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!

4 x 4 no spread ketchup and mustard instead with fries and 7up

Every time it's always the same: 4x4, no spread, ketchup and mustard instead, with fries and a 7up. It's been 4 long months since those beautiful words left my mouth. Sure we do have lots of amazing food here, but lets face it: no one knows how to make hamburgers like In n Out does. For those of you who have never heard of In n Out (and most likely have been locked inside your whole life), it is a burger place in California that has the most delicious hamburgers know to man.

The menu is simple:

double double - cheeseburger - hamburger - fries - drink

But the glory of In n Out is the beloved secret menu. I'm sure most of you have heard of the main ones (4x4 = four patties/four cheese, protein style = lettuce wrap instead of bun, animal style = extra sauce/onions + mustard grilled patty) but here are a few new ones that I have recently found during one of my In n Out cravings. Enjoy the delicious list you lucky Californias:

- Chopped Chilis Burger - adds some jalapeños to the bottom of the burger

- The Flying Dutchman = double double with no bun

- 4x6 = four meat - six cheese - this is actually the biggest hamburger they will sell now because of people trying to order 25x25

- Veggie Burger = everything except the meat and cheese --- not sure why would you go to a burger place and not get meat and cheese

- Extra toasted bun/lightly toasted bun/untoasted bun - note* this must be asked for first based on how they enter it into the register

- Fries well done/fries light well = fries are cooked more than normal for guaranteed added crispiness and heart attack

- Lemon fries = add a lemon slice to your fries

- Cheesy fries = Cheese + fries = beauty

- Rootbeer float

- Combine shakes - your choose what combo all the way up to Neapolitan shakes

- Extra syrup for your shake

This last one wins the prize for the best secret item:

- 4x6 Animal style w/ fries inside - that's a lot of artery clogging deliciousness

So did we miss any other good ones? I'm definitely going for a 4x6 w/ fries inside when I get back - followed by a long nap.

While not much comes close to that delicious burger, I think I might have found something that could make a pretty good attempt. This website is completely dedicated to cheeseburger goodness: http://www.cheeseandburger.com/. I think I found my new favorite website. I love the commentary on each burger. I'm definitely going for The Highwayman.

Later this week I will try and post about Saudi food. The food here can be very different but also really good. It's been a long time coming for the food review but there were a few things we wanted to try first before we wrote the final draft. One of them being brain. Stay posted!

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!

Covering in Saudi Arabia

We only have 3 more weeks of teaching, then training until July 7^th, and then we are heading back to Cali!! We are getting excited to come home and see everyone, but we know we will miss our new friends from Saudi. We love our students and really enjoy being with them. We have learned so much about the Saudi culture by teaching our students. One thing that I have learned while teaching the girls is that they are so careful not to have their face exposed. When you walk into the University you have to have your hair covered and the Saudi girls always, always have their face covered too. Right when you walk past the walls and enter the University everyone has to uncover though. So the whole day at work the students and the teachers just wear regular clothes for the most part. All the teachers have to wear skirts down to their ankle and shirts that go to their elbow. Anyways, the students love to take pictures of anything and everything. While they love doing this, it is carefully done so that their face and hair are never in the picture. The most common thing to do is to give the peace sign and just have your hand in the picture. For example, my students and I randomly planted a tree one day and they all wanted to take a picture by it. So they all stuck their hand by the tree and they took the picture! So funny! This is one example but I usually see this every day at work. I’ve also seen umbrellas and books blocking my girl’s faces in pictures too.

Last week one of my students came in and asked me to step outside the class for a second. I stepped outside my door and she began to cry and tell me that she had lost her phone. I thought for a second “this is why you are not in my class right now?!” But then she began to tell me that her phone had a picture of her on it. She said, “Teacher, pictures of my face our on my phone.” She was so upset and then I began to realize how serious this was for her. Saudi woman have never shown their face to anyone but their family and other females. So the fact that she had a picture of her exposed face on her phone was pretty risky; now that the phone was in the hands of another person made her terrified. The good news is that by the end of the day she had found her phone and she made sure I knew. She ran towards me and starting screaming in excitement for like 2 minutes straight haha. In the end it was a funny story but this is just one example of how important it is for women to cover here.

I have asked my students multiple times if they like wearing the full burka and they always say yes. They told me that they feel safe and protected by wearing this. This is all they have ever known so it is completely normal to them. I’m sure there our women here who might not want to wear the abaya, headscarf, and face covering but I have not met them. My students love their culture and they don’t look at the burka as a negative thing at all. Everything is so different than what you would think, but being here you see how fascinating this culture is. Hopefully we can share more with all of you when we come home in a month or so! Love you all!

Father daughter bonding

Well I know that we have already done a "best things to do in Saudi" post but I just found one that trumps them all. Two words: lizard catching. May sound lame and something you did when you were kids but pretty sure the lizards back home looked a little different than this.

Now this is a real father daughter bonding moment. My favorite part is when he says "Hold his head down with all your strength. Don't let him turn around and bite you." And what, let the flesh eating dinosaur bite my hand off? Sure dad, I've got him. I'm pretty sure I would be running the opposite direction as soon as it started to do that hissing body shrinking thing.

Awww, isn't that adorable. Now she's holding the flesh eating lizard and named him Spike. I would have named him Terrifying. Have to say that's about the bravest little girl I've ever seen though.

Well another lesson of what to do if you ever find yourself in Saudi Arabia with nothing to do. My Saudi friend reasured me that lizard catching is a fun and exciting part of Saudi culture and one that he did all the time when he was a kid. It's a crazy place but I'm sure American culture seems crazy to everybody else too. Love you all and keep in touch!

Happy Mother's Day

To the most amazing moms.

Our moms give us some of the greatest encouragement anyone could ask for. They sacrifice so much and ask for nothing in return. Here is to two of the greatest moms ever. Happy Mother's Day!

H is for your hair, which is really, really stinky

Well it was my birthday yesterday and I got one of the weirdest cards I have ever received in my life. This is what it said:

Brendon,

For your special day, I thought I’d write you a special poem.

B is for being butt-ugly

R is for repeatedly annoying me all day long

E is for extra lame

N is for never shutting up

D is for how dumb you are

O is for obnoxious

N is for nasty breath

H is for your hair, which is really, really stinky

U is for undeniably awful

N is because nobody likes you

T is for being a terrific friend

Love you man. Just so you know, only one of these is true.

Charlie

Don’t you just love friends? I love it that he didn’t tell me which on was true. Who has stinky hair anyways? Anyhow, despite all of this, it was a great birthday and one I’ll never forget. Love you all!