The last nine months

Spring 2011

Well we are finnished with one more year in Saudi! It has been a wonderful year and we have so many great times to look back on. Here are some of the highlights from the spring of 2011.



The end of spring means one thing for us: CALIFORNIA HERE WE COME! We are leaving today (6/28) and will land in the good ol' US of A at around 6 pm tonight! We will spend a few days in New York visiting family and will land finnally in California on July 2nd. Can't wait for the summer and to see you all soon!

Trip to Jeddah

Hello all! Well it's been awhile since we posted last but we've stayed really busy. One of the things we got to do was spend a weekend in Jeddah! It was our first time traveling inside Saudi and hopefully it won't be our last. We loved it! Here are some of the highlights

 We flew on Saudi Arlines and it was great. One interesting thing is that happened was that they read a prayer over the intercom that was intended for travelers. Never seen that before on a plane! The food on the plane was definitely Saudi too with kabobs, falafel, and humus!

We are not sure how many stars our hotel was but we are guessing it was on the lower end of the scale. However, they did have a very unique fountain in the lobby.

Next we had an amazing beach day with friends! First time to the Red Sea for us!

It was so nice going to the beach and realizing the water was warm! You can see how there was a really long shallow area and then it drops off about 40 feet. Right at the drop off there was the most amazing reef and fish! There were fish everywhere!

Here are some of the fish we saw when we were snorkeling! It was unbeleiveable how colorful the fish were and there were hundreds of them!

After we finished hanging out at the beach (and getting really sunburnt) we drove around exploring Jeddah a little bit. One thing that really stood out and that was differnt from Riyadh was there was so much art around the city. It seemed like almost every roundabout had some new sculpture or statue. We really liked this gaint camel one.

This is King Fahd Fountian and is a cool attraction in Jeddah. We were pretty far away, which shows how tall it is. The fountian shoots up 1024 feet in the air!

This was definatly a big highlight for us. Name that restaurant...

It was so nice having good Mexican food again! We ate way too much and left moving much slower.

This was another restaurant that we sort of discovered because every taxi driver we talked to said that we had to eat here. I guess "Al Baik" is one of the most famous food places in Jeddah.

They are most famous for their chicken so we had to give it a try. We really liked it!

Next we got to explore the old city of Jeddah. This was one of the old city gates that originally was built by the Ottoman Empire.

 

These were some of our favorite buildings in the old city of Jeddah.

Many of the buildins date back to 1800s. It's amazing that people are still living in them today.

We also learned that the white stones you see are actually made of coral bricks! I guess that is what you make your houses out of if you live in a desert next to the sea.

We absolutely loved our trip and hope to return again soon! Love you all and see you soon! July 2nd!!

Mud Brick Houses and the Attack of the Killer Horse

Charlie and I got to go out with some friends to a small town outside of Riyadh a few weekends back. We meet a Saudi man that was from this town and he wanted to show us around how Saudi living used to be. Hard to believe that as little as 50 years ago the even wealthy people lived in mud brick houses! The first part of the video was the tour of his house that he grew until he was about 10 years old.

The second part of the video shows the epic horse bite (go to about 10:00 min in). He took us out to a horse farm and as we found out, not all the horses were too friendly.

The last part is one of our favorite parts of being in Saudi - desert camping. We drove out to a quiet part of the desert, threw out the blankets and BBQ, and had some amazing kabobs, humus, fresh dates, Arabic coffee, and tea. It was a great night and is one more thing we have to to love about Saudi!

Also if you have not seen our other video with Saad, here is our dune bashing adventure

Dessert Camping

Two weekend ago we were able to do some more camping in the Saudi dessert. The weather is still nice so we wanted to get one more camping trip in before the weather becomes unbearable haha! Here are some pictures of our adventure!

So the first thing we saw was a herd of goats. We were excited to see some animals in the desert.

Next, we started setting up camp in a wadi which is a dry river bed. After setting up camp we decided to go for a hike up to these plateaus. The view was absolutely beautiful!

We had a good time climbing up to the top!

  

Soon after the guys returned we had some unexpected visitors to our campsite!

The camels were actually quite friendly and quite smelly haha!

The guys with there newest friends

The camels came through a couple different times with their herder who rode on a donkey.

Here is a video of one of times the camels came through 

Camels in our camp from Brendon Hunt on Vimeo.

After the camel invasion we sat down by the campfire and had some delicious Kabsa (chicken and rice). When we had finished the Kabsa we busted out the S’mores!!! 

After some amazing food and great conversations we headed for bed – our sleeping bag under the stars!!! Yep, no tents! I have to say, I did have one worry……. I kept thinking about the camels and I was hoping we weren’t going to get trampled haha! Luckily they waited until the morning to return and we were able to move our stuff out of the way for them. 

The camping trip was so much fun but it wouldn’t have been the same without the amazing people we spent it with! We love our new friends here and the old friends who have now joined us!

Finally... The Food

Well it's been a long time coming, here it is:

The Food of Saudi Arabia

I'll post a little later about the details of how the meals go here, which can be pretty exciting, but today we will leave you with this thought. This was a little flier from a restaurant here and is super random. Don't know about you but "Fresh whenever feasible" sure makes me hungry.

Oh and by the way, brain is awesome. I had it with curry and loved it. There is really no taste to it and it has the consistency of tofu or scrambled eggs. MMMmmmm!

Top ten things to do in Saudi Arabia on your day off

Well you may not think that there is a lot to do in the deserts of Saudi, but you would be surprised at all the cool things we have found to do in our free time. So here's a list of top ten fun things to do in Saudi Arabia on your day off:

1. Pet a camel

There are lots of camels here in Saudi and despite their dislike of humans and their nasty foamy mouths they can be great pets! Just look at how cute they are

We found one that was a little bit friendly.

Everyone started cheering when they saw the American get on the camel. I think I'm a natural. The video cuts right before I broke free and rode the camel off into the sunset.

2. Try new food

We could go on all day about the food but for this post we'll just show you a few quick favs that we have found just recently.

The first one is this amazing berry drink that comes from Mecca. It tastes a little bit like cherry kool-aid but a little more sugary. Before this point I wasn't 100% sure that it was possible for a drink to have more sugar than kool-aid, but this drink definitely takes the prize

The bread here is also really good, especially the flat bread. Here is a picture of one of the bread bakers in front of his stove.

Here is another one with the berry juice and then also Charlie is holding what they call Saudi chips. They start out as one giant chip in a bowl shape that's about a foot wide. You break the bowl apart and eat the chips. They taste kind of like a really thin waffle and are a fun little snack to tie you over.

3. Hit the town

Saudi has some really pretty buildings and one of the nicest is Faisaliyah.

Near the top of Faisaliyah you can see a huge black ball. Well inside that ball is actually a restaurant with glass windows all around it and is supposed to have one of the best views of the city.

4. Meet new friends

Staci with her new teacher friends

Staci in her office with her coworker friends

Brendon's new bff

See that camel smile?

5. Dance like a Saudi

Dancing may be haram but I guess traditional dancing is a whole different issue. Pretty sweet moves if you ask me

Next one is part 2 of the video. We saw this at one of the festivals with some new friends from work.

6. Eat Saudi style

One really cool thing that we have found here is how Saudi's eat meals. This is a picture of a typical Saudi home dining room. As you can see there is no table, chairs, or couches. Usually how a dinner would go is they lay a big plastic table cover on the floor and everyone sits around it and eats right off the table cloth. But by far the best part about it: no forks or knifes needed. You eat everything with your hands. Sorry mom, it's the culture here.

7. Hang out at the casa

Be it ever so lowly

There's no place like home

Greatest thing in the world to see when I'm coming home from work, my wife.

8. Swim

Having a pool here is amazing! As the weather gets hotter the pool gets nicer and nicer.

And this is one is a product of my hilarious wife who thought it would be funny to pretend she was just taking a picture. Isn't she just hilarious. Personally I think it was a great dive.

We are going to request that their will be no further comments about this video.

9. Fix your water pump

Ok, so maybe you might be thinking we are running out of things to do in Saudi, but fixing your water can be quite an adventure. First you get to climb our super safe latter to the roof

Next you get have to turn the water pump back on that magically turns on and off as it pleases and repeat these steps about once a week. Oh and did I mention that when the water pump shuts off you lose all water till you turn it back on again? Trust me it's lots of fun, especially when your running late for work.

10. Watch LOST

Oh Jack, what would we do without you? With the greatest show on earth, having the greatest season ever, there is a lot to be thankful for. We have to give a huge thank you to the good people at itunes that make it possible for oversears like us to still download and watch lost each week. Quick question for the losties out there: If the island is the cork holding the smoke monster in, what is happening in the flashsideways when the island is underwater? Also if the flash sideways people's actions can bleed over to the real timeline and affect them, can flash sideways John Locke's actions affect what Smokey is doing? Just a little food for thought.

Well I hope that our long absence away from posting has not driven everybody away. It is always great to hear from you all and definitely keep us posted on all your happening back at home. We are still doing so so good here and really do love this country and culture. Love you all and hope to talk to you all soon!

Finally some pictures!

Here are a few pictures we have taken along the way...

The bearded man + his hooded wife

View from the backyard. You can start to see the sandstorm moving in.

We stumbled upon some old forts in the desert.

They are mostly made of mud and straw but were still in amazing condition.

Here comes the sandstorm! Ugh!

Have not had a full one yet but this was a little taste of what's to come.

But not too much worst than Riverside on a bad day right?

Few things to look at: KSA was talking with one of the head government officials from India so they lined all the freeways in Riyadh with Saudi and Indian flags. Also you'll see the sign for Panda on the right. It's like a Walmart and they also have their version of a Super Walmart called what else:

Hyper Panda

In America we have cemeteries with with grave stones. Here they have burial mounds. The more important you are the bigger the mound. You can see how people just build around them through the years.

A favorite weekend getaway for most Saudi's is setting up these tents in the desert. Inside is usually super nice fabrics and woods and some even have air conditioning. Not sure if this is technically camping out.

In California you have cows on the side of the road. We have camels.

Such a different place but we love it! Great hearing from everyone. Please don't stop thinking about us!