Holiday Inn Olaya Riyadh

... Arabic. He had lived in Riyadh for the past ten years with his family and he was about 35 years old. As we took the main airport road he explained about the traffic in KSA, the accidents, the money and he pointed where I would be working as we passed what must have been one of the biggest buildings I’ve ever seen. It was the SABIC headquarters, and it is the second biggest employer in KSA (after Saudi-Aramco), with an excellent reputation internationally. As we glided ...

... correctly, just draping it loosely over my head would be ok, which is just as well because a week later with plenty of opportunity to practice, i still can't do it properly.

Arrived Riyadh airport around 7pm in the evening along with a couple of other flights. Glenn had organised a fast track service available for businessmen, so we were able to by pass the lines, which was good as i ...

... to repeat it several times. After visiting the "watercloset" we went to the abutions area to perform wudu'. My 4 year old daughter sat and played in the water and gave a constant commentary ("Mommy, this water is hot! Why is the water hose pink? What is that in the drain? Can I put soap on my nose? Can I clean the drain? Yuck, this soap tastes terrible!") while I finished my ablutions, and when I turned I saw that there was an entire half-circle of ...

When you are entering Riyadh from the east, you pass a lot of agricultural spots -- date farms, dairy farms, fields with modern irrigation equipment. Leaving the city heading west it's as if you have come to the edge of a vast cliff and are now headed down into an enormous valley. Our ears ...

We reached Riyadh close to midnight. My husband's aunt's (by marriage) brother lives in Riyadh, and we usually sleep at their villa and have a meal before heading out again for the longer segment of our journey. Riyadh is a huge city; unfortunately it has only been a stopover point for us, we haven't had the opportunity to spend much time exploring.

After dinner and a night's rest we left, making a short stop at Starbucks for a Frappucino. I ...

... to prayer is heard over the loudspeakers. You can't interrupt a patient whilst they are praying. You must be ever so mindful of the female patient not wanting to expose her hair - and when transporting female patients, they like to put the sheet over their head to cover until they get back to the ward, where they are allowed to wear their headscarf again. Its a very different feel, and I'm getting there slowly I think! Certainly an interesting experience so far :) Kat

... with Luke, and then head to Turkey for a week or so. Im already formulating tarvel plans in my head! The one rather large hurdle in all this is attempting to converse with the non-english-speaking arab patient... I think i'm doing alright with my arabic, learning new phrases every day - although im not sure my accent helps my cause all that much. It takes 3 times as long to ask a simple question because they cant understand me all that well, and if they give me a ...

... and sand is totally worth it :p We went on a city tour as part of our orientation... Which wasn't so much of a tour as a trip to kingdom tower, which was fabulous anyway. I was soooooooooooooooooooooooooo bummed that I didn't have the camera on me! It was amazing. The tower is almost 300mt tall, and has 99 floors. The elevator went up at 120km/hr! The view was spectaular. The city of Riyadh is so much bigger than I had imagined... And it looked even more surreal because you couldn't ...

... it was about, I was saddened to hear that she had sat on her Cerutti 1881 sunglasses and broke them. Understand, I had bought these for Dawn in Kuwait when she lost her previous pair of sunglasses. I had been taken with these particular glasses when she had tried them on and subsequently made a special trip to buy them for her. I knew she would never have bought them herself due to the price. Dawn is notoriously cheap when it comes to buying things for herself ...

... Jordanian man who checked the Trooper. I was set! Or was I? Nope. 20 JD later (about 35 dollars Cdn), I had more papers, but had to go to yet another booth for a stamp on them. Come on - this was becoming a farcical scene from a bad movie! Finally, I bullied my way to the front and got my stamp. Yipee - now out to the Trooper, motion the guy parked behind me to move so I could get out, and we were on our way (James having done the passports in 1/4 of the time it ...