Home to Riyadh

The first thing Misha did when we arrived home was have a reunion with all of his toys.

There are some things we really miss about Egypt. Namely:

- the fact that people go outside all the time and you can take walks

- you can glance out your taxi window and occasionally see a woman at the wheel of the car beside you

- you have the pleasure of being served by a woman once in awhile, like in a pharmacy or a restaurant

- you can eat pork if you want to and have a drink if you want to

- you can go to the movie theater

- you can wear what you like and the streets are filled with colorful clothes

- it feels like you really are in a different country because there is Arabic all around you, and local people enjoy talking to you

All of those things are either very rare or point-blank illegal in Saudi Arabia, so we made the most of our time while in Egypt. However, there are some things that we appreciate about Saudi Arabia after coming back. These include:

- everything is quite clean here

- we have our own great apartment, bathtub, stove, and car, and we know how to get places

- we don't have to haggle over prices anywhere

- people don't guilt trip you for a tip every time you go to the bathroom

- it's easy to find good food and convenient to go shopping

Home sweet home.

Coming back to Riyadh this time around was completely different than our first-timer arrival into the country. Gone was all the stress of finding day care, an apartment, a car, and figuring out how to navigate this address-less city. We already know exactly how to get to work, the grocery store, the DVD store, our favorite fresh juice shop, the dry cleaner's, and our favorite malls. Plus, we had a few weeks of vacation left before the university started up again, so we had time to relax and settle back in.

Though we had the good fortune of being away for the hottest part of the year, September in Riyadh is no cool breeze. It's still 90-some degrees even well after sun set. Misha insisted on wearing his soccer sweatshirt in this photo - not because it was chilly out, but because he was going out to play soccer. Obviously. So he certainly couldn't take it off! By the end of his half hour soccer session, he was rosy-cheeked and soaked with sweat.

Sebastian knows the importance of staying hydrated.

Ready for tennis!

The kids are doing great and growing up quickly! Sebastian already has a handful of words under his belt, including "hi" and "bye," "uh-oh" (in perfect context), "ju" for juice (or any food item at all), "okay," and more recently, "up," "all gone," and "owie" (again in perfect context). He also does an amazing imitation of a cat's meow as well as the funniest sound effects for eating when he's hungry. (The comedy show reaches its pinnacle when Sebby chirps "juuuuuuu?" and makes his munching sound effects while trying to stick his hand down my shirt. Oh boy.)

Drinking successfully by himself! Well, sort of ...

Playing in the laundry.

Sebby is becoming more and more of a playmate for Misha, though they still fight more than they get along. Nevertheless, Sebastian's ability to sit and stack legos or to concentrate on filling a page with colorful marker scribbles has vastly increased, and the boys are able to enjoy more and more things together.

Misha helps us out by pushing Sebby in the grocery store in the new stroller.

Always finding new things to play with! This spatula will be long gone by the next time mom urgently needs it to flip pancakes at breakfast time...

As for Misha, his creativity and vocabulary continue to amuse and impress me. A sampling of Kid Talk:

"Mom, you're a great guy."

"Daddy, how come you're a boss but you're not the real boss, because Mommy's the real boss?" (in response to Josh's comment to 'go ask mom.')

"I'm still trying to concentrate."

"Be careful - it's very fragile!"

"My voice is kind of crunchy." (when he was hoarse)

"It looks marvelous!" (upon seeing the newly arranged living room)

"She has bracelets on her teeth." (that is, braces)

"I'm kind of like Ramadan because, you know Ramadan? You don't eat?" (while recovering from the flu)

"I'm the starvingest one in our family! The starvingest!"

"Mom, you smell good. You smell like cookies."

"I don't wanna distract him anymore because he's trying to sleep."

"You're my bestest mama and you're comfy." (snuggling at night)

And I'll conclude with the kid of quote that epitomizes life with two kids. "Mom! Sebby's trying to put the peanut butter in the bathtub!"

We filled our vacation time with various activities....

like making chocolate chip cookies,

getting inspiration from our beautiful papyrus painting

for our own papyrus masterpieces,

and of course, going shopping. Since we returned to Riyadh during the last week of Ramadan, almost everything was closed during the day, opening up only after 9 p.m. for a frenzy of shoppers. Absolutely no restaurants were open in the city before sundown, and even though some grocery stores were open in the afternoon, everything shut down again for several hours while the entire city broke the fast with their families. After the meal, starting at 9 a.m., people began to flock to the malls. It was madness - Riyadh is nocturnal during Ramadan. Being stuck on the compound all day meant that we too wanted to get out and do something - so off to the mall we went. Unfortunately, this meant that we were shopping with the kids from 9 to midnight or later, which threw off all of our schedules drastically. The process of getting our schedules back to normal once work started was not pleasant.

Air hockey at the mall.

Checking out the toy store.

Wii Bowling at Jarir Bookstore, the Barnes & Noble of KSA.

We met a very sweet Syrian family during Ramadan and celebrated the birthdays of the father and daughter with them (until very late into the night, of course). Misha and their son Ziad, after fighting most of the night, bonded in the back seat of the car and suddenly didn't want to say goodbye!

Goodbye, Egypt

It's taken me over a month, but I have come to the final post about Egypt.



From Luxor, we took the sleeper train back to Cairo, our Egyptian "home base." I have included this video clip of Luxor that I quite like - our leisurely horse-drawn buggy ride through the city at night. I particularly like the background noise: the clip-clop noise of the horse's hooves and the Call to Prayer filling the city for the last time this day. For visual appreciation, we have the colorful strings of lights for Ramadan and the ancient columns of the Temple of Luxor in the midst of a modern Egyptian city.

We had scheduled in four days in Cairo before returning to Riyadh, so we decided to do two cheap nights in our trusty hostel followed by two "splurge" nights in a hotel with a view of the pyramids. Here is Misha in the hostel, taking advantage of the built-in pets.




And Sebastian looking good in just a bandaid!


We spent one entire day in the City Stars Mall. After so much running around in the hot sun, it was nice to be indoors with everything in one place. We even went to a movie - something we could never do in Saudi Arabia. We thoroughly enjoyed Toy Story 3, and in 3-D no less!


City Stars is a massive mall, the second largest in the Middle East after Dubai Mall (which is double the size). After shopping in Riyadh, I thought for sure Saudi Arabia had the biggest malls in the world, but I guess monstrous malls exist everywhere! The Middle East definitely knows how to do malls.


We hit the rides and the toddler play place, which was perfect for Sebby.


And we enjoyed a simple lunch at Subway. This sub is a plastic display model!


We also took advantage of a face-painting station. The face artist whipped out this Batman in about five minutes.


Here is our pyramid-view hotel, complete with a bathtub, carpet, AC, room service, and a rooftop cafe. (At $70 a night, we thought it wasn't a bad deal.)
Sebby enjoys his juice on the roof.


Josh enjoys the scenery.


The kids on the roof, "sharing" a juice box.


We all appreciated the bath tub. "OK Mom, I'm ready to get out!"


And we enjoyed the covered outdoor pool.

Due to a couple mix-ups, we missed our flight back to Riyadh. Twice. In our defense, the first time was because of the Ramadan time change. Everything moved back an hour for Ramadan, so even though our ticket said 12:00, the flight left at 11:00. How were we supposed to know that? We missed the next flight due to a visa mix-up. We didn't realize that our entry visa for KSA was the faded, unofficial-looking print-out tucked away in one of our suitcases until after we were glumly on our way to another hotel for the night with the headache of figuring out what to do next. But once we realized that we in fact DID have an entry visa and located it, the airline office helped us change our tickets cheaply and we got to enjoy two more days in Cairo. This time, we found a cheap, comfortable hotel right across from the famous restaurant Felfela, which is recommended in all the tourist books. And with good reason. The food was so fabulous we ate there about six times in two days. Humus, beans, lentil soup, eggs with tomatoes and meat, falafel, lamb, cappuccino, ice cream - we sampled it all!



Digging in to our feast at Felfela.


The view from our hotel balcony gives an accurate picture of the night life of Cairo. The city never sleeps.

And Mummies, Oh My!

Our time in Cairo went quickly, but we managed to squeeze in the essentials, such as the Egyptian Museum. It was full of sarcophagi, ancient crumbling statues, and thousands of other bits and pieces, but the best part (even though it cost extra) was of course the royal mummy exhibit. Unfortunately, the entire museum was off-limits for photography. Go figure. However, I managed to sneak this photo of a mummified baboon.

The royal mummies were fascinating - amazingly preserved down to the eyelashes, hair, teeth, and fingernails. Misha was excited to see them. He even noticed a very old, very wrinkled, very bony tourist also admiring the display, and to our embarrassment, he called out, "He looks like a REAL mummy!" We can hope that the poor tourist didn't speak English.

The baboon was part of the animal mummy display - also extremely interesting. We saw mummified dogs, cats, horses, and even alligators. Sebastian, whose love of cats has been fostered greatly in Egypt, started making meowing sounds upon seeing the mummy felines. The display featured mummified food products as well, which had been placed in the tombs for afterlife sustenance.

Before leaving Cairo, Josh took Bud and Ashley to the not-to-be-missed market Khan al Khalili. There, Bud and Ashley had so much fun haggling over souvenirs that Josh couldn't pull them away until the wee hours of the morning!

Bud and Ashley taste the thrill of bargaining.

Khan al Khalili on a Ramadan night. Packed to the brim!

Back in our hostel, Misha gets a lot of use out of his hieroglyphic stencil as he busily writes the names of everyone he knows with ancient symbols. Thus, his love of secret codes is born - just like his mommy. :)

The next day we headed on our journey south. Misha looked great in his tourist get-up:

We opted for taking the overnight sleeper train for the 11-hour journey to Aswan. Here we are at the station:

We fell in love with our sleeper train. We had two tiny, cozy, adjoining rooms, each with fold-out bunk-bed-style beds.

The train's soothing motion soon lulled the kids to sleep, leaving the four of us some time to chat and play cards before falling asleep ourselves and waking up the next morning in Aswan.

Bud and Ashley come to Egypt

We were thrilled when, after weeks of daily Skype calls, we successfully convinced Josh's brother Bud to come visit us in Egypt. Even better, he brought along his fiance Ashley. Better still, they scheduled a huge layover in Paris with enough time to walk along the Seine, eat a nutella crepe, and see the Notre Dame. And best of all, we kept their arrival a secret from Misha until Bud and Ashley were actually in our Cairo hostel.

Resisting the urge to let Bud and Ashley fend for themselves in the chaotic airport, Josh took a taxi to the airport to meet them. On the drive back to our trusty hostel, Bud immediately noticed two things about Egyptian drivers: they don't use headlights except to flash at cars going too slowly, and they don't drive within the lines.

It was late when they arrived, and the kids were fast asleep. However, since Josh and Bud were up late talking, Misha eventually stirred and asked who was with us in our dark hotel room. To his surprise, it was Uncle Bud!

Since Ashley was already asleep, he had to wait until morning to greet her. He nestled right in to listen to the Magic Treehouse story Mummies in the Morning - one of the many, many great kids books Bud and Ashley stuffed into the suitcase for Misha. Now we have Stuart Little, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Calvin and Hobbes, to name a few!

Talking all night: Bud chuckles at how Josh takes it as his brotherly duty to lecture him on exchange rates, geography, world history, and a multitude of other things.

When Josh made Bud a list of things-to-bring-definitely-not-to-be-forgotten, he included things like passports, student IDs, cash, camera, and baby tylenol. But at the top of the list was Growl. Growl is no ordinary bear - he has superpowers including a "support button," retractable claws, flying, invisibility, a secret number, and the ability to speak every language in the world. He goes everywhere with Misha - in fact, you've seen him in many a picture. Unfortunately, the original Growl got lost at the pyramids our first day in Egypt. Misha was crushed. Luckily, Bud brought from America another Growl. (And Misha, being quite magical himself and co-king of the world with Growl, transferred the old Growl with all of his superpowers into the new Growl. Growl has since developed even more superpowers, such as lasers and a secret code called Superhero Language.) You should have seen Misha's face when Bud pulled Growl from his backpack.

After sleeping in the next morning, our first priority was finding something to eat. However, finding food in Cairo during Ramadan proved to be far more difficult than we expected. Most stores were closed, although you could find the occasional small shop with water, juice, and chocolate. As for restaurants, the only places that were open were American chains. And that is how we ended up taking Bud and Ashley to Hardees' for their first meal in Egypt. Ironic!

Misha and Sebastian hang out with Uncle Bud and Ashley in Hardees'.

Ramadan Kareem

This photo captures Ramadan in Egypt. In this downtown square in Cairo, you can see the colorful streamers strung between buildings and the traditional "fanos" lanterns hanging overhead. The sun will soon set. The bread-bike man is making his rounds as Misha looks on. The time to break the fast is drawing near; restaurants are opening, delicious smells are wafting into the streets, moods are lifting. Some couples already sit patiently at their tables, touching neither their appetizers nor their drinks until they hear the Call to Prayer.

Our class ended the day before Ramadan, which worked out perfectly for us. The following day, we took the train once again from Alex to Cairo to meet Bud and Ashley (who got a good deal on their plane tickets for flying during the Muslim holy month).


Misha perches on the luggage while waiting for our train.

During the days leading up to Ramadan in our little suburb of Agami, I noticed a feeling of excitement in the air, not unlike the anticipation preceding Christmas. Ramadan and Christmas are, respectively, probably the most significant holidays for the Muslim world and the West. Colored strings of lights even graced buildings, making the connection more so. Below, you can see the decorations in our housing complex where we stayed while taking the class.



Misha helped a staff member wipe the dust off this lantern, which now shines brightly:


Two days before Ramadan, I walked to the little grocery store to get a few things. Under normal circumstances, this store has little room to spare, with its narrow aisles and any free space used for stacks of soap, bread, or batteries. On this day, the store was packed with shoulder-to-shoulder consumers barely maneuvering carts filled to the brim with rice, sugar, juice, and dates. Cheerful Ramadan music was playing and everyone had the air of making grand preparations. Luckily, I had only a few things to buy, and when I finally navigated my way to the counter to pay, a sweet lady with a full cart let me go in front of her. With a grateful smile, I obliged.

The night before Ramadan we went for a little walk and were surprised at how desolate the usually-lively streets were. The shops were closed. Everyone was, for once, at home this evening with family, getting ready for the month of fasting ahead.

Starting right away the next day, it was very clear that no one was eating, no one drinking, no one was smoking. The train station, normally filled with people smoking on the platforms, was refreshingly non-smoky. On the train, the snack vendors still walked by, but half-heartedly, without expecting anyone to buy anything.

Streets in Cairo were bursting with decorations as well. Narrow alleyways were filled with color, like in this picture below.

The "Bussy Cat" bar and cafe (Arabic doesn't distinguish the sounds /p/ and /b/, which explains the misspelled "pussy cat") on the right is most likely closed. Foreigners could seek out alcohol in touristy places such as certain hotels, though these establishments make it clear that they will not serve alcohol to Egyptians during Ramadan.

Throughout the month, the typical greeting is "Ramadan Kareem," meaning "generous Ramadan." You would hear it from your cashier as he handed you your change, see it on signs and store windows, and overhear it as two people greeted each other in the street. Ramadan nourishes a spirit of charity, and we saw many examples of community tables set up in the street where everyone would come and break the fast together.


Ruby Tuesday in Cairo's huge City Stars mall wishes everyone a "Ramadan Kareem."