Last week my Lost in Riyadh Facebook page has reached 1000 likes! Since then I have been thinking about ways to celebrate the occasion beyond the usual thank you post. Looking through my old entries that once composed my Lost in Riyadh blog right before GDPR came along in the EU, I found a comment by a reader from back in 2014. Tonight, to celebrate my blog’s wide outreach, I would like to…
riyadh
Blogging on Saudi Arabia: Best of Search Engine Terms
I have always been wondering about the people who are reading this blog. More importantly: in the vast dimension of the internet, how on earth did they come across my blog among so many others? Algorithms provide an interesting angle from which one can look at this question. My analytics page shows me some of the search terms which have been used before the link to this blog has been clicked. I…
Service Denied
I came across something on my Facebook feed today that sparked in me a new load of thoughts that may keep this blog going. There was a video about how a Starbucks in Saudi Arabia had denied service to women and asked for their drivers to get the coffee instead. Dear haters and critics, I don’t want to proclaim that Saudi Arabia is a paradise for women (not by comparison to other places, in…
Ma’a Salama Riyadh: Last Post Maybe
By the time I am writing this I have already left Riyadh and maybe even for good. There were quite a few things happening but not as much that I could have written about up until now. Things like the last exams or prom and in the end, graduation. I must say that despite all of the differences between life in Riyadh and life anywhere else, I miss Saudi Arabia. I miss…
I Packed My Bag- Things That You Should Bring With You to KSA
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…
A Little Party Never Killed Nobody: On the Other Purpose of Embassies
Most of us know embassies as places where you get travel documents or where you go if you have a “diplomatic hold up” in another country etc. But have you ever thought about what else an embassy could be useful for? Think for a moment… Yes, you are absolutely correct! In Saudi Arabia, embassies are also places for social gatherings that sometimes, depending on the level of effort, can be considered a…
Things That You Thought Are Banned in Saudi Arabia But Actually Aren’t
Some people think that Saudi Arabia is a place where things go backwards, meaning that people live like they did in ancient times. That may be true for some things which I probably should not be discussing on here but one of the things that contribute to this general opinion are the things that are (supposedly) banned in this country and to which this post is dedicated. At the very beginning, I…
On Adventurous Day Trips, Cotton Candy and How I Got a New Name
Some people here believe that friday is always the hottest day of the week. Walking down the road to the gate, my floor long abaya wiping the dust after me and my black hijab covering the majority of my head, I was on my way to the place where a friend and I were supposed to be picked up by another friend of ours, to go to a place called Al Batha…
The Kindness of Saudi Strangers
I used to be a very nice person, back when I was a child. I am not saying that I am not a nice person anymore, but back then I was more focused on doing at least one good thing for somebody every day. What made me decrease my amount of kindness and what in turn made me less naive is the fact that in western society it seemed to me as…
Excuse Me, Are You One of Us?
Sometimes, when the sun is shining and you are on vacation, you decide to grab your stuff, finally put on that swim suit again and go finish that English reading assignment by the pool. But as it so happens, you end up doing something completely different instead. I did manage to get my things together and make it down to the pool, but just as I lied down and tried to continue reading Top…