riyadh, saudi arabia

I'm in Saudi Arabia for the first time for work this week. I'm in Riyadh, which is the capital, and quite a normal city considering the other middle-eastern cities I've been in.

The only difference I have seen was that more of the women are wearing abaya's, and that no women are driving. Oh, and I guess that there is a chop-chop square as well. I'm told that every Friday before prayer the Sharia police will behead a convicted man in front of an open forum. I guess that they give an opportunity to the victim's family to let the guy go free, but that often times that the family chooses to go through with the cut.

It has to be said that I am not scheduled to be here on Friday, so I will not have to make the choice to witness or not...

Here's a photo I found of Riyadh

dubaiween

Carlos and I managed to make it to the Irish Village on All Hallows Eve this year, but it wasn't easy. We first plummeted through construction sites, crossed multiple lane highways, scared multiple taxi drivers, and wandered clue-lessly through Sharjah before we even made it to the bar.

Our fresh-to-Dubai cabbie had no clue how to get to the pubs, and I ended up giving a wrong direction that threw us into who-knows-where. After a few failed attempts, we found a cab-driver who knew where the pub was, but that was after getting dropped of in the middle of nowhere.

Well we made it, and had a couple good hours of fun at the nicest-weather-Halloween ever! There were loads of people dressed up... every nationality was up for the fun... Carlos entered the best costume competition, and placed high up only because he's so flamboyant... I wish I could have video'd that performance! Here's a couple of foto's:









I've spent most of today moving all sorts of crap to the new villa... pics to come later inshallah...