Intercontinental Jubail

... as I knew only the big city. We drove past and again it was just sand , shrubs and little hills.

I did try to take some snaps but the bus was too fast for me so I guess you and I gotto be satisfied with these fleeting shots from my mobile. I noticed that the highway's sides were covered with wires all along and I wondered why. Realized later that they could be for keeping the camels from getting on the highway - I am so sad to say that I missed every picture ...

Not much - just waiting at the airport for the flight! Bahrain was both nicer and more boring than I thought, the weather is a lot more forgiving but it's not worth more than about 3 days exploration tops.. Unless you like to get really nittygritty :P

... and also not having any male family members with us [women are not allowed to cross solo, nor are they allowed to drive in Saudi!], we didn't even bother to attempt to cross the real border to go into Damman [although I wanted to..], so Saudi exploration will have to wait until I'm married :P [I have no brothers and my dad would much rather go anywhere else but a hot desert!]

... of Dubai. There were two interesting buildings - the World Trading Centre, which has 3 wind turbines in the middle of it that produce its power, and a pair of buildings I dont remember the name of that's shaped like two quarter-pikes [skate ramps]!

Our driver then took us to some random palace grounds thingy - basically, it's where the king keeps all of his camels. And there were LOADS of the buggers! We got to go in and stroke one of the baby camels, who at 3 ...

... very western (not an arabic word in sight!) and seems to be the big weekend getaway travel destination for the middle-easterners.

The weekend started off great for the 5 other girls... Meanwhile I was delayed at the airport until 3:30am... I had a later finishing shift, and thought it would be be "Mafi mushkila" (No problemo) to take the later flight - I really ought to have learned by now that NOTHING here is simple! :p

Anyway, determined to make ...

... bar but couldn't stay since you couldn't hear announcements up there and our plane wasn't on "the board" yet.

Mike grabbed McDonald's---a "McArabia" which he'd been eating all over here---a pita-like wrapper with chicken inside---it looked good.  We headed downstairs to see if we could track down some information on the flight via the airport transfers staff (unlike in the U.S., where each airline has dedicated re-booking and transfer staff, these ones are shared at the ...

... 8217;t as productive as I’d hoped it would be, but with the key objectives already accomplished, I wasn’t as concerned. Knowing I was interested in local/Saudi food, the admin ordered traditional lamb for the team’s lunch. Again, it was a ton of food with the lamb/rice dish, a cucumber/tomato/dressing salad, yogurt, olives, hummus and bread.

At around 2:30, I was in a ...

Up around 7:30 for an 8:30AM pick-up by Saad. Had my “free” breakfast and actually remembered to take pictures this time. Met a very nice Pakistani that sold spices and spice foods to grocers---got his card, but had run out of mine.

Trials all day again. The humidity was even more brutal than last night---measured it at about 65% (temp=85 F) in the production area, but must have been worse outside. Temperature and ...

... tried recording it, but pretty sure it was still too quiet for my camera to pick up on video setting. We got to Carrefour but it was still closed for prayer, so Erwin bought me some ice cream (he got peach mango, I got green apple), and we wandered the mall that it was attached to. The ice cream didn’t really taste like ice cream to me---kinda like the texture of gelato, but way watered down. Still good though, especially as the humidity picked up more than it ...

... seemed to have the build and look of a Pakistani, and dressed similar to my Indian friends in college. He was wearing shorts a bit shorter than me, which helped make me more comfortable in my get up. Saw some other guys wearing shorts too, but much longer than knee-length. All courts were taken and only one had a door, so we waited a bit for a pair of guys on that court to finish up (though supposedly they were going to be finished 15 min earlier). Farhad ...