21.4.09 - We've arrived in Riyadh (means 'garden' in arabic), capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I now have a different life in a very different world. The people, the weather, the architecture, the landscape, shops, social norms, the pace, the way people dress, the food, everything has changed.
Our arrival and journey from plane to exit is surprisingly straightforward. I quickly put on my Abaya and head gear on before leaving the plane and glide through the airport quite liking the feel of it. Having heard stories of intimidating officials, and strict censorship customs, I was expecting at least a luggage check but nothing. We were even invited to jump the very long snail paced passport control queue because we had children. But once out in the main airport hall, the differences start to hit. The crowd of people waiting is 99% male, and 100% Arabic. Most are wearing their traditional attire: white long tobes with a red and white chequered head set (shma) with black ring. I feel again out of place but as men are not allowed to stare at another man’s wife, I’m pretty much left alone and I don’t feel intimated. It took over an hour for the hotel’s taxi to find us, not sure why exactly, despite numerous phone calls (via a third party as the taxi driver didn’t speak English) there appeared to be a misunderstanding as to our exact location in the airport. Anyhow, when it did turn up the car was too small, we have so much luggage we had to take two taxis to Heathrow that morning and had checked in 13 items of luggage! So although we had asked for a people carrier, this standard Ford turned up and there was no way we were going to all everything in. It seems that this is how life is here, things are u
npredictable, you ask for one thing and get another. After causing some commotion as various taxi drivers tried to entice us in their equally small cars, we finally managed to find a people carrier, blissfully air conditioned, and we all piled in. It’s a miracle that nothing got lost out of the 20 or so various items we were carrying with us.
We arrive at our serviced apartments, and marvel at the size, everything is big, high ceilings, large spacious rooms. Space is not at a premium here and everything is spread out, roads are wide, houses are big. We calculate that the children’s bedroom is probably the size of the first floor of our house in London. And this is not a particularly upmarket place. Very quickly the place looks like a bombsite as various things get unpacked and spread around.
<-- our apartment block
Next challenge, getting some food, we haven’t had anything to eat in 8 hours so we enquire about food and are handed over some take away menus. But as we look through the menus, the only thing we can make out is a Dominos logo, everything else is in Arabic, even the phone numbers. One of the porters kindly converts the phone numbers and as Dominos weren’t answering their phone (something else to get used to), we decide to go with some local food and order things at random as we have no idea what’s what. We’re in for a bit of a surprise when the food turns up as it takes 4 people to bring it all in. We have a banquet on our hands! There’s enough for a dozen people but it’s delicious, divine fresh juice smoothies, naan style bread, kebabs, houmous, aubergine paste, bright pink pickled vegetables and some other vegetable assortments. Boy did we enjoy it.
That pretty much ends the day, we’re all off to bed after that, Rosalie is on a mattress on the floor (we decided to leave the travel cot behind to limit our luggage weight) which she loves as she can get up and wonder around as she pleases. Takes a while to get her settled but she is so tired she finally collapses. Same with the parents. Morning starts early, as I hear Rosalie wondering around the apartment in the dark at 4am UK time, she’s looking for us and I find her at the front door trying to get out! Dirk kindly does the early morning shift, while we all try and get more sleep. Seb is next, in true Seb style he wakes up in a real state convinced he is being attacked by a swarm of insects, and is adamant that he can hear buzzing inside his head. I send him back and tell him it’s all a bad dream Unfortunately when the children wake up, I realise that we’ve got some company, and they sure had a feast during the night, Seb and Rosalie get off lightly but poor Oliver is covered in large ugly mosquito bites, we counted 40 in total including one on his ear which has caused it to swell up and turn a deep red. Poor Oli, he doesn’t complain though.
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