Last night I ate at a place called Heritage Village in Dammam, which looks like an Arabian castle. Keep in mind that there aren't tourists in Saudi, so this place survives on the locals; most were traditionally dressed. (Just what makes a building qualify as a “village” is another Saudi mystery I cannot solve.) The building is privately owned, which is pretty amazing in itself. It looks like an Arabian castle, complete with turrets and rooftop lookouts. You come in the door and there is a large three-story entry that includes a lake, swans (fake), and parrots (real). We were led into a waiting room and instructed to remove our shoes. The purpose of this room is to welcome people with Arabic coffee and dates. There are carpets on the floor and many Arabic artifacts around ... read more

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’t work out so well, especially in my long pants and long sleeve shirt (I can’t show any skin, you know). I took them to Latif, which loyal readers will remember as having the best Zatar (a ... read more

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 mostly pigeons, parakeets, parrots and other birds, but it also included a goat, bunnies, and a monkey. I’m not making it up and I have the photos to prove it. The monkey could be yours ... read more

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. ... read more

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 of you reading this blog for the first time, I am returning to do another series of assessment centers my company's client - Saudi Aramco. Each trip is three weeks long (plus 4 days of ... read more