or full covering for Middle Eastern women (including the full black dress with the eye slits). There are many men wearing the white robes. I keep thinking I'm on a movie set! Almost everything is in English and Arabic, so I can read almost all of the signs.
Today I'm a bit more coherent then when I arrived last night. I'm a little groggy, but my strategy of not sleeping on the plane during the day yesterday worked. I'm more or less on schedule even though there is a 9 hour time difference between Minneapolis and Saudi.
They were long flights, but on the plus side, flying business
Stop Sign
There are a lot of rules here, but this one is understandable class (which I think is the same as First Class) is heaven. The chairs have about 52 buttons for adjustments, including two massage modes! The food was excellent and I watched three movies. It’s good I’m not a big drinker because the opportunity to get obliterated is certainly there. However, even I couldn’t eat all of the food they offered. Yes, there is a world of difference between five dollar snack packs and what they get in the front of the plane. On the other hand, it costs about four times the price.
But however nice 15 hours so hours of flying are (Minneapolis to Amsterdam and then Amsterdam to Bahrain) it still is really, really long.
Today I met up with an Aramco person today who is the registrar for the assessment center and she showed me around (remember it's the weekend) so I have my bearings a bit. I also was able to get my temporary ID, so I can go into various buildings and get into and out of "camp" (as they call it). Pleasantville (as I call it) looks like Phoenix or southern California, except Arabic flavored instead of Spanish. It's about 70 degrees
Steineke Hall
This is where I'm staying today and sunny, so that's a big plus too. It’s enough to make a Minnesotan cry. Uff-da.
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Heather
non-member comment
6 am in Dallas
Glad to hear you arrived safely, Ted, and that the long-haul flight was cushioned (literally and figuratively) by Biz Class! It's fun to see the photos (I've always wondered what the Aramco compound looks like - post more of those!). Who's "in town" from PDI for the program?