It is illegal for women to drive in Saudi, we get to ride buses to get where we need to go. This is really okay with me, as even if I was allowed to drive here I wouldn't. The way the Saudi's drive is crazy, almost suicidal. There are lane lines, but they are just for looks as half the time people are driving on them. And turning, wow, that is terrible, normally on a left hand turn the left hand turn lane turns, here the guy three lanes to the right of that lane will take a left! It is nuts. They do this thing called the Saudi inch, where they inch forward waiting to go, then they are too far beyond the light that they need someone to honk to let them know that it turned green. The horn is used regularly, more than blinkers are used, to let people know you are there so they wont merge into you, to let people know that you are coming up, to let people know to go... There are no stop signs, all the places that would have 4-way stops in the states are 4-way go's here. There are no speed limits, and some of the people go really fast. There are no traffic police until there is an accident. The other thing is that they don't use seat belts, and car seats for your kids is just a novel idea. They call them the airbags, they just let their kids run around the cars.
Tidbit #2: Weather
Saudi is hot, it is getting hotter every day, and the worst time to be here is in July and August, when it is the hottest. You cannot survive here without air conditioning. The odd thing that the weather has been doing for the last few weeks is storming, there have been quite a few thunder and lighting storms while I have been here, with quite a bit of rain. This has been nice, but Saudi is not a country set up to deal with rain, they have things that look like drains, but they are just that, for looks, they go no where, so the streets flood when it rains. The Saudis have no idea how to drive in the rain either. The other day it even hailed out!
Tidbit#3: Desert
Saudi is not a desert in the traditional sense. It is in the sense that nothing grows here, but it isn't because the water table is so low, the water table is high here, you can dig and hit water in a foot or two. The problem is that the water is contaminated with Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) due to all of the oil and gas that is in the ground! We get the water in our house from the desalination plants, and the water they use outside is recycled house water. Only on the compounds is there any real greenery.
Tidbit #4: Alcohol and Drugs
All Alcohol is illegal here, as are recreational drugs. This doesn't mean that people don't drink here, the Saudi's cross the bridge to go to Bahrain on the weekends to drink, and the Non-Saudi's just set up their own little brewing stations in their homes. The wine and beer that is made isn't the greatest, but it isn't the worst either. I knew all of this, but this is what I didn't know, pure vanilla extract is also illegal, as is cough syrups, just because they have traces of alcohol in them. Rec. Drugs are illegal here as well, big surprise, what I didn't know was what happened if you are found with them. They still have beheadings here, and that is what happens if you are caught with drugs!
Tidbit #5: Weekdays
This is what is hard here, I have no idea what day it is, at least hardly ever. The weekend here is Thurs and Fri, and Sat is like Monday, the beginning of the work week. This is really odd for me, and Greg.
I hope that you enjoyed my Tidbits! I will be posting new photos soon, I have misplaced the cord to download the pics onto my comp.
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