Vanishing acts....

Last Saturday we took the JEEP down to the local dealer to finalise the registration and transfer of ownership. Here in Saudi as I mentioned before the car has to be impounded by a car dealer whilst the transfer is being affected. This is for the purpose of ensuring that there are no outstanding fines, dues or criminal activities associated with the car. If there are the police simply confiscate it. Makes sense actually.

Got a call on Monday to say its all fine, come and pick it up. Finaly after all this time, all those hurdles overcome and it is ours. It was a sweet moment.

So we immediately went for a drive to Al Khobar old town to kind of celebrate. I also had another joyous reason to go. My weight loss has been going really well. I am now down to 90 Kg from my initial 106.3, all in about 3 months. I had to buy new jeans waist size 34. My old ones are all size 38 and have become rather baggy.

However being blessed with rather a simian anatomy of sub-standard length legs I always have to shorten any pants that I get. The old town is full of tailor shops some no bigger than a small wardrobe. Literally nestled into wall cavities and nooks and crannies. Its just another one of these charming facets and joys of exploring the old areas.

They are what we call here same-same tailors. Anotherwords you take any garment to them, pick your material and they will replicate it exactly. It's a wonderful service if you have a favourite piece of clothing that you want re-born or updated.

I parked the car on the corner in exactly the same manner that all other cars were parked. There is absolutely no signage anywhere indicating where to or not to park or how long to stay etc. So never gave it another thought.

We wnt into a tiny tailor shop where they said they will shorten the jeans in 1 hour for the price 15 Riyals (AUD 5). I remember having the same done in the shopping centre tailors in Melbourne for $ 35. We have it so good here.

Then we went walkabout for about an hour to pick up some jewellery (Jill's name spelt out in Arabic done in gold). We came back to the spot where we parked and all of a sudden had that sinking feeling... My God, where is the car. Is it stolen? You keep looking at the spot where you know you left it and now there is some other car there. Amasing what thoughts go through your head. You think: "I'm on a wrong street, this can't be the spot, I'll just look on the next corner and it will be there." All disbelief and denial. Asked the tailor if he knew what happened. He just pointed us to this tow truck that was actually removing cars from the street. Went over, asked the driver and he just said "Parking bad go there" pointing to a Car Park about 50 meters down the road. Sure enough it was impounded.

It cost us SR 180 ($60) to "liberate" it. Again I remember in Melbourne paying $300 to get the car when it was removed from Bourke St. It was such a relief to get it back.

The attendant in the booth just smiled at us and said "My dear, you can park here for 1 Riyal per hour". So now we know. When we go down-town just park in these spaces for 30 cents an hour. Not a bad deal. Guarantees no more magic. No more vanishing acts...