Riyadh Radio

well it's been exactly a week since i moved to rio ... i mean riyadh ...

as far as the area i'm living in is concerned it's great ... everything i need is nearby ... and there's even a carrefour within walking distance ... and the commute to work is fast and easy ... so i'm happy with the location ... btw the street i live on is called sibawaih street ... for those who don't know who sibawaih is click here ...

as far as the apartment itself ... i like it ... it's actually intended for two people to live in so i have a lot of space ... currently using the second bedroom as a storage area seeing as how i still haven't unpacked ... so yeah i like it ... i would say it's perfect except for the occasional cockroach that i discover from time to time ... but i live on the first floor so that's bound to happen ... and besides they're usually dead when i find them ... lying motionless flat on their backs ... although i did have to kill a few ... but that was mostly when i first moved in ... they've pretty much stopped bothering me since operation raid gas chamber ...

anyway ... i still haven't bought any furniture ... all i bought so far was a tv and a dvd player ... so i don't have to stare at the walls when i get home ... been playing some playstation ... a little bit of this ... a little bit of that ... and watching a dvd from time to time ... i don't get any tv channels so that's why ... i need to subscribe to showtime or something ... also been reading the biography of kurt cobain ... oh my goodness he was one disturbed individual ... i'm about halfway through it ... but it will forever change the way i listen to a nirvana song ...

but yeah payday is in a few days ... so when i get my salary i plan on paying a visit to ikea and casing the joint ... i need a bed ... and a tv stand ... and a couch ... and a coffee table ... and a chest drawer for my clothes ... a bookcase ... i think i'm gonna be in there for like 5 hours ...

i also need to hit up carrefour and get a fridge and a microwave ... and maybe some other random things ... like ashtrays and trash bins and what not ...

my car should be ready within a week ... hooray ... carla ... i miss you ...

as far as social life is concerned ... i saw a couple of college friends ... mostly we just go out to eat dinner although on one occasion one guy came over and we watched a movie ... i called a girl i knew back in college and we made plans for next weekend so i'm kind of excited about that ... but in general my daily routine goes something like this ... i get home from work ... eat ... shower ... and sleep ... wake up late at night ... play a little playstation ... or read ... then fall asleep again ...

what else ... work is boring ... everyone is too busy for me right now ... they're getting ready to move to the new facility ... and until they finish moving they will continue to ignore me ... but my manager told me that once the move is complete he will have a ton of work for me ... so we'll see ... they should be done within a month ... they promised me a laptop ... but they still haven't given it to me ...

i think that about covers it ...

over and out ...

thanks for listening ...

The Mosaic Tag

Noura tagged me ...

Crash

i was halfway to riyadh when the accident happened ... luckily nobody got hurt ... well except my car ... she got hurt pretty badly ...

basically what happened is i was speeding for no good reason ... of course there's never a good reason to speed but i mean it's not like i was in a hurry or anything ... i had plenty of time to get to my destination ... but given the weather conditions i shouldn't have been speeding regardless ... but let that be a lesson ... never again will i speed ... traumatized for life ...

so my car is in the shop now ... and i'm going to riyadh by bus tomorrow ...

Cruisin' KSA

well i'm all packed and in a few hours i'll be heading out to riyadh ... i'm going to drive there this time ... the weather is terrible by the way so it should be a fun trip ... not ...
tomorrow i will go shopping ... i need to get a tv, fridge, bed, and a cabinet or a drawer for all my clothes ... i don't know if i will buy all those things tomorrow ... well except for the tv ... that's my #1 priority ... but i can live for a few days without a bed or a fridge ... the other stuff i can get later on ... coffeetable, couch, bookcase, bla bla ... they have an ikea in riyadh so maybe i'll check it out ...

Twakkalna 3ala Allah ...

R is for

rekindling old flames ...

victory

RUH

i went to riyadh yesterday to search for an apartment ... and i found a nice one ilhamdulila ... it's not furnished ... but it's nice ... i'm happy with it ... the apartment, the price, the location ... everything ...

just came back tonight ... basically to get the rest of my stuff ... my books ... my ps3 ... my whatever else i want to take with me ... oh yeah and my car ...

i'm probably going back to riyadh in a couple of days so i can get settled in ...

only this time i won't be coming back to dhahran for a while ... well ... i mean i can come anytime but the point is i'm gonna start working on saturday so ...

and for those who care ... i will continue to blog inshala ... probably not as frequently ... but rest assured that my blog will ... my blog will ... go on ...

anyway ... i am really tired ... must go rest ...

wish me luck ...

o&o

Trippin'

well as you might know i was in kuwait for the past two weeks ... supposedly completing a training program for my new job ... i say supposedly because i didn't really learn anything ... although it was kind of interesting at first to see the company's facilities and what not ... and i did walk away with a bunch of reading material ... so it wasn't entirely pointless but overall it was a snooze ... i'm talking about the training of course ... the trip on the other hand was actually fun ... for those who don't know kuwait is very similar to saudi arabia ... only it's a little more liberal ... they have churches ... women can drive ... they can show some skin if they want ... ya3ni ... but they're not on the same level as dubai or bahrain ... they don't have alcohol for example ... but i think the reason i enjoyed it was simply because it was such a nice change from the rut i've been in for the past year ...


enter flashback mode ...
picture becomes blurry accompanied by the sound of a harp ...


i got to riyadh friday evening ... spent the night at the apartment that the company had reserved for me ... it was a nice apartment ... i ordered some food from the room service, showered, prayed and then stayed up all night watching sitcoms (showcomedy) ...
the following day we traveled to kuwait ...
i didn't hang out much with the group outside of training hours ... i spent most of my free time hanging out with my older brother ... he took very good care of me ... each day he would pick me up and we would go somewhere nice to eat dinner ... we had every kind of cuisine ... italian, tex-mex, chinese, indian, lebanese, etc ... all very delicious ... although on a few occasions we just stayed in and ordered something ...
aside from stuffing our faces we didn't really do much else ... but there's not much to do anyway ...
well we went to the movies just once ... we saw ironman ... it wasn't bad but it wasn't special either ... although i did get a kick out of the arabic speaking bad guys ... and the 'new look' for jeff bridges ... i wanted to go again to watch indiana jones and or forbidden kingdom but i didn't get the chance to ...
i did some shopping but that was on my own ... my brother was not interested in accompanying me ... i got some clothes ... and i got some books too ... i got heavier than heaven ... i also got gate of the sun by elias khoury ... and i got confessions of an economic hitman ... i also got a couple of funky protective covers for my iPod ... and one ps3 game which i think i will come to regret buying ...
speaking of books ... i finished reading 1984 during the trip ... i mean it's good and all ... but animal farm was better in my opinion ...
anyway ... on a few occasions we went to a cafe and watched the euro matches ... being a holland fan it felt pretty damn good watching them destroy italy the way they did ... they will do the same to france today inshala ..
although i don't usually smoke shisha ... i think the last time i had one was six years ago ... i think i smoked around five or six during this trip ... i always got peach flavor ... except once when they didn't have it ... so i got lemon and mint instead ...
on the last day i decided to go walking around ... i hadn't walked at all during the trip ... if i wasn't at home i was in a vehicle being driven somewhere ... so i decided to just go out and explore ... of course it was very hot so after about an hour of walking around i decided to call it quits ... however i did discover a deserted area of abandoned buildings that was full of graffiti ... so i'm glad i did it ...
after flying back to riyadh ... i tried to book a flight back home to dhahran ... but only managed to find one that was departing in 12 hours ... so i spent the night at the airport ... without sleeping ... i wanted to sleep ... i even tried to sleep ... but i couldn't do it ... i was afraid i would go into a deep sleep and miss my flight ... anyway ... several redbulls and teas and cigarettes and sandwiches later ... i finally got my boarding pass around 3 am ... the flight was at 7 am ... so i just sat there listening to my iPod ... i tried reading but i couldn't ... my eyes were too tired ... and my head hurt ... and i had a cold ... needless to say i felt like shit ... so i just sat there ... and whenever i would feel myself starting to doze off ... i would get up and walk around the terminal ... maybe get something to drink and or eat ... smoke a cigarette ...
and so on ...
once they opened the gate ... i boarded the plane and proceeded to pass out ... i slept through the entire flight ... takeoff, landing and everything in between ... my brother picked me up at the airport ... and i didn't sleep in the car on the way back ... however, i fell asleep shortly after getting home ... i said my hellos then went upstairs and ... zzzzzzzz ... 7 hours of blissful sleep ...
flying back to riyadh tomorrow morning ... i will go to the head office first to sort out some paperwork with the HR department ... then i will probably spend the rest of the day trying to find a place to live ... most likely i will be staying in riyadh for the rest of the week ... and then i will come back on the weekend to take my car and the rest of my stuff ...
and then my move will be complete ...


as far as the photos are concerned ... i uploaded a few of them on flickr ...

i'm going going

back back to saudi saudi ...

tomorrow ...

i will post something about my trip on friday - inshala - and then that will be my last post for a pretty long time ... for at least a month anyway ... maybe longer ... probably longer ...

i know it sounds like i visited some exotic place ... when all i did is go to kuwait ... but just play along ...

AWOL

greetings from q8 ... i've been here for a week now i.e. half of my training period ... still one more week to go ... i don't have the time or the energy to write anything at the moment ... but suffice to say that i am enjoying my time here ... and taking a lot of photos ... i hope to share some of them when i get back ... and possibly write a post about my little trip ... but now is not the time nor the place for that ... so long ...