Driving in Jeddah: like bumper cars, but with less rock music

Last week I had the opportunity to drive into Jeddah to help a fellow Scout Leader with an errand, and pick up the brand new custom scout trailer that the troop had built.

It was an adventure from the beginning.  We started with a quick trip to the clinic because Abby hadn't been feeling well (ended up being heartburn and a virus) and then we had lunch at the school with the Scout Leader, his son, and some of the other teachers.  It was quite refreshing to sit down to a meal with other people and be able to converse comfortably with them.  We ended up talking about plagiarism and it seems that they have as much trouble with it at the primary and secondary levels as Abby has had in her classes. (No, she's not plagiarizing, but some classmates have.)

Next, we drove to pick up the second vehicle, only to find that we couldn't get in to get the car keys.  After talking to some neighbors and calling around, we finally got the family maid to come over and let everyone in.  Not so bad, except that it's summer in Saudi Arabia and we were hanging around outside at the hottest part of the day.  The date palms offered little shade and comfort from the scalding sun.

The traffic wasn't too heavy, but it was incredibly windy, mostly because there aren't any trees planted along the roads to act as wind barriers.  Drivers continue to rock the awful driving and it was more stressful to actually have to drive rather than sit back on the commuter buses that we normally take to Jeddah.

The traffic got much worse once we actually got into Jeddah, and then it got really stressful. We stopped at one car dealership, which directed us to go to another car dealership. On the way to the second dealership we got into the truly crazy driving. A big rig decided to turn across 2 lanes of traffic to make his left turn, because nobody would let him move over, and he was even using his turn signal (I can confidently call all the drivers male, because women aren't allowed to drive cars in Saudi Arabia).

Then we came to a roundabout, which had waaaay more traffic on it than it was designed for. Instead of the smooth inward and outward flow of traffic, it was a start and stop cluster of terrible. At some point during the weaving around, we lost our lead car. Well, we didn't lose it, we just substituted it for one of a dozen SUVs of the exact same model and color (tan Yukon). So we followed a complete stranger all the way around the traffic circle, and out in the wrong way (we did 450deg, instead of 270deg). After a phone call and some tough driving we found the lead car again, and made our way to the second car dealership. Also, rather than going half a kilometer down the road to find the next turn around, we just used our 4WD and jumped over the lane divider (the road system in Jeddah is crazy enough that I won't bother to explain it. I have decided to rename the "Michigan Left" to the "Saudi Left")

Once at the second car dealership, we went inside, because Abby had to use the restroom. I asked where it was, and was politely directed to a door just around the corner. When the man saw that Abby was with me, he laughed and said "We don't have a bathroom for women!" as if we were crazy to expect that they did. After laughing in their faces, we convinced them that women do indeed have to pee occasionally, and they directed us up a set of stairs, and around three or four turns, into an apartment like area, where Abby would be allowed to use the bathroom if I stood guard at the door to make sure nobody came in.  This isn't the first time Abby's had trouble finding a bathroom in Jeddah, I guess they just think that the female anatomy doesn't require relieving.

After dropping off one vehicle, we continued on in the lead car to pick up the newly commissioned Boy Scout trailer.  We drove over to the iron works area, which has a ton of shops that make all sorts of metal works like fancy gates and doors.  Most of the market areas like these are separated by type of shop in the Middle East.  So all the iron shops are together, the lumber shops are together, fabrics, furniture, etc.  It's really nice for shoppers because you don't have to drive all over the city to visit several stores, they're all next door!

The new trailer was super nice.  It has room for them to store all their gear, has popup canvas awnings, and even has pop-up metal shelving for them to cook on.  Unfortunately we didn't get a photo of it, but it was very impressive, especially considering that it was built to order.

All that was left was a smooth quick drive back to campus, and thus the end of our one (and only) Jeddah driving adventure.

Celebrating the 4th

When July started, I wasn't sure we were actually going to do anything to celebrate the 4th, but then we got a great invitation to a party hosted by some friends and decided to go.  I was in this strange place because I was actually doing homework on the 4th and getting ready for the party.  Not to mention my final exam that was the next day.  Life sure doesn't stop around here for holidays.

I ended up making two desserts for the party, my recent favorite Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies and a new Coffee and White Chocolate Chip Blondies.  The cookies were a hit, as I knew they would be.  Somehow the addition of malted milk makes these like crack cookies, seriously irresistible.  Plus, they're super chewy and only bake for like 7 minutes, bonus!

The blondies were tasty, but in a very elegant, snooty coffeehouse way; so while they were good, I probably won't make them again.  They also had to bake way longer than the recipe said, and by the time the poor blondies got to the party, they weren't looking so hot.  Riding bikes everywhere does have it's disadvantages when we need to transport baked goods.

At the party we had all sorts of grilled foods, including peppers, zucchini, and onions.  One of the guys also made stuffed mushrooms, a french bread pizza, and a couple different chip dips.  Fruit kebabs and fruit salad rounded out dinner nicely, and homemade apple pies with whipped cream were a great addition to the desserts I brought.

We even had temporary tattoos!  One of the girls brought back some decorations and novelties from the US back in June lest you think 'I <3 USA' tattoos are actually available in Saudi Arabia.

I made up some cute buntings to add to the decor.  After lammenting my lack of red paper (most of it went into Christmas decor), I realized that I had red and blue water colors so I painted some designs and cut them out into stars.

I also did regular stars from colored paper, and some star outlines from the scraps.  I really like the star outlines, and I now officially have way too much bunting hanging in our apartment.  Seven strands isn't that much, right?  Can bunting be an addiction I wonder?  It's quite possibly the easiest craft on the planet to add some festive fun.

Close up of the hand painted paper.  I really like how these turned out.

The only downside is that I had to hand trace and cut out each of the stars, but thankfully I used Martha's folding paper method to get some well proportioned patterns.

Here's the requisite super artsy photo. I love this action from the Pioneer Woman.

We also had fireworks!! I never imagined that we'd actually have them, but one of the guys drove to Jeddah and got packs of sparklers, roman candles, and flying spinners.  We also put on some great patriotic music while we were setting off the fireworks and it was a great time.  After we started setting off the roman candles, we had a couple of middle school age girls show up, and since they brought cupcakes with them, they stayed and played with the sparklers too.

All in all, it was a great night, and much different than I thought the 4th of July would be in Saudi Arabia.

On a more serious note, being in Saudi Arabia has made me appreciate how lucky we were to be born in America.  Not that I didn't appreciate the freedoms that we have before, but living without some of them for a year has made it increasingly clear just how important they are to me.

Patio Gardening

For a few months I have been collecting pots and containers out on the patio, and have been filling them with some heat loving plants.

I got started when the Green group on campus had people grow basil seedlings to sell as a fundraiser on Earth Day. My group of basil grew very well, and I had tons of basil seeds left over from the fundraiser, so I started growing basil. Later, we found Kang Kong at the grocery store, and I planted the cuttings to try to grow our own supply.

Next, I bought tomato seeds from the supermarket, to give them another try (I got tomato and celery seeds for Christmas, but they had all failed to take hold). This time the tomatoes are doing very well; they seem to love the hot weather.

Photos from May:

Kang Kong, a strange spinach substitute that's fairly popular here in Saudi.

Teeny tiny new tomatoes!

The basil was looking (and smelling) fantastic at this point.

Overview of all of the plants growing on our back porch.

We've seen a lot of growth and change since May, especially with the tomatoes and basil.

Photos from July:

Most of the tomato plants have gotten incredibly tall, although there are very few blossoms so tomatoes are sadly far off, if at all.

Some of the leaves look great like these.  Steve's also had to pull together some makeshift tomatoes stakes from construction waste around campus.  

He's also had a lot of problems with leaf miners, which chew through the inside of the leaves before laying eggs inside them.

The poor basils have suffered greatly.  They've been attacked by a bad case of weevils and are looking pretty bad these days.

We aren't growing these, but they grow in the public space behind our apartment, and I kind of think they're ugly.

Extra not fond of this brownish/purple plant.

Hopefully we'll see some tomatoes before we leave!

Don't Count Your Chickens

They tell you not to count your chickens before they hatch, but here in Saudi you can't even count them AFTER they've hatched.  We announced a week ago that we finally had our tickets to fly home in August, but it turns out that wasn't true.  Somehow between last week and Sunday, the travel agency or consulting firm managed to cancel the reservations.  Yes, we're dealing with both a consulting firm and travel agency to book these tickets.  I have no idea why it takes so many middle men to get this done, but we tell the consulting firm what we want/need, they tell the travel agency, the travel agency give the consulting firm a few options, the consulting firm sends them to us, and we pick the most desirable one.  It's like one huge game of telephone, so it's no surprise that this got screwed up.  It's extra unsurprising because they managed to screw up our tickets when we came to Saudi a year ago.

Aside from the fact that I was royally cheesed off that this got screwed up, the consulting firm somehow got in their mind that it absolutely had to be fixed RIGHT THIS MINUTE.  That meant they did a lot of: send me an email, wait two minutes, and then call me to ask if I'd gotten the email.  So this went back and forth for a few hours resulting in a option for tickets on August 8th.  This wouldn't be a huge deal, except we were told in no uncertain terms that we had to leave campus by the 5th.  Turns out they're more that willing to change this rule so long as it saves them money on plane tickets.

So after two hours of headaches, emails, phone calls, and a very unpleasant tone of voice, we once again had plane tickets home.

Happy 4th of July!

I hope everyone has a great day and enjoys good food, company, and loud fireworks!  We're attending a small party hosted by one of the other American students, and while we won't have any fireworks, it'll still be a blast.  I made a few decorations for the party and some tasty snacks too, so come back tomorrow for a few pictures and maybe a recipe.

Holidays here are always a strange combination of a completely normal day and a subdued celebration.  I had homework due today, although I thankfully didn't have class, and tomorrow I have a final exam to look forward to.  Life doesn't stop here unless it's a Saudi holiday, but students manage to carve out a piece of their days to celebrate their national holidays.

Perspective

Would you wait at the register because the cashier forgot to give you change? Would you do it if it were only 53 cents?  That's what happened to me today at the grocery.  The cashier had forgotten to give change to the guy before me, so he stood there and waited until my transaction was over (so the drawer would be reopened) to get his change.  It ended up being 2 SAR which is 53 cents.  I made the comment that he was very patient to wait for such a small amount of change, and he replied that it was enough for a tank of gas in his motorcycle.  How's that for perspective.  Sure he could have walked away and written it off as incompetent workers, but instead he waited and got his gas money back.

I probably would have waited too, but I would have done it because I was owed the money, not because I felt it was worth waiting for.

My first summer class is almost over, and hopefully when it is, that will give me enough time to get some pictures ready to share.  I haven't forgotten, I've just been swamped.

Reasons Why Working at Home Beats the Library

This is the first time I’ve had to work on group projects in the library, and I am not enjoying it.  In undergrad, we’d all meet in someone’s apartment or dorm room to work, which in theory could still be possible here, but never happens.

Here are the five main reasons why I hate working in the library:

1. No temperature control: The library is always freezing with no hope to be able to control it.  So if I’m uncomfortable, while working on a project, I just have to accept it and keep working.  It also means I have to bring a sweatshirt to the library (and class) if I want to have any hope of staying warm.
2. No snacks: Working in the library means you have to plan better for interruptions.  If I get hungry Ieither have to deal with it, go home, or have planned ahead and brought a snack.  Working from home means I just have to walk over to the kitchen, get a snack, and then go back to work.
3. Terrible night lighting: With huge floor to second floor ceiling windows the lighting in the library during the day is fantastic, but it gets dark relatively early, and while the lighting in the library is beautiful, but doesn’t offer much actual light.
4. Too Formal: Working at home means it’s okay to tell jokes or stories, have a laugh, and then go back to work.  It doesn’t have to be very formal and that means everyone is more comfortable.  Get a bit loud in the library, and undoubtedly you’ll be disturbing someone else.
5. Need Better Planning: If everyone is coming over for a meeting it doesn’t matter what I’m doing beforehand, but as I was baking bread and cupcakes the other day, I realized I hadn’t started early enough and was going to be late.  It ended up being a minor deal, but if we weren’t working in the library, everyone could have settled in and gotten started while I finished up the baking.

These are only a few of the reasons why working in the library doesn’t cut it for me.  Unfortunately, at least until the end of the semester, I don’t have much of an option.  The library is the only place I have access to the software I need for a group project.

Singing the Praises of Daylight Savings Time

Now that the US and Europe have switched over to their daylight savings time, it's time for me to be very, very jealous.  Saudi Arabia doesn't have Daylight Savings Time and it's ridiculous that they don't.  On campus, sunset is just shy of 6:30pm and it's dark shortly thereafter.  I didn't realize what a difference this made until we got here to Italy, where the time change was last Sunday.  Here, we've been able to wander around and enjoy the evening more since it doesn't get completely dark until after 8 pm.

Darkness falling over Milan, much later than in Saudi Arabia

It's only an extra hour and a half, but the difference is completely noticable, especially on days where I work in the library until late, as it's getting dark on my way home.  It also exaggerates our poor interior lighting, since we have to flip on the lights pretty early in the evening.

Even though agriculture or some bunk was the reason DST started, it is so nice to be able to enjoy long light summer (ok spring technically) evenings outside.

Follow our journey:

Travel Plans are Never Final

Different Ways to Travel

How We Get Ready To Travel

Italy Day 1

Italy Day 2

Shopping in Italy 

Keeping it Alive by Trying New Things

Italy Day 3: Part 1

Italy Day 3: Part 2

Pack and Move

Or check out our Italy tag!

Chores

Every now and then, Algie likes to pitch in and help around the house.

She's pretty good at checking the washing machine.

She's great at folding laundry, and by folding I mostly mean laying on it.

She can even help load and unload the dishwasher!

After a hard day of work like this, it's not surprising to find her conked out taking a nap.

In the Garden

Despite being in the desert, it's nice to know that plants can in fact still grow, although it takes a lot more work to keep them alive.

We started green onions from roots we saved from a few dinners.  They're doing well now, but the first try didn't live very long.  We also tried onions, tomatos, and celery from seed but none of them made it past sprouting before dying.

This basil however has been growing pretty well the last few weeks.  Steve planted it as part of the Green Group's fundraising project.  In a few more weeks, they'll sell the basil plants on campus in part I think to raise awareness of the group.

Back porch gardening is a bit messy, with all of the pots lined up on cardboard, but it's fun to watch them grow.

Algie even likes to come out and help.

Stitching, Photos That Is

One of the great (or not so great) aspects of digital cameras is all of the preset modes.  They've predefined what they think it takes to make good portraits, landscapes, fireworks, snow, foliage, and action shots, which are all well and good, but in my opinion the best preset mode is the stitch assist on my Canon.  With this I can line up shots and then combine them into one image later.  You can actually do this without the preset mode, but if you use the setting, the file names are different for the stitched photos making them really easy to find.

Taking photos to make a panorama is pretty simple, but somehow despite having this camera since 2008, I have never once taken the images and made the panoramas from them.  Last week I realized how easy it was to do in Photoshop, and decided the wait was over.

If you click on the panoramas, it should open the image in its larger size.

This is the first one I did here on campus.  This is the harbor; in the distance you can see the beacon on the right, and the research buildings on the left.  Considering I had no idea what I was doing, I'm not terribly disappointed with how this turned out.  Not everything is lined up quite as well as I'd like, but the effect is there.

This is an incredibly old shot from when Steve and I spent Spring Break 2009 backpacking and camping in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.  This is from Druid's Arch, which if I recall was quite the hike/climb to get to, but the view was worth it.

This was the view from Balanced Rock in Arches National Park, and one of the first great views we had as soon as we got there.

Long Ago Beach Trip

Back in January, the sports club hosted a day at the beach where they had food, music, and water sports.  We went for a few hours, but didn't stay too long because it was just plain too hot and windy.

Sadly, winter is completely gone here, and it feels like we're sprinting right into summer, so there probably won't be very many beach days in our future; it will just be too darn hot!

Sights Around Campus

I pass a lot of interesting things when I'm out and about campus, so I thought I'd show you some of the more interesting things.

This pattern is all over our apartment building and the ones near ours.  The architectural style here is very heavy on patterns and geometric shapes, much more than back home.

Almost all of the student ride bikes to class and most of them end up parking here outside the library.  Some days it can even be hard to find a parking spot!

There are tons of windows on campus, and at one point or another they all need to be washed.  Unfortunately the only way to wash them easily is with a cherry picker, so I usually see a couple of these every day.  This is the exterior of the community library.

These are by far the ugliest flower/tree pots I've ever seen.  Some things just don't need to be emblazoned with the school logo; this was one of them.

Palm and date trees are the most numerous trees on campus.  There are other types, but none of them are ones I would recognize.

Flowers blooming on a tree outside of the academic library.  This is one of those trees that's not a palm or date, and therefore I have no idea what kind of tree it is.  It does however have pretty flowers.

Weevils in the Kitchen

The most disgusting thing in the kitchen is to see bugs rising to the top of a pot of cooking pasta.  Turns out we have weevils in our kitchen.  I have no idea how we got them, but they were in the pasta, barley, bread, kidney beans, and black eyed peas. So we had to go through all of the dried goods and throw out anything that had the weevils in them.  Every thing else got put into ziplock bags and put into the upper cabinets.  According to the internet, it could take up to a month before weevils appear from eggs, so our lentils, popcorn, and orzo are in quarantine until the end of April.

Probably the worst part about weevils (besides just being gross) is that we have no way of knowing where they came from.  It could be that they came in from outside, or that they were already in one of the packaged foods.  A lot of our dried foods do come from manufacturers in the Middle East, so I'm not sure what the general cleanliness of their facilities is like.

From now on, we'll store open dried goods in zip lock bags or maybe glass storage containers if the weevils can get into plastic.  This is a gross inconvenience, but hopefully we'll get rid of them all quickly.  Or they'll eat us out of house and home by the time we get back from Italy!  Bay leaves and cloves are apparently natural deterrents for weevils, so we might try putting some leaves in the cabinets as a bit of extra protection.

Broken Windows

Floor to ceiling windows look fantastic and let in a ton of natural light, so it shouldn't be surprising that the designers used them on campus wherever possible.  Almost every exterior window in the academic buildings, research buildings, library, and dining hall are floor to ceiling windows.  Now, the only downside is that some one will some how manage to break them.  So far, we've had three separate windows break, all of them in the library.  

Two broken windows on the ground floor of the library.  These have been broken since the fall.

Downside of a poorly trained maintenance staff is that they probably don't know how to fix them and don't have the materials to do so.  Given how long they've been broken, I'm probably not wrong.

This window is on the first floor of the library over looking the harbor.

Broken glass is pretty.

We're pretty sure the glass panes aren't load bearing because of the large floor to ceiling columns, so their either breaking because they were installed incorrectly (very likely) or because they are smashed with large awkward objects (like moving around ladders tall enough to reach the ceiling).

New Campus Signs

Some new official signs have popped up on campus, and I think they're pretty funny.

I'm not sure why we need signs designating Assembly areas and I've never had anyone say what an Assembly area is for, but now they're well marked with these snazzy new signs.  I'm more worried about the fourth person who lost either his body while assembling, or the second one who gained an extra head.

These signs and their opposites showed up on the apartment buildings that house single students.  I don't know who is in charge of ordering or making signs on campus, but I'm pretty sure they need that privilege revoked.  I definitely feel like there is an "a" and maybe an "are" missing here, but who knows maybe the school's official language was switched to pidgin.

Every time I see these signs, I get a bit of a laugh, so here's to hoping there are more in the future!

Spring Rolls

International cuisine isn't something we can just order in or head to a nearby restaurant to get our fill, several weeks ago we tried spring rolls.  Something about other cuisines makes them seem hard to replicate at home and generally challenging, but much to my delight, they are normally so easy to make!

I based our spring rolls on recipes from Little Birdie Secrets and It Works for Me.  Neither recipe fit our needs exactly, as one was for 200 rolls and the other involved pre-cooking the filling.

These were surprisingly easy to make!  Rolling them didn't take long either with two people doing it.

2 carrots
1 head of cabbage
1/2 box of vermicelli noodles
2 cans bean sprouts, drained
1 Onion sliced thinly
3 Green Onions sliced thinly
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 egg white
2 packages of spring roll pastry

Soak the vermicelli noodles in hot water for 10-15 minutes until soft.  Drain and dry thoroughly.

Grate the carrots and cabbage and squeeze out any extra liquid from the carrots. Slice the onions and green onions and combine all of these vegetables in a large bowl.  Add the noodles and mix very well.  After mixing well, add the bean sprouts, soy sauce, and mix again gently to avoid breaking the sprouts.

Allow the spring roll pastry to defrost, but keep it covered with a damp towel as they dry out very easily.  To fill them, place one pastry in a diamond shape and put a few tablespoons of filling in the nearest corner.  Start rolling the wrapper, using the egg white to dampen the remaining three corners.  Fold each side into the middle and continue rolling.  Stack them on a plate until all of the wrappers are filled.

Fry 2-3 at a time in hot oil.  Since this recipe made about 40 spring rolls, we spread the rolls onto a baking sheet so they weren't touching and froze them.  After freezing for several hours, pop them off the baking sheet and store them in a freezer bag.

We tried baking one batch, but we both agreed they were just better fried.

These lasted weeks in the freezer and it was pretty quick and easy to cook up a few at a time.

In retrospect, I probably would have used fewer noodles and added more carrots.  The hardest part of this whole cooking adventure was not having a bowl big enough to mix all of the ingredients easily, so I had to split it into two smaller bowls.

Britannia

Last week we went to a fun event about the culture of the British Isles.  It was a lot of fun, they had tasty British food, and some cute posters and signs.

This is a World War II era propaganda poster from England inspiring the British people to keep a stiff upper lip.

This play off of the original poster was my favorite.  I would love to have this hanging on the wall in the kitchen!

Mr. Men, Dr. Who, Red Planet, and other products from the British Isles.

Apparently all of these sports are real and have real people participate.  I'm not sure I'd ever go bog snorkeling or cheese rolling, but it was fun to see videos of people having fun doing it.

This poster was so cute! Read it closely and you'll have quite the laugh.

The caterers made this cute cake.  I'm not sure what the flag was made out of though.  It didn't taste like fondant, but wasn't regular icing either.  I'm not even sure if you were supposed to eat it as it was kind of gummy.

All in all, we had a great time listening to music, watching funny videos, and learning about the differences between the United Kingdom and the British Isles.  There's a similar event showcasing Pakistan tomorrow night, so it'll be interesting to learn even more about countries we've never seen!