When I woke up this morning, I noticed some new notifications in my WordPress app. One of them was a comment on one of my posts by a reader from Australia who had some very interesting questions to me, regarding my life in Saudi Arabia which by now is long over. Since I love it when people share their thoughts with me on my work and ask me questions, I thought I…
I remember the night when I was all awake even though it was already 1 in the morning and my flight to Riyadh was in eight hours. I stood there, my bunker of a suitcase open and a bunch of my stuff spread all over the room. I had 20 kilograms available, a ton of things and I was traveling to a place where I have never been before. So naturally, I…
Yesterday my mother and I went outside (outside as in “outside the actual compound” YES, my dear people, that is actually doable here…SURPRISE!!!) to get something for lunch. Luckily for us, there are some small places near us that sell (fast) food. However, since my mother has not been outside very much so far, she had some trouble figuring ut which of the two doors she was supposed to use in order…
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post on my peace. joy. pancake blog about what a day in my life in Kosova looked like. So, one day I thought to myself: Why not do the same thing for Saudi Arabia, too? As you can tell by the title of this post, I thought that was a great idea, so here you guys go! While other people around the world are still sleeping…
One morning in Saudi Arabia, I woke up and decided that it is time for a new watch. To be more specific that was today. So, I got on the compound bus with several other ladies that have nothing to do all day, except for household stuff and for whom the highlight of the day, as far as for activities, is a trip to one of Riyadh’s shopping malls that make German…
Riyadh, the city that never sleeps. Somehow I feel like this statement would suit the capital pretty well. There is not much going on here during the day, but once the sun sets, everyone gets out of their fancy or not fancy houses, gets into their fancy or not so fancy cars and turns the streets of Riyadh into a real challenge and hell for most European drivers. But once the highway…
Since the beginning of this blog, I have written about pretty much everything worth mentioning about the live of a student in Saudi Arabia, except for the day I actually knew I would have the chance to start my life anew. So here is my second post for today, which will be talking about exactly that. Saudi Arabia is one of the most difficult countries to get into. ESPECIALLY if you are…
When I wanted to get from A to B while I lived in the Balkans, I had the choice between walking, taking the bus, hitchhiking (which a lot of peope in Kosovo do, even female KFOR soldiers) and taking a cab. Here in Saudi, there is no such thing as public transportation yet, hitchhiking in this society is probably as unthinkable as the possible invention of a time machine any time soon…
I have never been as happy about thursday coming up as I was this week. Thursday ment the end of the scholweek but also a trip to the desert on this particular day. Those who already have an idea about life in Saudi will know, that social gatherings as we know them from Western counries (or pretty much the rest of the world) do not exist here. Men and women that are…
After learning five languages during my lifetime, at some point I thought that, that should be enough. As I am spending more and more time in Saudi Arabia though, which is the place where I live now, I have realized that staying here for a year without knowing a single word of Arabic would be not only a stupid thing to do but also kind of inpolite towards all the Arabic speaking…