Glenn's Arrival in the Kingdom

After an unexpected weather related delay in Heathrow International Airport, and spending 19 hours exploring it, it is an airport he now knows well. Touchdown in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, happened on December 3rd, 2010.

• Heathrow Airport England

 Glenn’s first experience was one of his wife arguing with the taxi driver and manager because the company was going to charge us twice as much as appropriate for a ride to our compound. After settling in the cab, all bags in the trunk, the cab driver told us what he wanted to charge us. Given the feistiness of his beloved, we promptly disembarked and waited for a cab I called. It is common to barter for everything. (Cabs, merchandise, hardware, even groceries)

Although many things are different in Jeddah, one of the things that strikes Glenn personally, are the roadways. There is every conceivable brand of high end automobile to be seen every day as we walk along the highway. Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Royals Royce, Mercedes and especially his favourite car; the Audi R8 which he has rarely seen in North America.

Also, yellow pedestrian crosswalks seemingly are only on the roadways for show. No one stops when you are in it or approaching it. Added to this, all crosswalks are marked only at the round-abouts which are anywhere from 3 – 5 cars deep. Interesting . . . . Glenn thinks we should have t-shirts with the logo ‘I survived crossing the road in Jeddah’. Because gasoline is so cheap (6 cents per litre – REALLY), everyone drives their cars. (It probably has to do with the intense heat too). Initially, sidewalks were planted with beautiful trees in the middle of them. Over time these trees have grown so walking on the sidewalk is difficult. When the sidewalk squeezes us to the road, it is hard to outrun the above mentioned vehicles!

• Round About in Saudi City Compound where we live. The white and blue structure in the background  is a water tower which supplies water to our compound. It is huge and can be seen from kilometers away.  I trust it is well maintained - otherwise we may wished we lived on the third floor instead of the first!

There are many things of contrast here.  Glenn is very impressed with the variety of the architecture. We see very old styled Arabic buildings with rounded Mosque roofs built with bricks upon brick, to ultra modern glass skyscrapers similar to Vancouver and New York.  We have shopped in the open market souk to three story malls. We have eaten shwarmas, Chinese food, and Lebanese food, croissants, Baskin and Robbins ice-cream and yesterday, even had a Starbuck’s frappuccino.  We probably have eaten out more in the past two weeks than we have in the past six months! We have so much to explore.

• Glenn using the electronic directory (that didn't work) in the three story Red Sea Mall

We are so happy to be reunited and are adjusting to the different pace and interesting challenges and experiences here in Jeddah.