Sheraton Dammam Hotel Towers

... Nights. I am sure we were right in the middle of the desert - the milestone said 700 Km to Jeddah - and the desert was awesome! It seemed to me like some sort of a dream. The lay of the land here was basically little hills amidst sand with scattered shrubs. I was totally lost in the scenery, just looking out of my right and taking it all in. We kept going on further and I saw a town that we seemed to be passing by. I couldnt believe that Saudi had small towns like this ...

Apparently the Bahrain-Saudi border is on a little island [not sure if it has an official name], which hosts a rest point on either side of the border, complete with matching observation towers. The whole road, which is 45km long, is called the King Fahad Causeway on the Bahraini side, with a different Saudi name.. Interesting stuff! :) Due to it being Ramadan and us not being ...

... rush to tie up loose end at the plant, package some things to send back to the U.S., and give away some of the small gifts I had bought in Atlanta for the people I’d be working with. The taxi driver got lost in the Industrial City that the plant was in, so I spent about 10 minutes standing in the sweltering heat and sun during the peak of the day, sweating my butt of in my business clothes.

... to-a-room and two rooms per apartment. Married expats get a housing allowance (so they can live outside company-provided housing) along with other benefits. Just another incentive created to get people to marry in Saudi. I asked if there were advantages (more freedom) for women to get married. He said, “No---there’s no freedom wither way!” Interestingly, the average man gets married at about 26 and the average girl at ...

... Khobar (since I mentioned wanting to explore the area). We had until 8, so we had time to check out a few local stores and see the local people. On the way there, Erwin talked about marrying his wife in Saudi (also a Christian Philippino), his 2-year-old daughter, and his 12-year-old daughter living with his mother and going to school in the Philippines. I didn’t really understand why he’s send his daughter away like that (though I didn’t press ...

... again in the lobby in an hour.

I didn’t really bring my squash-playing clothes with me, so all I really had were a pair of basketball shorts used for sleeping, a t-shirt, low-cut white socks for hiking, and some low-cut brown hiking shoes (no tennis shoes!). I had warned Saad about the shoes and the shorts (since hiking shoes aren’t made for running and shorts aren’t very modest), but he seemed to think it would be OK. I picked out a ...

Pendant nos 2 semaines de Paques , nous sommes alles en Egypte. Pour voir les civilisations anciennes. Le Caire est une ville gigantesque. En Egypte , il a 80 millions d'habitants. Au Caire, ils sont plus de 23 millions!!! During our Spring Break , we decided to visit Egypt. Cairo is a monster of a city! The total population of Egypt 80 million.....the population in Cairo 23 million.....! Enjoy our pictures! Marc and Nat

... of wood and wood-like materials (I saw a pet door in there), and general chatter and joking around commenced. As the sun set and a gigantic full moon rose, we packed up, drove out to the electrical pylon we'd entered the dunes from and reinflated the tires, as some of the boys shot off fireworks -- impressive ones, not the **** you can get in Canada. As my uncle explained, sometimes you just need to get away from the city for a while.

... and back to the flea bag hotel.. We were there for about 10 minutes when the taxi arrived and we were off to the airport. Finally, we were able to leave Egypt, we have been looking forward to this day since we arrived. Keep in mind how we feel about Egypt and the places we visited are our opinions, not everyones. We did enjoy it, it was just rougher than we expected. We arrived in Bahrain about 7PM, we couldn't ...

... consuming than it was in Cairo and then the plane broke. The A340 we were to fly on developed a technical fault so they sat at a maintenance stand with us on the plane for 2 1/2 hours while the engineers solved the problem. We were not having fun; in fact one lady hopped up and told the steward that she was going to get off the plane for a few minutes, even if she had to stand on the tarmac. We do not know if she made it, but she was not taking no for an answer.