John and James

Here are pictures of John and James during our tour of Jeddah last night. John grew up in Lowell, MA and says he hates the driving here. We all know he secretly loves it because it reminds him of home.

James is just trying to survive the ride.

It's a real challenge to drive over here. Some drivers are very aggressive and it's common to get tail gated and passed from every direction. People think nothing of cutting right in front of you. It's really bad trying to make a left hand turn when people drive around you and cut you off so they can make the turn first. Even pedestrians are a hazard. When we were coming home last night we merged onto a three lane highway (doing better than 50 mph) and nearly plowed through a guy standing in the middle of the rightmost lane smoking a butt. If he hadn't been wearing white robes he'd be a hood ornament now. What was he thinking?!!

The Kings Fountain

The king has a palace in Jeddah and his fountain is a local landmark. He turns it on just before sunset. The fountain is opposite one of the ritziest streets in Jeddah, the Corniche. I took this picture from a park that runs along the Corniche. It was filled with people waiting for the fountain to turn on. A lot of families where there grilling dinner (it smelled great), fishing and playing in the park. There were a few guys selling roasted corn out of a whell barrow. There are hot coals in the barrow and they roast the corn on top of the coals. It seemed very popular. The buildings along the Corniche are spectacular, I'll get some good pictures of them another day. Sometimes it's hard to see just how spectacular they are because of all the construction that's going on in the city. Everywhere you look whole blocks have been demolished and new buildings are going up. There are connstruction barriers everywhere. When things are finally finished Jeddah will be a city people can really be proud of. The one bad thing, though, is people throw trash everywhere. The streets have a lot of junk in them, there was litter all over the park, and there's all kinds of trash floating in the water. People just casually toss stuff to the ground without giving it a second thought.

Hi Ullysses

I miss you very much and think about you and Mommy and Boo every day. I go to work at 6 o'clock in the morning which is 10 o'clock at night for you. I get home at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon which is about 8 o'clock in the morning for you. It's been hard making calls home because I have to either get up very early in the morning or stay up very late at night. I think getting up early is better for me so I'll try and call home before you go to school. We have to start our push up contest. I've been going to the gym every day after work so I think I have a head start. I think I can do 10 push ups. Let me know how many you can do. Please keep up the good work at school. It's VERY important that you do well in math and science so please help Mommy by doing your homework and getting good grades. We want you to be the best. I think you would like Jeddah. There are very nice houses here and the people are very friendly. There is all kinds of candy every where you go. Last night at dinner I had a mint smoothie. It was so good. I told everyone how you like mint tea and that you would think the smoothie was delicious. I also told Josh that you thought that picture of him was very funny. He laughed when I told him that. I haven't been to the beach yet but it's supposed to be very nice. I can't wait to go diving in the Red Sea. Maybe we can do that together when you're older. I miss you!

The Kitchen

Everything in the apartment is pretty nice. We have a living room, two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. It gets into the 80's here during the day but the rooms stay surprisingly cool. We don't need to use the air conditioner yet. The kitchen may kill me. There's an electrical problem somewhere and I got shocked last night while using the stove. John got shocked too. He got shocked again this morning. We have a maintanance guy here now trying to figure out what the problem is. He doesn't speak much English so there's a bit of a communication problem.

The local Mosque

This is the minaret of the mosque behind our compound. The first call to prayer for the day is at about 4:30 AM and it usually wakes me up. It's broadcast over a loud speaker and it's pretty loud.

The back yard . . .

Here's a picture of the back of the compound. There are a number of other buildings on the compound. I think each one is rented by a different company. Our main compound (where most of our colleagues stay) is a few miles down the road. We're staying at the executive compound because there's no room for us on the main compound. Not the ideal situation but it works for now.

This is home for now

Here's a picture of the "executive compound" where I'll be staying for the next few months . . .

picture test

I tell myself everyday that a few months in the burning sands will make life better for these folks . . .

Getting there

I had a very nice flight from Philidelphia to Jeddah on Lufthansa. I left home around 10:30 am on Monday, January 20 and arrived in Franfurt at about 6am local time on Tuesday. The actual flight time was only about six hours. The plane left Philly at about 5pm and flew up the coast so I got to see New York and Cape Cod. It was getting dark around this time so the city was lit up like a Christmas tree. To the west everything was dark and I got more than a little sad thinking my little boys were out there in the dark and I wouldn't be able to see them again for months. The hardest thing about this trip is leaving my family behind. The plane arrived at one end of the airport and my connecting flight was all the way on the other side of the airport (gate C15). The flight attendent directed me to C15 but she didn't tell me the gate was about a mile away from where we landed. Seriously, it was about a mile away and I wasn't able to find a shuttle from one gate to the other. I got a blister on my right foot as I walked through the deserted airport. My new sneakers and Under Armour socks didn't cooperate. Because I was flying business class I was able to use the business class lounge while I waited 5 hours for my connecting flight to Jeddah. That was very nice. Big chairs to sit in and lots of free coffee and snacks. My friends started showing up almost as soon as I sat down so I had some good company while I waited for the next flight. A few of the guys appreciated the free beer that was available next to the coffee. We had a really nice flight to Jeddah. On the way over we crossed some mountains that I assume were the Alps. We crossed the Mediteranean but it was cloudy until we go close to the coast of Egypt. The flight map showed us flying over Cairo but it was too cloudy to see the pyrimids. The sun was also setting about this time so everything below us was very dark. The sunset was spectacular, a very deep red that lit up the clouds. Even though we were in the clouds, the sunset made even them look hot and dusty. I thought this was very appropriate. The clouds disappeared for the last hour of the flight as we flew over the Nile and the Red Sea. I saw the lights of some little towns on the Nile and I thought about how long people must have been living there. Jeddah is a very big city. About 3.5 million people live here. It's lit up like New York at night except there's a lot more neon. As we began our decent over the Red Sea and started the approach to the airport, I thought the city looked very nice. I did notice an insane amount of traffic on the roads below us. It was dark (again) when the plane landed, about 7pm local time. There's no jetway in Jeddah so we walked down some stairs and got onto a bus that took us to the terminal. 10 tired Americans that don't speak Arabic on a bus in Saudi Arabia. What could go wrong?