International Week at KAUST Schools

This past week in the Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary schools here at KAUST, the kids celebrated International Week.  Each day, the kids learned about different countries and cultures and experienced different types of food from some countries at lunchtime.  One morning they enjoyed a pot luck with foods from all sorts of different cultures around the world.  The week culminated in a parade and assembly with all the kids from K1 (preschool) to 12th grade.

The kids gathered by country with their flag and paraded down one of the streets to a courtyard at the Harbor Secondary School.  The President of the University was there with other dignitaries from the community.  We listened to a couple of nice speeches - one in arabic and one in english - by a couple of students and then the names of all the countries represented were read off. 

The parade - just over the barricade is the Red Sea

The United States contingent

I just loved seeing all the different flags!

There were a total of 75 countries represented! It amazes me how that in this small community we can have so many countries and cultures!
I felt very overwhelmed at being such a small little part of it here and how lucky I feel to give my kids the opportunity to associate with so many different people.  As hard as it is sometimes for me to be here, it really is a good thing for us. 

Spencer carried one of the flags in the parade.

Some of our little preschool friends!

Megan played the drums with some of the other kids

in her class.

Lizzie with her teacher and a couple of her

good friends.

I think this is my favorite picture of the day.

I ran into our little friend Victoria and asked to take

her picture - she posed herself (I didn't ask her to

hold out her skirt) - she's such a cutie!!!

A Night in Jeddah

When we were contemplating our move here to KAUST, I think we were told that we were about 40 km from Jeddah - at least that's what I remember.  In reality, if it is 40 km, that is only to the very northern most part of Jeddah and doesn't really even get you into the city.  It takes at least an hour to get there and since traffic is normally busy and I can't drive, getting things we need for the house and kids tends to be a bit of a challenge.  Since we go into Jeddah every Friday, about two weeks ago, we decided to go in on Thursday, do our shopping and then stay overnight.

We accomplished much of what we wanted to do for shopping.  Our first stop was Saco World which is like a Home Depot type of store with home improvement things and outdoor furnishings.  I bought the shower curtain rod which I had forgotten on my last trip in to Jeddah that we needed for the boy's bathroom.  The funny thing (or not so funny) was that I bought the wrong size - it's too small.  So we are still in need of a shower curtain rod! 

After this stop is was prayer time, so we decided to head to the hotel to check in.  I have found that travelling with a large family outside of the US is a bit more difficult. A lot of hotel rooms are very small and are set up of 2 or 3 people. So earlier in the week, I had emailed the Sheraton to verify that their rooms would sleep 4 people.  It was confirmed and I made the reservation.  We got to the hotel where we were checked in and taken to our rooms.  Much to my chagrin, they were very small rooms with 2 twin beds in each.  Definitely not enough room to sleep 4 people unless you're used to sharing a twin bed!  The gentleman that took us to our rooms said that he could bring in a roll away which I didn't find acceptable because we would have had to climb over it to get around the room.  So we headed back to the front desk.  I explained the situation and that I was told via email that the rooms would sleep 4 and the ones we were given did not.  I'm very proud of myself for not getting upset :-) 

They were very nice and helpful and finally accomodated with a 4 bedroom apartment (for the same cost as the 2 rooms).  If the first 2 rooms were way to small, this apartment was exactly the opposite!  It had 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, full kitchen, living and dining room and a maid's quarters with full laundry facilities.    We were on the 4th floor of an apartment building next to the hotel and had balconies that had a view of the Red Sea.  The apartment had seen better days - I think the decor was circa 1975 but it was clean and we all had a bed to sleep in.  I'll post pictures at the end of the blog.  They hadn't finished cleaning when we checked in so we decided to head out to finish shopping and get dinner and then we'd come back.

We set out to find a store where my friend Belky had bought a piano.  We decided to buy an electronic piano here for a couple of reasons.  The kids really want one to play while we are here, they are a bit cheaper here than in the US and there is no sales tax, and we can pack it up and ship it home when we return to the United States.  We purchased a Yamaha Clavinova 340 and are very excited about receiving it.  Our only problem is that it is 2 weeks later and it still has not been delivered.  They say today but they've said that before so we may never receive this piano...I'll keep you updated.

We next headed to Ikea where as we walked in, we realized it was close to prayer time again.  The kids were a little hungry so we got a snack in the cafeteria and ate during prayer and then headed in to do our shopping.  Nothing exciting here - just stuff for the house.  On our way back to the Sheraton, we at Chili's at the Roshan Mall and then headed back to turn in.  I am always exhausted after any amount of shopping in Jeddah!

The Sheraton Jeddah Hotel

The dining room in the apartment

The living room(s) in the apartment

A view of the Red Sea

A little store you could see from the balcony

A pretty view of a mosque on the water.

Outdoor landscaping at the hotel

Our New Home at KAUST

I have only been waiting for this move since we got here!  I know I probably sound really spoiled that I wasn't happy with a family of 7 living in a 2000 sq ft, 3 BR townhome and maybe I am :-)  But there wasn't truly that much living space and the kids (and the parents) really need a little space of their own so we don't feel like we're on top of each other all the time.  So we finally got the keys to our new house.  It is a 4 BR home, I think it is about 5800 sq ft - way more than we really need, but I'll take it - and 7 bathrooms (including the one in the maid's quarters). 

The two downsides - it's more expensive than our the townhome and I really like the location of the the other house right near the schools.  We now live on the "Island" which is a bit further away from the schools, the market and the sports club - although nothing is really that far away.

So here are some pictures that Mark snapped before we acutally moved in.

A view from across the street.

First is the main floor. When you walk in the front door - to your right is an office with a desk and bookshelves in it.

Past the office on the right is the first half bath and then you walk into the first of the living rooms.  It's a really good size.  The funny thing is that the coffee table is the same one that we had in the other house but there with it in the middle, you could barely walk between it and the couches.  It has tons of room here.

Between the living rooms is the dining room - we are excited because now we have chairs for everyone in the family! 

On the other side of the dining room is the second living room and then the kitchen.  We've debated moving the dining table into the this living room area for a couple of reasons - first, it is next to the kitchen and also because the current dining area is the largest room in the house and would be nice for entertaining.  The problem is that the second living room is probably my favorite in the house.  It's big enough but still kind of cozy.  Note the SMALL round coffee table in this room which would have worked perfectly in the townhome!

This is a view from the living room into the kitchen.

Down the long hall from one end of the house to the other.

The 2nd half bathroom is on the right of this picture.

Near the kitchen, there is another hallway that has a storage room, laundry room, garage entrance and the maid's quarters which has a full bathroom (sort of).  Alex actually wanted to sleep in the maid's quarters but we feel like it's too separated from the rest of the house.  So....let's go upstairs....

The staircase is one of the prettiest things in the house and you'll see there is lots of room at the base of them where the table is.  The kids really want to buy a piano and put it in this area.  So right now, that's the plan.

At the top of the stairs is another sitting area.  We'll probably put a tv here against the far wall and have the Wii or Playstation up here and the other one downstairs.

A view from over the balcony from the sitting room.

There are two bedrooms on each side of the sitting room.  Each one has its own bathroom which is nice because it's eliviated some of the morning stress in the house.  We still don't have shower curtains for all of them so we're working on getting into the city to do some shopping to buy them.  This is one of the times that I wish there was a Target close by!

The Master Bedroom

One of the kids bedrooms (which are all very similar)

The large balcony off one of the kids rooms.  There is a smaller

balcony off the back in the master bedroom.

A view of the Red Sea from the girls' room.

Across the street - you can see the sea through the houses.

All in all - I think we're all very excited to move into our "permanent" home here at KAUST.  We're still getting settled and unpacked.  There seem to be more of the kid's friends in this area which is really nice and they spend most afternoons outside on their bikes and scooters playing with their friends.  It's nice to be able to take a 2 minute walk down to the beach to watch the sunset also. 

Thanks for reading!!!

A Day in Cairo

Well, it has taken me a while to write the last day of our trip for many reasons.  First, I hope my blog is somewhat entertaining and I felt like I was getting tired of writing and therefore just getting the facts down.  Second, this day in Cairo was not the most pleasant day on our trip so I think I had to give it a little distance to make the memories a little more humerous than I found them at the time.  And lastly, just plain laziness :-)  Life gets busy and it's hard to find a block of time to write.

Before I start though....with all of the turmoil currently going on in Egypt, my prayers are with the people of that country.  While visiting there, you can easily see the poverty and maybe that makes some of what happened to us there make a little more sense.  Even though I didn't enjoy this day as much as I had hoped, I'm glad we went because I'm not sure that we'd even think about going there again in the near future.

So...here we go....
Originally, we had a flight scheduled to leave Athens about 1:00 and land in Cairo around 3 pm.  The next flight to Jeddah wasn't until 11:30 pm which meant a long layover (but not really enough time to do anything) and getting into Jeddah very late.  So we decided to try to switch our flight to fly out the next day.  We got to the desk and before I checked in, I asked the woman at the desk if we could change our flight before we checked in.  She wasn't very helpful but told us we should check in and then change our flight.  Didn't make sense to me, but who am I to question....right?  They even ticketed our luggage which made me a little nervous.  As we were standing there, there were two young men standing behind us.  They heard that we were flying to Jeddah and asked if we were from KAUST.  They were students at KAUST, originally from Mexico, and we chatted a while and found out that we had a friend in common.

So once we we were all checked in, we moved down to another person that would help us switch our tickets.  I was not impressed at all with this guy's customer service!  After a while they said they could change the tickets, told us how much it would cost and we decided to go ahead.  Once that happened, we couldn't get any more information out of them.  How long will it take?  Will we miss our flight?  Will our luggage make the change also?  The answers...I'm not sure, probably not and most likely - how reassuring!  Well, after a LOOOOOONG time, we finally got our tickets in time to make our flight to Athens.

We arrived in Cairo after an uneventful flight and got through immigration.  We had no reservations or tour plans so we were quite unprepared.  It is Cairo's busy tourist season because it's not so hot at this time of year.  Mark soon found someone who directed us to a "Tourist Information" booth which we found out in Cairo is code for "I'll take my cut of your money".  The gentleman was very nice and worked with us to get a hotel room and possibly a tour booked for the next day.  Then he wanted us to pay cash for the hotel room.  Hmmmm....I'm starting to get a little nervous about this.  We pay him cash and he would give us a voucher for the hotel room.  Not sure I'm feeling the trust so we ask why can't we just pay by credit card at the hotel.  When I said we wanted to use our credit card because we didn't have enough cash, he pointed to an ATM machine....uhhhh, noooo....sorry.  So we took our laptop and luckily found a wireless connection in the airport and booked a room at the Marriott where we had stayed on our way into Athens. 

Next, we go to find a taxi to get all 7 of us and our luggage to the hotel.  Again, "taxi" is code word for "selling you a tour".  So we have a driver and another guy help us with our luggage and we're off to the Marriott.  The other guy is very nice and is trying to sell us the tour.  We decided to go ahead and do it.  We were told that $300 for the day would take care of everything, transportation, entry into the sights, etc.  We were expecting to spend about that with the 7 of us so we decided that would be okay.  We paid $50 up front and they would get the rest of the money after the tour.  The driver and tour guide would pick us up the next day at 8:30 am.  I was a little nervous that they wouldn't show but if they didn't, we were only out $50 - oh well.

A pretty view at the Marriott

We had a wonderful dinner in the Marriott Italian restaurant.  The kids ordered a cheese pizza that was so good that we all had to have a piece.  It was a very good meal and we turned in afterwards because we were all tired from travelling.  We got up in the morning and were eating some pastries from a little coffee shop in the restaurant when our tour guide showed up.  We hopped in the van soon afterwards and were off.  Now, I'm pretty used to Jeddah traffic now and for most of the ride, I didn't think that Cairo traffic was that bad.  Until we got closer to the pyramids - it was way worse.  Cars everywhere, people walking and crossing the streets, donkeys pulling carts.  Yikes!

Our first stop was the Cairo Papyrus Museum where they showed us how the ancient Egyptians used to make papyrus.  It was pretty cool and of course they were trying to sell things.  We did end up buying some things and spent a little more than we wanted, but it was ok - we liked what we had bought.  Funny thing was that we ran into the same two young men at the museum that we saw in the airport the day before.  We chatted with them while we were waiting for our purchases to be packaged up.

We hop back in the van and off we go towards the pyramids.  We end up in this section of town where you can hire camels and horses to ride to view the pyramids.  So we get out of the van here and they shuffle all 7 of us into this little area that's really stinky from all the animals and then start telling us about going into view the pyramids and asking us whether we wanted to ride a horse or a camel.  So our new "friend" (this is not our tour guide who is waiting outside), is telling us there are 3 tours, a short, medium and long one and then he announces the prices.  I think he started at like $500 but I can't remember exactly.  Now, you may remember yesterday, when the tour guide told us everything was included....well, I sure did and I was starting to get a little mad.  Also, if you know me fairly well, you probably know that riding a horse or a camel is not at the top of my list of things to do.  You might also know that I have a few 9 year olds and possibly a 12 year old that will probably not want to do this either.  Nevertheless, our "friend" is selling hard and is bargaining with Mark.  I think he comes down to like $300 for all 7 of which I still think is outrageous.  At this point, I stand up from my not so comfy, and very aromatic seat and I'm getting even more mad.  So I basically tell Mark that I don't want to do this and I don't want to spend any more money (the guides are always willing to tell us there is ATM close by).  Now our "friend" starts trying to convince me....we want to make you happy...how much is your budget...ummmm...nope.  So I told Mark and our guide that I was done and wanted to go to the airport.  I was not spending any more money because we were told that everything was included.  They spent another 10 or so minutes trying to convince me but I was not going to give them a penny more.  Finally, our tour guide asked me what I wanted to do.  I told him I wanted to drive to the pyramids and walk around or I wanted to go back to the airport.  Well, he did as he was asked but immediately the "charm" was turned off because he wasn't getting his camel kick-back.

So, again, we hope back into the van and head off to the pryamids again. 

A view on our way to the pyramids.

We arrived and our tour guide purchased the tickets and we headed in.  We walked a little bit and our tour guide gave us some advice about handling the vendors at the pyramids.  He basically said that everyone is trying to get money from you.  Don't get engaged in conversation, they will continue to try to sell you something.  If a vendor wants to show you something or give you a gift, they will expect money in return.  Don't let anyone take your picture, they will want money (even the police that are guarding the pyramid).  At this point, the tour guide kept using the words free and cheap to describe everything - I think he was mad that I didn't want to pay for the camels...oh well :-)

Waiting for our tickets

Heading into the Pyramids at Giza - this was the largest of the three big ones.

The size of the stones are just amazing!

The 2nd largest pyramid.

You can see horses and camels all over the place.

Our tour guide gave us half an our to walk around the largest pyramid which was enough time.  Up on the hill above us, someone or something (possibly a horse or donkey) had fallen in a hole and there were a ton of people trying to get it out.  We also had a bunch of young arab girls come over and try to shake Lizzie's hand and touch her hair.  There seemed to be a lot of groups of teenage students - maybe they were on winter break, but there were a lot of kids around.  Lastly, we witnessed a little bit of a scuffle between some police, some men and a horse.  They were beating the horse pretty bad and we were a little afraid that the horse would bolt down to where we were standing so we didn't know whether to stop or keep going.  Finally, the horse and his driver rode off.  We think it may have been a turf war of some time but who knows...just a little disturbing.

When we were done, we got back in the van and headed up to a vantage point where we could see all of the 3 main pyramids.  There were lots of vendors there which we didn't stop to look at.  Our tour guide took some pictures for us and then tooks us over to place where you could sit on a camel. 

Alex and Spencer

Mark and Rachel

We then rode down to the Sphinx but the tour guide only let us get out of the van for about 30 seconds to let us take a picture.  He was done being pleasant and at this point, I didn't really care either. 

The Sphinx is much smaller than I imagined it would be.

So we headed out of the area and we decided it was just time to head to the airport.  About half way back to our airport, the driver stops and our tour guide gets out (we had paid him as we were leaving the pyramids).  We actually stopped on the highway and just let him out.  There were lots of people along the side of the road so I guess that this is not that odd.  Our driver got us to the airport where we had lunch and did a little shopping before we got on our flight back to Jeddah.

We arrived back to Jeddah after a huge storm.  Our friend Alex picked us up at the airport and took us back to his house where our car was parked.  We had to travel through flooded streets and there were a ton of trees down also before we got back to his home.  We then switched cars and drove the hour or so back to KAUST.

All in all, we really enjoyed our first trip.  We loved Athens and all it had to offer.  Cairo, obviously, was not my favorite but I'm glad we got to visit.  Next trip....Paris in 58 days!

Thanks for reading!