Day 1: False alert

24.4.09 - We decide to go out and get some breakfast. We all get ready, I put on my Abaya, the children wear their summer clothes and we step out of the apartment. And boy oh boy, it is so hot already, it’s only spring and mid morning but it’s at least 35 degrees in the shade, of which there is very little. We bravely make our way to the breakfast place which is about 15 minutes away. 

We walk down a couple of residential streets and are struck by A: there is absolutely no one around, no cars, no people, nothing. And B, the houses are ginormous and all look like mini palaces; grand, beautifully decorated, and very impressive.

<-- one of the many large nearby houses - probably owned by a fairly well-to-do Arab family

But our enthusiasm starts to fade as we struggle with the heat. By the time we get to the hotel we have all (except for Dirk who doesn’t do pink, he just goes brown), turned an unattractive blotchy, shiny pink, and with the children’s puffy spots, Oli’s deformed ear, and Rosalie’s swollen eye (from mosquito bite) we’re definitely a sad looking lot. The cool air conditioned reception is divine and I can’t bear to leave it. We park ourselves on some lavish chairs around a little table and quickly leech onto the wireless connection to check emails (we don’t have any connection in the apartment).  We order some more gorgeous fresh fruit cocktails, mine is lemon and mint and absolutely divine.

We then move to the pool area, I knew that women can only swim fully clothed and decided I wasn’t brave enough yet to swim in my Abaya (science was never my strong subject, and I thought that there may be a chance that my Abaya if immersed in water would float and end up round my neck, and that would cause quite a stir). So I stayed in the shade while the children played in the water. Saudi’s are definitely not keen on nudity of any kind, even children are covered, not entirely but often wear t-shirts and long shorts (girls and boys). Again, we were the only whites around, and the Saudi children looked at us with interest. It soon started to get quite windy, and little by little people were leaving the pool, some holding their scarves round their mouths. It became dusty too and I started wondering if we were about to be hit by a sand storm. And if so, would anyone come and tell me, and how long does a sand storm take to build up, and how serious is it to be outside when it arrives… I decided to be sensible and packed everything up quite quickly and ushered everyone back in inside. There was no sand storm in the end. Just lots of wind and that invariably stirs up sand from all around Riyadh. Ironically Arabs hate sand apparently hence the rapid departure from the pool.