Photo Extravaganza!!!

Long time no see.  It appears as though my time here in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia has been much busier than I had originally expected.  Well, to be "entirely" true, I was hoping my life here would be fun, exciting, educational, and enriching but I was entirely prepared for it to be boring, constricting and empty (which is the common expat response I got to what it's like living in KSA).  After just 4 months I can say that my experience here has been almost as good as my wildest dreams.  No, I haven't befriended a prince that will lavish me in extravagant riches for a few hours of my English teaching, not yet, but in every other way possible my time in Jeddah has surpassed my expectations.  Life has been great.  I regret that I haven't been able to blog that much, but I want to try and make up for it with a cornucopia of picture slideshows!  With Facebook, Skype, emailing, and texting, Blogger has taken a backseat, but I hope to keep posting on here.  As long as I can find some free time in between all this fun stuff!  Enjoy for months worth of photos from my time in KSA:














Ok, please take a closer if you choose.  I have been writing captions for everyone :-) 

Christmas, New Years, and Dubai pictures will be up as soon as I can write those captions, and I have a Yanbu snorkeling/scuba diving weekend video that I'm working on.  I hope you all enjoy!

Durraht Al Aroose Again

A number of weeks ago I traveled outside of Jeddah to a beautiful resort community for a fun evening with friends in a mansion-like villa (pics here). After an experience like that it didn't take long for me to return to the scene of the crime. This was just another great weekend with friends:

I'm on a Boat!!!

It's strange. When I read all about Jeddah I never read of any experiences like this, but after a month I'm praying things like this will continue.

Paul's Magic Jeddah Gyro-Copter Experience

It all started at a Barbeque. That's right, just 10 days or so into my time here in Jeddah I was invited to a barbeque. You can't get much more spoiled than that. I brought BBQ Pringles, some Coke and a chocolate dessert called "flutes" that I thought were Saudi but I'm not so sure anymore. I may have came with a little bag of goodies but I left with a belly full of delicious meat and a crazy plan to go gyro-coptering the next day. I got the call and Jay, I guy I met only the night before, said he was about to go up in the air on a crazy flight and that I should come down asap and do it myself. Obviously this was crazy. A little more crazy than going to a barbeque that I was invited to by strangers, but that turned out smashingly, so I figured why should I stop thinking the best in people? And I went for it. After getting slightly lost with the taxi driver, which has been a reoccurring experience for me over my first couple weeks, I found the makeshift airfield, back-shed hanger, and all the crazy toys they had that go up in the air. I was pretty sure I'd go up in the gyro-copter, the jet-pack option seemed even a bit crazy for an insane mind, but I was trying to logically measure safety in a place where I had no clue if they even had safety codes. My heard was beating when I signed the form saying I wouldn't hold the company liable in incidents of extreme bodily harm or death. Signing a line that says that should never be easy. I took a deep breath, put pen to paper, then I froze for about 30 minutes where I got to watch two other people go up and down in it and it seemed safe enough, so I signed... Moments later I was in the hot-seat hearing the propellers turning, hearing the gears grind, sounding like they couldn't have been spinning in an oil rich country like KSA but more like in Costa Rica, a county with zero oil production. So I was in something that looked like what George Jetson might sell at a garage sale, and it sounded like a creaky old bicycle - I started questioning my decision. Well, here is what happened next.

Two Weeks of KSA Photos

There is a video on the way, as soon as I can get it to upload.