Unexpected Bahrain…

Sometimes things turn up so unexpectedly. Jill came back from her Ozzie sojourn last Thursday morning. As soon as she got back to work she was told that she would be leaving for Bahrain to take part in a marketing exercise in Bahrain’s Seef Mall, one of the original shopping centers in Manama.

So after almost a month of being separate we faced another 4 days of being apart. Mind you this is a bit of a change as it is usually me that goes off gallivanting on international business trips with Jill staying at home. This time it was my turn to stay and hers to enjoy the executive entrapments.

At the same time I had put in my request for a multiple exit/entry visa with our GR (Government Relations) department. I did not expect to get it for a while as there was no particular urgency to it. So I was very pleasantly surprised when they rang me on Thursday afternoon saying that it’s ready to be picked up. The visas are not actually stamped into the passport. They are simply a separate official document which is presented at the border.

Jill had already left the previous day and was really enjoying the experience. I got a call from her boss Rania, saying that she had Jill’s per diem allowance and would I come and pick it up. I also volunteered to take it over with some other PMU material so that was settled.

I was going to leave on the same day but the driver had left earlier because on Wednesdays it can take hours to clear the customs on the causeway. Wednesday afternoon is when everyone heads off to Bahrain for the weekend. So the queues are extraordinarily long. Same on Fridays when all are coming back. If you have not headed back to Saudi by about 1PM you might as well stay there till midnight otherwise you will sit in your car for 5-7 hours.

The crossing is actually easy. As you head out to Bahrain you come to a set of toll gates where you pay SR 20 I guess as an exit tax. Next booth further down is where they check that the car has proper registration and clearance to leave the country. You drive up to the passport control where your visa is checked. One more stop is maybe required for customs check. Usually they will just wave you through. Once past that there is another booth where you have to buy mandatory car insurance for Bahrain. It costs SR 40 and covers 3 days. So all up if there is no congestion you can do the whole thing in about 10 minutes max. The same is in reverse except that you do not have to buy insurance as you already have that for your car in Saudi. (Car insurance is mandatory and you simply cannot get on the road without having it.)

Once in Bahrain things change dramatically. The roads are in excellent condition. Bahrain is only a tiny place so they can afford to pave it all and keep it maintained. All the crazy driving vanishes and its like being in any nice small town. No stunts, no speeding. Lights and cameras everywhere. Looks like all governments learn how to extract felluce from the drivers. Sounds like its culturally universal.

Bahrain is full of cranes with many projects going up and marvelous architecture everywhere. A bit like Dubai really with one difference. Bahrainis can pay for it.

So that was a start to a wonderful weekend. Jill has already started blogging on how it all was and I will give you my side shortly.

Kingdom of Bahrain - Representing PMU

After all the run around beforehand we finally made it through all the boom gates, checkpoints, passport control exit & entry points into Bahrain. It is actually a lot easier to get into Saudi than it was to get out! Our driver had even been phoned and told that we had an apartment to stay in and we were taken straight there to leave our luggage and have a short rest before heading off to the Seef Mall.

 

Our apartment by Saudi standards was not what you would call the Ritz but I was pleasantly surprised at the spaciousness, cleanliness and comfort of it and have to admit it was a lot nicer than our own apartment in Al Bilad Compound. For one it had a nice dining table that didn't need to be covered by a cloth :D, nice chairs, comfortable 3 seater & 2 seater couches as well as 2 arm chairs and a socket for internet connection which was free :D - only drawback - bed was hard! Oh and no brekkie available as they were family serviced apartments with kitchen.

 

Moving through every room you can imagine my dismay to find that unlike Saudi where you have an abundance of power outlets of different wattage in every room to find that here there were none in the bathroom at all, and only full on British 210v plugs and sparsely situated at that. After thoroughly searching the room that my bag had been put in to find none anywhere, I noticed an outlet in the larger room the other lady with me had commandeered, so I calmly and with authority suggested that seeing as I was there for the full 4 days and she was there only overnight that if she wouldn't mind I would like to take the larger room - cheeky I know, and as she is younger than me she acquiesced and moved her stuff and I had an outlet for my hair dryer and straightener :D after all - public image - you gotta do what you gotta do :D

 

Then I had the problem that my phone battery was nearly flat (Jesse is constantly at me for this as no one really calls me and I forget) and I had brought a Saudi 110v computer cord with me which didn't fit. I phoned down to reception to see if they had an adapter and they sent one up, however it had been used many times and they tend to go "loose" so that whatever you put in falls right back out so still same problem, computer not connected to electricity, phone going flat and still receiving and making calls to my boss back in Saudi. I had at least 1 hour of battery time on my computer so managed a short charge to phone and once we got to the Seef mall I told my male colleague Jassim my problem and he kindly went to radio shack and brought me an adapter that was tight so problem solved :D

 

One would think as it was approaching 4 pm by this time that I would have gone immediately to work - wrong! I was so busy from when I got to the university at 8am until arriving at the apartment that I hadn't eaten since 6 am that morning and was feeling faint from hunger. Jassim our male colleague said no problem - go, eat, take your time, no hurry, no problem :D - so the other lady and I took off immediately. The ladies in our office had told us exactly where to go to eat for very nice food, which was to go to the end of the  Seef mall, outside and across the road, through another mall and outside that one to a very nice restaurant where they were very right, the food was very nice and the desserts even nicer. Must be one of the more exclusive as the cars parked outside were Rolls, Daimler, Merc - latest & biggest, Ferari, BMW - I am sure you get the drift :P - I still haven't had a decent cup of "hot" coffee here - I stick to the iced ones as at least they taste like coffee but I sometimes try hot just in case.

 

 

(Notice the lamp in the window? I really like it :D)

 

So 1 1/2 hour later we went to work and we had constant visitors stopping by our booth to take the books and pamphlets and ask information about the university. We left at about 9.30pm and Jassim asked if we needed anything like take-away food or supermarket and he once again kindly took us to a supermarket near our apartment and brekkie and snacks were taken care of.

 

Our next working day and every day after started at noon and we went until 9pm every night except for one night which was about 10.15 - people on that night just kept coming everytime we looked like packing up to leave. It sounds like a hard slog to stay that amount of time in a booth, but keep in mind there were 3 of us, and we were in a very large mall, so we all took turns at being there for 2 hours and disappearing for at least 1-2 hours. Jassim was a very nice man to work with and nothing was too much trouble or too hard for him.

 

(Hope you notice Jesse’s weight loss – 11kg :D)

 

When we were having lunch on our second day I received a call from my boss to say that the our allowances had been organised and that Jesse had received his exit/entry visa and would be bringing it with the driver the next morning - he was to be picked up and brought across with the ladies - so any surprise he may have been planning for me was totally ruined :P - as you can imagine I was immediately on the phone to say - "oh you have your visa? How surprisingly quick was that (it was only 2 days)? oh and I hear you are also bringing me money and are coming to stay a night?"......lol - bush telegraph works equally as quickly here as back in Aus :D

 

He arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning at about 9.30 in the morning and was pleasantly surprised by the size of our apartment. We were also both very amused when a junior lady that works with me in my office (a young 24 year old true Saudi - very lovely) made the comment when she came in - "They are MAKING you stay here? Oh this is very very bad - I have such a bad feeling walking in here! What is PMU's problem? They should put you in the Ritz Carleton near the Seef Mall! Oh this is so very bad! I could not stay here!" - Bear in mind that the Ritz is probably THE most expensive hotel to stay in in Bahrain :D

 

Oh the joys of generation Y's expectations and also factoring young Saudi expectation also kicking in :D Will their expectations be met in a modern world? Or are they setting themselves up for disappointment?

 

We all bundled into the car for work, and when we arrived there was virtually no one about so we headed down for Starbucks coffee. Once people started to arrive at the mall we headed back and Jesse had a good look around - went to the cinema to check out what movies were showing and headed back to our stand. By this time it was lunch time so I decided to take him to a sushi restaurant I had noticed the previous day which was also out through the other mall which he loved and took many photos of as you saw above. He was amazed and really surprised to find that it was a Yo Sushi bar like he used to frequent often in London.

 

 

 

All in all he had a really wonderful time and it was great to have him there - it is the first time he has been out of Saudi since our arrival so he was really happy to have large cd shops to browse in and wireless internett coffee shops to sit at, the shops not shutting at prayer time, as well as catching a stupid movie - Clash of the Titans 3D - I will let him tell you about his experience in the cinema :P ......hehehe.

 

I had even noticed the night before when Jassim stopped for Macca's a Nandos, so that is where I took him for his tea :D but it is a full on service restaurant over here, as in order taken at table, manager coming to find out how the meal is etc etc :D oh and bottomless coke :D

 

Verdict - I really like Bahrain and I am very sure once we get our car that we will be going back there a lot :D

Getting Ready to Represent PMU at Seef Mall, Bahrain :D

 

As everyone knows I arrived safely back to Al Khobar and had almost a full weekend to recuperate before heading straight back to work. It was hard… as it’s always hard to get back into the rhythm of alarms, early brekkie, and getting showered and dressed ready for work. Fortunately for me :D I was only back at work for one day when I was asked if I could go to Bahrain for a marketing campaign at one of the large malls……… of course the answer was immediately YES!

 

I was a natural choice as I could do the full 4 days and stay the 3 nights, unlike the other ladies in our department as most have small children which makes it hard to go away for that length of time. They wanted to send two ladies as well as one man to be in the booth, and my boss was having trouble getting another lady. I suggested what if we did rotation and send one lady for one night and another lady for another night which was immediately taken on board and arranged without any trouble for anyone.

 

I turned up to work on Tuesday with my bags (last time I went away to Riyadh the hotel didn’t have a hair dryer, so I thought 4 days - so necessary is clothing, hair dryer, hair straightener, laptop, book etc etc) and was meant to be ready to leave at 10am. Well I asked about allowance, assumed hotel room had been reserved, and waited to be told when the driver would be there. Was told that as it is holiday season at the moment there were no hotel rooms to be had via our travel agent anywhere in Bahrain :( and allowance had not been arranged! So after  spending a busy morning organizing the pamphlets and booklets needed to hand out, making sure I had the surveys and visitor sheets, I was finally told the driver was at the front gate to take me to the bank to cash a cheque and that I would be responsible to distribute it to everyone, and that the other lady going with me would meet me with a different driver that would be taking us across the causeway. Sounds easy doesn’t it? :P

 

We got to the bank in plenty of time before prayer so both the cashier and myself went in and he then asked me – “do you have the cheque?” I gave him a blank look – the one you all associate with me and said no – “you do!” Then the flurry of discussion, the phone calls to my boss and were told to wait there and she would ring me back. I also had to go to the travel agent to collect the hotel vouchers so I rang her back after 5 minutes of waiting to say we would go down to the travel agent because it was now 11.45am and the agent closed from noon until 4pm. She agreed to this move, so back into the car and headed towards downtown to travel agent. We were not quite there yet and we could hear the noon prayer call going out, but luckily the agents had been told we were on our way and they kindly stayed open for us. The cashier and I then went in to be told sorry, no rooms anywhere, our agent over there has had no luck whatever as it it peak holiday time. I had been told to wait until they procured a room for us, so wait we did until we had the call that our colleague over in Bahrain was out searching for rooms himself and to go back to the bank where the cheque was to be delivered to us.

 

Well we then went back to the bank, the cheque arrived at the bank and we went in to cash it – all good one would think. No! – the cheque had been made out in our colleague’s name and even though it had been signed on the back that it was ok for the bearer (me) to cash, the bank wouldn’t even consider it because our colleague had to counter sign – which he couldn’t coz he was in Bahrain :) I was then told that they would get a different cheque and that our allowances would come over the next day with one of the other ladies doing the rotation…… so this was it – we were off overseas to Bahrain.

 

The new driver turned up in a PMU bus with the lady I was to travel with and I was a bit surprised that we would be going via bus, but no, we were then driven to the street where the driver lived to change over into his own car. He disappeared for probably 10 minutes and we were supposed to wait in the car, but the aircon was on its lowest possible setting, the car had been sitting in the hot sun for hours so I got out and waited under a tree until he came back. The lady I was with waited in the car, so I would assume that either she didn’t feel the heat like I do, or that she didn’t feel comfortable waiting in the street. Then we were off :D

 

The King Fahd causeway bridge is something else and is really nice to drive across. It is 28km long and there were about 7 checkpoints to get out of Saudi and into Bahrain. We didn’t take too long to get through but were still surprised at the amount of traffic for that time of day. If traffic isn’t too heavy either going to Bahrain or coming back to Al Khobar it is about 40 minutes all up including, passport control, vehicle check, and the entry/exit boom gates. It can take hours though if traffic is heavy, or as our first experience when first arriving to Saudi via Bahrain on the bus 4 hours.

Driving Across King Fahd Causeway

This is the entering to Saudi side of the bridge and I will post another blog with pics of our display stand at the Seef Mall in the coming days.

I’m Back – Hello Jesse, Al Khobar, and PMU

I made it back in one piece :D and not too jet lagged as I tend to sleep fairly well on the plane which is lucky considering it was a 14.5 hour flight from Melbourne to Doha airport.

The first thing I did after take off as one does was go through the movie guide and thought bewdy, several good movies that I haven’t managed to see yet like the Princess & the Frog and other such wonderful viewing…….yipee! I managed to hold off and wait until the meal was served and then gleefully tried to put my headphones into the socket...

No luck, so I called the cabin staff member and she said oh so casually "sorry ma’am it is broken" :( so imagine my dismay – a full plane with only 1 other seat available next to a small boy, so I thought no thanks. I was pretty angry as Qatar airlines advertise themselves as worlds 5 star airline and the stupid stinkin’ headset didn’t work on a 14.5 hour flight.
I was pretty agitated but I then gave myself a good talking to and thought - well I got away with over 10kg of excess luggage for absolutely nothing which would have cost an absurdly huge amount usually so managed to calm myself down and the up side of this was I probably slept for at least 6-8 hour during the flight.

We arrived safely on schedule in Doha and I had the most wonderful espresso frappe in one of the cafe’s at the airport and then settled in for the 1.5 hour wait for the plane to take off to Saudi – this boarded a little late and was also full of Pakistanis and Indians all touching down in Saudi for work.

Then once the plane landed and we got to passport control I truly realised I was back in Saudi Arabia. There were 4 lines of at least 2 or 3 full planes that had landed to get through the passport gate…..grrrrrrr about 3/4 hour later the guard came and said anyone returning with iqama and paperwork go to another line, so the line I was in virtually disappeared and they all went to the new line – I had all the correct paper work and visa’s etc but no way was I goingto get to the back of another long line of about 40 when I was only about 15 from the front.

The upshot was 1.5 hour later I finally got through to collect my luggage and out to find the husband waiting very patiently for me. (I had called to let him know about the hold up).The trouble was he was waiting for his “blonde” wife and a brunette turned up :D so it took him a minute or two to recognise me.

As I was standing in line I was thinking maybe turning my hair darker wasn’t that wise a move as the photos in my passport and Saudi residence permit (iqama) were all taken when I was blonde and maybe I would have trouble getting back through. But there were no probs so the short moment of panic was for nothing :D

I was pleased to arrive back, and imagine my surprise that Jesse had organised for the crappy lounge suite we had that had sunken down and was very crooked to sit on, to be taken away and replaced with a fully sprung one in a bright royal blue with big gold flowers. It is really nice to sit on and looks a lot nicer with the furniture we have than the old one :D …… well done Jesse :D

I miss our little Hannah and really look forward to seeing all the new pics that get posted via facebook every few days – she has grown so much in the few short weeks since she was born and is looking more beautiful every day :D – Notice the bootees :P – her Nanna knitted them for her :D

How cute is that ?

3 Generations :D

Uncle Pete and Aunty Kelly (practicing)

I am waiting for a snap of the proud Daddy and I will post that when it makes it way to fb :D

I Am feeling a bit tired as it got late quite suddenly and I will write another story soon about now I ended up writing this one overseas in Bahrain :D

Jilly on her way back...

Just had two SMSs from Melbourne Airport. Jill is through the border control and about to board. Me and my friend Mohammed (he of the dead chicken fame) are going in the morning to pick her up from the Dammam airport. We should be ok this time coming back as Jill will be with us and able to guide us back home safely.

Last time me and big Mo ended up half way to Riyadh. That's how badly we got lost. You can imagine when a local who has lived here for 10 years asks YOU if you know where we are. Panic time. I have never been what you would call a "skillful navigator". Unfortunatly I think I have passed on this genetic defect onto my children with I think Daniel being particularly afflicted. As far as I am concerned GPS is the greatest invention since time immemorial. :)

Anyway can hardly wait to see her. Its been 3 long weeks and as you can see from the previous post, single life is simply not for me :)

Only a few hours to go now...

Mobility coming soon...

We have been here in KSA now for just over 6 months. This is the kind of place where having a car is a must. It has been ok during the late autumn, winter and now spring period as the weather has been absolutely fantastic. Just nice and balmy. Perfect T-Shirt weather.

I have been surprised actually as to how mild it has been. We all have an image of Saudi as a hot desert. Well it actually is but only for a part of the year. June, July and August are the worst months with August actually being named the "Hell month" because the temperature is between 45 and 50 C with tremendous humidity. I do remember coming here to Dammam from Riyadh (when I was here the first time), stepping out of the a/c car and instantly emulating a sodden sponge. They tell me that in the past it was common for a lot of older people to actually perish in the heat To keep cool they had a habit of simply lying down and covering themselves with wet rags during the hottest parts of the day.

These days its all a/c'd. You have it in your home, workplace, car, shopping malls etc. Makes life very tolerable and comfortable.

So what is the point of this pre-amble ?? It's to tell you that basically you cannot be without a car unless you are prepared to sit in your appartment for 3-4 months in the summer.

This place has no public transport worthy of any note. And the one that does exist is so erratic and unreliable and requires great sleuthing skills to actually find it. It is interesting to note that Riyadh is building a subway. The roads are a mess there at the moment as they are digging huge trenches to construct it.

Even prior to coming here I had discussed cars with my Saudi friends and one of them Fahad a coleauge that I worked with in Riyad Bank siad that he was selling his 2007 Jeep Commander and if I wanted to buy it. And so we agreed. I mean its a 5.7L HEMI 330 Kw, with 3 types of 4WD available. I mean what's not to like here, and with petrol being 16 halalas or 4.6 cents (AUD) per litre, you run the damn thing for next to nothing.

So one of the first things that I tried to do when we arrived was to try and get together a loan. Silly, naive me. Thought it would be straight forward. As most things in Saudi, not so.

The bank needs your usual documentation: iqama (residence permit), passport copies, salary statement and an employment letter. No probs the latter two provided by PMU. But when I submitted it all they said we also need a "Transfer Letter". That is basically a guarantee by your employer that they will transfer all your salary and end-of-service entitlements into a nominated bank account.

I thought that it was a routine letter but alas it was not. Companies do not provide this letter until you have been with them for at least 3 months. (most probationary periods are around this long). PMU however has a policy of waiting for 6 months. The reason for this is becausa quite a few people who start, take out a loan and then skip the place (do a "runner" in our parlance) basically stealing that money.

So it became obvious that we can do nothing for 6 months. Well finaly I have it and its all organised. I am just waiting for the first salary transfer into the new bank and it should all be there after that. We started banking with SAMBA but the loan will be with SABB (local HSBC) since Fahad works there.

Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures of our new transport in about 3 weeks.

Then it will be exploration time. Kuwait is 4 hours away, Qatar the same, Bahrain is 1 hour over the causeway, Oman is about 12 hours and Dubai and Abu Dhabi are about 10. So we shell explore and report to you from all these lovely places.

Single men's life...

I have been a bachelor for the last 3 weeks whilst Jill has been back in Oz. Well as I am finding out it really isn't all that great. I am just not used to coming back to an empty, silent house. Jilly you are missed!

So I have carried out an experiment on myself which has required an incredible amount of sacrifice, hardship , suffering, mental stress, psychological trauma. How have I found the inner strength to deal with this dire diversity is beyond me. Pure stoicism I tell ya. (First one that says "What a load of crap" cops it).

The above situation was brought on by my decision to... wait for it... reduce the amount of food that I eat :)

No joke, that was it. So what led to this act of supreme sacrifice. On the night that Jill left, me and my friend Mohammed (who else??) went to a top eatery similar to Mama Noura's in Riyadh. I went apesh*t. Bought a huge mixed grill, two shwarmas, dips, some syrian pies, and a gallon of freshly squeezed lemon juice with mint. (awesome btw). Mohammed bought even more supposedly for the "family dinner". Yeah right.  At 11 at night?. Mohammed weighs a hefty 145 kilos btw so perhaps I was not in best company to encourage moderation. Needles to say two days later there was an almighty stink in his car and a dead, decomposing chicken was found under one of the seats. Draw your own conclusions here.

Got home at around midnight and thought I'd have a party all by myself. Ate the bloody lot. Anyone who has seen the Monty Python scene in a restaurant in "Meaning of Life" will get a very good approximation of how it looked on the night.

It was one of the worst nights I have ever had. Bloated, inflated, indigested, gaseous, nauseous, ill, immobile, slothy and short of breath was just the beginning of it. No chance of any kind of sleep. Had to eat boxes of indigestion tablets, then got sick from them on top of it. Real champion night here.

That was my tipping point literally. Got in the shower in the morning and half way through discovered what projectile vomiting is all about. On top of it the stomach acid burnt my vocal chords so I lost my voice. A magnificent effort I must say. Anyway standing there in the bathtub full of what looked like a vegetable soup (with meat) that someone had put through a faulty food processor was not exactly a finest moment of my life.  I felt like I was in the movie Alien - No one can hear you scream in space. No one could hear me because my vocal chords were acid-fried. Like any alcoholic in the morning it was a "Never Again" string of promises to myself. My sugar btw went through the roof that night. About 28.

So that was it. I have now been on a minimal diet for the last 2 weeks and amazing things have happened. I have gone from 106.3 kilos down to 98.1. My life is back. I was for years around 92-94 but since I went on insulin last April that had shot up to about 102.

In addition I have not had to use insulin at all in the last week or so. My sugar has been rock steady on 5-6. (Normal is 4-8). 

I am simply amazed at what has happened here. Mind you Jill has been telling me exactly this all along but I knew better didn't I :)

So what exactly have I done. First I have cut out all bread, bikkies, potatoes, rice and pasta. For breakfast I have 4 slices of turkey breast rolled in pepper. Lunch is a soup and a salad or a can of tuna. Dinner is sautéed mushrooms, with shrimps or pan fried hot dogs with some fetta sheep cheese. I have discovered that  I can have lots of things like tabouli salmon, fish, meats veggies etc. As long as there is no bread etc.

I have also been swimming every second day building up to 22 laps of a very large pool. I must thank our friend Telma for that. She is a Iranian-Armenian-German teacher here at PMU who is a great athlete. I am convinced that she is an ex East German performance coach (We don't encourage steroids but you will never achieve the targets we set for you unless you use them. Heavily.). She encourages me with gentle utterances of "Ein, Zwei, Drei gehen du Sheisskopff" or something similar. It's good when people care so much.

I will keep you posted as to my progress on adipose tissue shedding. Highly recommended.

How convenient is this...

I have just realised that my passport is about to expire in August this year. As most of the countries require the passport to have more than six months validity left it is time to update. It means I have now had it for 10 years and it is showing a lot of wear and tear on it. 

I have actually been looked at suspiciously a few times at border controls as it looks like I have delaminated the front cover and maybe tampered with it. But of course not!

This passport is actually very special as it was issued in Riyadh back in 2000. Not many Ozzie passports can claim that. 

Some wonderful visas in it from all over the world. It was also my second passport. So now I am on Passport No.3 Hardly ever thought that I would fill up one let alone two and start on a third one.

Of course renewal is very easy if you are in Oz. Go to post office fill a form pay X and it will be in your hands in less then a week. Slightly different when you are over here. I contacted our Embassy in Riyadh. It was so refreshing and almost startling to hear proper and understandable English spoken. 

You get used to getting on the phone here and having an almighty linguistic battle to explain even the simplest of things often with hilarious consequences. Here is an example of a dialogue with a taxi driver:

(Speaking very slowly and deliberately)

Us: Ok, we need to go to the Mobily shop on King Abdulaziz Road

Taxi driver: OK

Us: It is the shop near Tulip Hotel on the right as we go towards Corniche.

Taxi driver: Yes sir.

Us: Do you know where it is?

Taxi driver: Yes Sir.

Us: Ok, tell us where we are going.

Taxi driver: Yes Sir.

Us: WTF!!... silence

Anyhow I digress. I got through to the passports section and was told easy. Just get a form from passports.gov.au fill it in, courier it with your old passport and some cash and all done.

I thought that the website was only for downloading forms, but to my pleasant surprise after getting me to fill in some secret personal details up came the form already prefilled with all the necessary information. So just printed it off. Need to add signature and a couple of photos and its all done. And much to my delight this one will also be issued in Riyadh. Collector's items people. 

Finally our tax dollars are achieving some value.

Of course I will have to carry around both of them for a while as my Saudi Visa is still in the old one and they do mot transfer it to the new one so you have to present both at douane. (Look it up, just showing off my incredible vocabulary :)

They have a very good Visa system now in Saudi if you are living here. You can get either a single exit/entry visa for a one off trip or a multiple exit/entry if you want to duck out often. Since we live literally half hour drive from Bahrain me and Jill will be getting a multiple one. Jill already has hers for the trip back.

The visas are actually not stamped in the passport. They are just a piece of paper that states the visa type and validity length. Multiple E/E visas last for 6 months. If you get one but do not use it within 3 months you must pay a fine of SR 1,000. Few people have been caught out like this.

A single visa costs SR 300 whilst the Multiple one is SR 500. Just after we got Jills PMU announced that they will pay for all visas henceforth. Oh well, win some lose some :)

Stung into action...

And so it is. Jilly is absolutely right. I have been lazy and have not been posting regularly (or at all). Very remiss of me and I will rectify that starting now. Thank you Jilly for the proverbial up the Khyber.

So how about Hannah? Devastatingly cute. Welcome to this world Hannah. You will experience so much in your life. It will be an amazing journey for you. You are only the second generation to experience the potential of the internet. Your life will be so different to what we find as "normal and accepted". 

You will live longer, healthier and wealthier see more and experience more than the lot of up put together. You will see out the end of 21st century and will know things that we can only consider as "magic". More will be revealed in your lifetime than in the collective human history that has preceded you. 

Your mum's friends and Ebony dreamt of, and now are flight attendants (a profession that simply did not exist 70 years ago). You may very well end up being flight attendant in space tourism if that captures your imagination. We simply cannot even begin to fathom how you will live and conduct your daily affairs. 

But we can guarantee one thing Hannah. We will be there by your side to make sure that whatever you have potential for, will be fully realised. You will get love and support which is still the essence of what a human being is. And believe me we have had a lot of practice between us. We have fine-honed it on our many kids and siblings so we are well poised to embrace you into our fold. 

Just like our children changed us deeply and profoundly in a most wonderful and gracious way, so will you. Your birth is another milestone in all our lives, another celebration of who we are and another proof that we got things right after all. 

I hope that you are first of many from all our kids. 

Welcome little darling !!

Welcome to the World – Hannah Elizabeth Reid 30/3/10 :)

I have spent the last 3 weeks in my home city Melbourne and arrived in plenty of time for the arrival of my first grandchild. She made her arrival when she wanted to and was totally beautiful when she made her way into our world :D Her mummy was brave and did a fantastic job and we all cried our eyes out when she arrived. We were all surprised at the amount of hair she had when born. As you can see from the pictures she is totally beautiful :D



Now we have the problem of what to call me. My son the "name police" :) has let it be known that it can’t be a “stupid” name because his children will most likely call me the same :P – There are so many names that one can be called from nanna, gran, grammy, grandma, granny, nanny jill, but I think that Nanna has been decided on and Jesse will be Dedo so that all our grandchildren will call us the same :D

I have had a busy time visiting family and catching up with friends and shopping for “essentials” that we can’t buy over there whilst here, but will be making my way back to Al Khobar on 14th April and I am sure Jesse is eagerly waiting for me to arrive.

Jesse has been saying every week for the last 3 months that he will post a blog but procrastination seems to get in his way – so EVERYONE get stuck into him to get him “motivated” so that you know how he has been thinking, living, and working whilst we are there. Give him the proverbial kick up the bum to get him motivated to write about his experiences to make it more interesting for you to visit our page to see what is happening with him :D

Will keep you all posted on more happenings when I settle back in – posted by Jill on Jesse’s computer :D