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!!

GOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!

Hello all! It seems that everyday we have a new crazy story or interesting fact we learned about Saudi culture. A few weeks back Charlie and I finally got to experience one thing that we have been waiting for a long time to see: a professional football match here in Saudi. It was not just any game either; this was the semifinal match between the two biggest rivals in Saudi. Above is a picture of King Fahd Staium, where the match was held. Here are some of the highlights:

It was an amazing stadium and a great night for a football game.

We walked into the stadium and we immediately were hit with Al Hilal madness. We got about half way through the crowd above and got mobbed because everyone figured out that there were two American guys at the stadium. We then had about 20 pictures taken with us with different Saudi guys and were shuffled around the crowd. These two guys finally helped us out and let us have a few open seats by them.

The reason for the five everyone is holding up is because this season Al Hilal has scored 5 goals against Nasser and Nasser has only scored 3. It's random but when a game can end in 1-0, that 5 goals is a big deal.

This shows just a small degree of how loud it was in the stadium. In addition to just the crowd noise we also had a few guys that were about 4 rows behind us with giant bullhorns and drums singing and starting chants the entire game.

It was an amazing night and the game ended in a tie 1 -1. This was probably better for us though because our taxi driver said that fans have a tendency to flip a few cars if their team loses.

Below is the more of an official recap of the game. It's kind of funny watching a highlight on only two goals.

It was an incredible cultural experience and by far one of the biggest things we learned was the amazing generosity of Saudis. During the game we were given -

- Al Hilal scarfs from some guys in front of us

- a couple of bags of pumpkin seeds from the guys behind us

- noise makers/thunder stick things from some guys around us

- bunch of people who offered to give us a ride when we were walking to get a taxi

It blew our minds how open and friendly the people were with complete strangers. Think about it: When was the last time you were given anything at a sporting event in America from a stanger? It's an amazing culture here and we are loving learning from this side of the world. Love you all and we'll see you in 4 weeks!