So I’m thinking I will try to update this every weekend (which here is Thursday and Friday). This week was awesome, but I will pick up where I left off from last time. So… after hours on planes and in airports, being finger printed and photographed, and signing a customs check sheet that said in big bold letters DEATH FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING, we were in Saudi Arabia and bussed across Jeddah to the Jeddah Intercontinental. A couple of days before leaving we had been sent an email saying that the housing on campus was not quite ready, so instead we were being put up in this hotel when we arrived. I had actually already heard this rumored through facebook. Anyways, I was a little disappointed about this, but put in perspective it was a free stay at a nice hotel. I got to the hotel past midnight and spent the next several hours trying to get an internet connection so that I could let my parents and girlfriend know I had arrived safely. This was all fruitless and after many attempts and several calls to the front desk I fell asleep not quite sure if someone was coming to fix the problem. I found out the next day that the whole building I had stayed in does not have an internet connection. Turns out I wasn’t actually supposed to be in that building but they had already filled up the main building and were using that as overflow. It wasn’t all bad because the rooms they were using for overflow were the really nice suites. Anyway they moved me to another room the next day and set me up with my roommate for the stay, Gao. I hope that is how you spell his name- i think i got the spelling right, though I never did pick up the pronunciation. Gao is a cool kid- one of our many Chinese students. Though KAUST was aiming for majority Saudi, I think the Saudi’s got narrowly beat out by the Mexican’s, who in return got narrowly beat out by the Chinese. I hope that Gao is doing alright in his classes- his English was pretty rough and he told me he was having a lot of trouble understanding his professors. We ended up spending more that two weeks in the hotel. It was a weird couple of weeks. KAUST did there best to plan fun stuff to keep us entertained- such as late night trips to go play football(soccer), or taking us out into the sand dunes on jeeps and preparing a cool campish sight out in the dessert for us to have a bbq and play games. That was one of my most favorite nights here. It was also fun to get to meet or remeet people as they arrived. It turned out that we were among the first people to arrive there, so over the next couple of weeks the student population filled up the hotel. About one week into this stay, Ramadan began. For all of us foreigners this was an interesting cultural experience/lesson. I have friends back in the states who fast for Ramadan, but it is a much different story when virtually everyone in the country of mature age is fasting. For those of you who don’t know, Ramadan is a lunar month on the Islamic calendar when every Muslim must refrain from eating or drinking anything (including water) during the daylight hours. The first thing I found interesting about this was that since its a lunar month, no one knew for sure when it was going to start. Two nights before it actually started everyone was checking there phones to see if it had started, because its based on whether enough people can see the moon after the new moon. I thought that was something they could predict way in advance, but i guess either the lunar cycles aren’t as exact as I thought or they just prefer going with the traditional way. The second interesting thing was seeing how the day shifted. During the day everything came to a halt (except for classes). Shops were closed everywhere, people were lethargic, all the workers on our campus would be napping. Then suddenly as soon as the sun was completely submerged beyond the horizon and the first red light could be seen in the sky, everything came to life. Right with the fourth call to prayer of the day, everyone quickly ate some dates and drank some milk or juice, went to pray, and then feasted. These feasts are called Iftar (literally breakfast), and are very communal and festive. Some of the students were a little sad that they were having there first Iftar meals without there families. After these meals, which were at 6:48 pm at the beginning of the month and down to about 6:34 pm by the end of the month, people had energy and started doing stuff. The fifth prayer of the day was a long one during Ramadan and after that shops opened, stuff got done, etc. There was a week during Ramadan while we were commuting from the hotel to campus everyday. We almost never saw anyone doing anything while we were there (during the daytime), but every morning when we arrived again the school would look noticeably different. Finally, there is of course a meal right before the break of dawn during Ramadan: Sohur (or dinner). These were the most fun cuz you would come down right around four in the morning and lots of people would be coming to eat. A few would be getting up early, but it seemed the vast majority had just stayed up. One night during the end of Ramadan all of us American students were invited to the US consulate in Jeddah. It was a fun and memorable time at the consulate, but to be quite honest it was the most out of place I’ve felt since being here. We were greeted by the consulate general who told us a little about the place and about US/Saudi relations. Then we had a karaoke night at the only bar in Saudi Arabia. The karaoke was a good time. I actually sang a song- which probably made everyone else in there thankful for the good singers. There was a contest in which my friend Nathan won a trophy for third place. First place was kinda a no-brainer cuz there was this one lady who could actually sing. After leaving the consulate Nathan and I wanted to go grocery shopping for some Chinese food we were planning to make the next day. He had a friend he called up who was in Jeddah, so we quickly hopped off the bus, went across the street to a Fudrucker’s and ate there while we waited for Nathan’s friend, Muhammad to come pick us up. It was slightly past midnight at this point. For the next several hours we went suit shopping with Muhammad. He wanted to buy a suit to where for when the King showed up, because he was supposed to be part of the ceremony. Several hours later we gave up that search because he couldn’t find anything that both fit and wasn’t supper expensive. Then we went grocery shopping from about 2am to 3am. I was happy to find the variety of food that I found. There was a good mix of foods from all over the world, and we were able to get adequate ingredients to make some Chinese food. Then about to leave Jeddah at about 3am we realized that we would be cutting it close to try to make it back to campus in time to eat Sohur, so we went to a restaurant in Jeddah. Though we arrived at about 3:30 am, this two story restaurant was packed and fortunately someone let u share a booth with them. The booths were kinda like little carpeted rooms where you sit on the ground with pillows. They bring you a giant platter of rice and chicken- which can both be finger food- and some spoons just in case. It was really good food. After that we finally made it back to campus by around 6:30am- just another typical night here.
