Saudi Fast Food Dining Experience

The other day after a quick trip to the grocery store, we decided to pop into the hottest fast food restaurant in Saudi.  Al Baik is a homegrown success story that is very popular with locals and immigrant workers alike. Al Baik combines quality fried chicken with large quantities and low prices and is normally packed with customers…on the men’s side of the restaurant that is.  As you may or may not know, every restaurant inSaudi has a Men’s side and a Family side where females are allowed to enter.  Yeah.  Unbelievable, I know.  Heaven forbid that females actually order food in the same line as men.  Anyhow, on our latest trip, the Men’s side was packed as usual, whereas the Family side was totally empty.  Nice.  No waiting and no crowds to get between me and my fried chicken.  The strangeness didn’t end there, however.  As the photo below shows, the dining booths on the family side are completely shut off from each other by swinging doors and frosted glass.  I can only assume that this set up is meant to protect women’s virtues and to guard fathers with children from being unduly tempted by the sensuous scene of women eating their greasy, fried food.  Or, maybe it just makes it easier for female family members to eat because they can remove their veils if they know that no male non-relatives will be able to see their face.

Ohhh, the things we experience living here is beyond believing sometimes…

Welcome to Segregation Land!

Last weekend we went to the beach again.  It’s always nice to go to the beach because it’s such a nice escape from the ordinary (or un-ordinary, as it were…)

The Pirate of the Caribbean?

“I swear Blackbeard’s galleon should be rounding that spit any moment…”

Even Pirates like blowing bubbles!

Who’s Gonna Win the Cup?

Some of you may have noticed a few posts ago that WordPress has a new function that allows bloggers to poll their audiences.  I thought this was pretty exciting and eagerly added a poll relating to the piece I wrote about my Wintry Winnipeg Memories.  Imagine how excited I was as I awaited the incoming votes. (actually, I was more like somewhat interested, rather than excited, but I digress…)  Needless to say, I was utterly crushed (read: mildly disappointed) to see that only 7 people responded to my poll, make that 6 if you subtract my vote.  Not one to be daunted by poor results, I decided it would be appropriate to throw out a poll this week getting your predictions as to who will win the Grey Cup this year.  Please don’t get me wrong.  I’m pretty sure most of my audience really cares, but hey, stats are fun.  In fact, maybe some of you are actually curious as to how many people typically visit this blog in a month.  Here’s the statistical breakdown…

Anyway, here’s that poll…humour me, eh?

Oh yeah, since this post is probably pretty boring to most of you, I felt I should throw in the latest video I put together.  It’s a Jake video with some pool action and storytime with mommy – standard Grandma fare.

done

Late October and it’s FINALLY Beach Weather!

Strange as it may sound, we need to wait for October before considering spending a day under the sun at the beach.  If we would go in September, we’d roast!  Anyway, we took off to the beach with our German friends, the Sommerhauers.  It was our first trip to this beach, which is the nicest beach in our area and is about 90 minutes away.  The water was nice and we had a good time.

I went snorkelling at the edge of the dark blue water, as this is where the reef drops about 200 feet or so (I’m guessing).  I was almost panicky when I swam over the lip and the water went from being 4 feet deep to over 200 and the clarity of the water let me see forever.  I actually felt afraid of heights because there was nothing holding me up!  Strange feeling, to say the least.  I was rewarded with some great snorkelling.

One morning Elisha decided to dress Jakob up in Carhartt Overalls and a John Deere hat and we thought Jakob looked so cute we decided to take some pictures of him.  Voila!

That’s all for now.