Al Yamama Rec Center

Home, school, and the rec center is where you'll find Jordan during the work week. The pool was crowded due to a swim meet, so I didn't take any pictures, but I will at some point. 

There's rarely anyone in the gym

Racquetball Courts

Game room

Indoor basketball court

Yoga room

Lit tennis courts just down the road from our villa. The
compound has numerous tennis courts throughout.

Rollin Around Riyadh

Here are a few images that capture our first three weeks in Riyadh. We've gotten lost, found our way around and now have a pretty good idea of the general layout. Luckily, the city is built on a grid system, so it's easy to get around once you learn the major landmarks and roads. 

One of the government buildings downtown

Good thing we know the symbol.

Single males only!

One of the many mosques around town.

Out in the desert...actually we're in the city, but this
is an undeveloped area. The rest of the city is like a desert oasis.

Riyadh in the background

Now we can get donuts AND coffee in one stop

Musmak Castle in Old City Riyadh

 The tip of a spear still stuck in the front door of the castle.

Extensive detail throughout the castle

The square where live executions occur

One of the many beautiful doors in the castle

Standing in "chop, chop" square.
This is the slang term for execution square.

Clock tower in Old City Riyadh

Shopping for incense

Saudi's burn various types of dried wood instead of candles or
incense sticks. This wood is very expensive, but burns slowly
and smells amazing.

Carpets, carpets, and more carpets.
Iranian silk carpets are exquisite and something
we'll be purchasing in the near future. 

Jordan on top of Musmak Castle.

Roaming around an old vacant neighborhood

This area will be demolished within a couple years in order
to update and modernize Riyadh. It's already vacant and falling down.

One of the famous landmarks in Riyadh,
Al Faisaliah Tower. This building includes
shopping, restaurants, and a hotel. 

Kingdom Centre houses The Four Seasons
Hotel, shopping, restaurants,  and a skybridge at the top. 

Who knows what this billboard is saying, but it's fun
to create your own captions. Jordan thinks he must be
looking at an uncovered woman.

Riyadh reminds us of  the Phoenix area with its desert landscape, but
oasis like atmosphere.  Saudi's spend a lot of money making their
city attractive and green.

1 More Day!

We've now been in Riyadh for over two weeks and our first weekend is finally upon us! 

The past fews weeks have been busy with settling in and getting our villa set up, organizing and decorating our classrooms, navigating the streets of Riyadh, and learning new curriculums. We've had a couple 1/2 days off, but we have found ourselves spending time at school or stocking up on groceries and household necessities during that time. I'm sure we'll spend a majority of our weekend relaxing by the pool and resting, but we also have plans to make an IKEA run, visit a home supply store to buy paint for our villa, as well as visit one of the nearby plant souks (bizarre or local market). 

By the way, our weekends are on Thursday and Friday here. Muslims' holy day is on Friday, so their weekends are different from the rest of the world. It's going to take some getting used to before I fully embrace our new "weekend".  

$5.50

Yep...that's how much it cost us to fill up our SUV.

New Experiences

Today, after working a half day, Jordan and I decided to drive to Safeway to stock up on some food. We asked our HR director for a map because the last time we went to Safeway we had only been in the country for 17 hours and were very unaware of our location and how the roads worked. Now that we have been here for almost a week, we find ourselves more comfortable and knowledgable of our surroundings. We were surprised to find out that Safeway is only a couple miles down the road...could have sworn it was on the other side of the city based on our last visit. LOL.  Once we got there we noticed the parking lot to be very empty. I immediately said, "Did we hit prayer time?" We pulled out our prayer time card and realized that prayer had just started. Prayer lasts about 20 minutes, so we decided to head inside and wait until the doors opened again. These are things we are going to have to start thinking about as we go out. 

After putting our groceries away, we talked about going to the rec center, but realized we were exhausted and hungry. We started brainstorming dinner ideas, but were both too tired to really get started. We decided to hit up the McDonald's just down the road. As we pulled into the parking lot, we noticed the drive through line wrapped around the building, so we decided to go inside and order. We found a parking spot and entered. As we got closer to the counter, the cashier politely said to Jordan, "Sir, Sir...you need to go to family section." We both looked at each other and realized/remembered that restaurants are divided; a section for single males and a section for families which included single women and married couples. As we exited that section, we looked around and noticed I was the only lady there...duh! So, we walked around the building and entered through the doors with the play place. As we entered, we immediately noticed booths with privacy curtains...guess we were in the right place. We were pleasantly surprised with our McDonald's experience. =)  Not too bad to have your own private booth. As were finished up, the lights started flickering. We looked at each other and pulled out our prayer time card...Yep, prayer was beginning. We quickly cleaned up our trash and got out there just before being locked in for the duration of prayer time. 

We have now made ourselves aware of prayer times and hopefully we'll remember to avoid them next time around!

Our private booth

Me in my Abaya
(I have my pj's on underneath. LOL...there are positives to the Abaya)

Villa 270

In previous years, the thought of compound life was anything but postive. We figured living on a compound would be suffocating and imprisoning, but we have found compound life to be amazing. We've only been here for a couple days, but have realized that life here is easy and convienant. (Just an example, we noticed a garbage truck driving around the other day and when we asked about it, we were told that trash gets picked up daily from your carport for free.)

Our villa is located near the entrance of the compound. Across from our villa are the compound offices and shopping mall. The mall incluleds a grocery store, dry cleaners, travel agency, spa, and gift shop.  A block down from us, on the same street, is the restaurant, recreation center, and pools. The restaurant offers a variety of choices as well as weekly theme nights. The reaturant also houses an ice cream parlor. We've spent the last couple nights in the rec center. When we can't sleep, we find ourselves down there. The fitness equipment is new and very well taken care of. There are six treadmills, each having their own flat screens attached. The workout room also includes ellipticals, spinning bikes, stair steppers, row machines, weight machines, and a yoga room. The recreation center also includes indoor raquetball, squash and basketball courts, hot tubs, steam and sauna rooms, and a game room with pool tables and foosball. There are two outdoor pools with diving boards and lap lanes as well as a kiddie pool and hot tub. I think we'll find it difficult to be bored here.

Here are some pics of our villa. The villas come with a TON of furniture. We'll have to figure out what we want to do in regards to painting and decorating. As soon as we have our house in order, I'll post more pictures.

Our kitchen is rather large with new "American size" appliances

 

Laundry room

Dining room



Living room and front door

Guest bedroom
(Our room is a mess, so I'll take pictures later)



The school provides us with a KIA Sportage while we're here.

The entrance to our house.
(Not sure why this picture looks stretched out)

Our carport

Our front porch

Entrance and exit gates
(This is actually the third gate and secuirty station you
have to go through in order to get onto the compound)

Looking down our street.
Restaurant, recreation center,
shopping mall and offices are on the right.

Few from our backdoor

**just unlocked a door in the kitchen and was surprised to find a walk-in pantry. It's huge! I'll post a picture once we get it stocked.

Bags are Packed...Ready To Go

After taking a much needed year off, we are back to living overseas. Tomorrow we leave for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We are looking forward to living overseas again and teaching internationally. We've missed it! We'll use this blog as a way to keep in touch with family and friends and share our experiences. 

On to our next adventure!