A New Year Begins, But This Time With Family

“Ahhhhh this is nice!” says Garnet as we exit the Lufthansa plane from Frankfurt last Sunday night. It was about 30C but with a sea breeze was quite nice. I think Garnet got about 4 hours sleep on the trip over, while I tried to get as much as possible between the frequent meals as we traveled into time (going from west to east). I think the trip was about 21 hours this time. We were quite rushed in Frankfurt with about an hour and a half to move terminals and pass through customs with searches and such activities along the way. Oh, and our bags made it!

At the Jeddah airport, we went to the University's greeting desk which is inside customs (try to get something like that in Canada!!!), and they whisked us through customs and immigration processes. Garnet was moved to the front of the line and photographed and fingerprinted. Next was the normal wait in the airport lobby waiting for the university transportation to take us home. With about a half hour wait, we were met and packed into a suburban. Garnet and I got into the vehicle along with the brand new principal of the schools here. We later found out that there must have been a car coming for the two of us as the suburban staff had thought that we were the principal's husband and child. I guess Garnet knows one person now…. and like me, when I was in school, it was the principals that I knew the best. 8-) Well, maybe not, but we were often on a first name basis.

We have been into Jeddah twice now to get some things like electrical plugs and a radio controlled car toy that they do not have here in the grocery store, and passport photos from the local town beside the university campus. The photos story is quite funny.

At the end of a work day, four of us went to Thewal, about a 3 minute outside the university gates. We caught a ride in Felix’s VW Touareg. One of the passengers was Kannan who wanted to send money home through a bank transfer. After this, we went back down the single main street and found the photo shop that I had used many months ago. We were taken inside and I told the man I wanted 40 passport photos – he said it would be 40 SAR ($10.00), sitting and processing. Garnet sat on a wooden bench against a white background and the guy came in with an oldish digital camera with the flash held onto it by tape… Two shots taken and we were told the processing would take 15 minutes. We left and crossed the road to attempt to find some electronic plugs that we needed (no success), but did source a beard trimmer that I might go back for and also to meet the other guys at a fruit shop. I purchased some guava, peaches, mango and a dozen or so small walnut-sized apricots. We had fruit salad that night. There are two guava still left to eat and I better get at them soon because they are leaving a distinct rancid armpit odor in the house. 8-/

We went back to the photo shop and picked up Garnet’s photos. As the two of us were standing around and the last few photos were being cut apart we commented at the example photos on the walls. The shop specializes in taking the heads of people and placing them into photo sets. People can get themselves put in a white/brown/black suit or Arabic garb (standard body shape and all) and be placed in the environment of their choice, be it in a lush garden or in front of a mosque or even in some location in Mecca (which I used as an educational opportunity to talk about forbidden locations for Christians in Saudi). We paid the 40 and exited the store. On the way home, I pulled out the photos and had a great laugh! They had put Garnet’s head on an ad image for the store but the problem was, that Garnet had been turned into ‘Plastic Garnet’! Common practice here and I should have thought about this before I asked for the photos, is to lighten skin and remove blemishes, and enhanced his lip color (I think they thinned them a bit too… The art of ‘exact passport photography’ has not yet reached Saudi. This was his THIRD photo session in as many days here in Saudi -- thank goodness that he had already had a second session of photos and fingerprinting take place on campus the day after his immigration session, but that time, for university security and ID card.  I am sure he is seeing spots by now. This set of photos is for the MANY miscellaneous forms etc that need to be filled in for different things. For example, he needs two photos for his registration for school here…. He might need up to 5 for his National Identity card which we will get next week but I am hoping that they can pull his Immigration photo off their system rather than use Plastic Garnet – I hear that they do that now.

Oh, and about those 4 hours of sleep that he got. He is falling asleep all the time during the day. If he is not actively occupied with something, he just drifts off. Last night I went to sleep at 8 pm and had a light sleep. His light was finally turned off at 11 and he told me that he was up at 5 am this morning when I staggered down the stairs at 10:20. I have been trying to keep him awake in the day but it has been a challenge.

During one of our trips into town, we walked through the electronics and hardware section of a large grocery store, a bit like Walmart, called Hyper Panda.  Garnet spotted this gem of a product.  We are not sure what it does, but it was a legitimate product and not a gag.

I will not write a full blog on our summer trip but have made a photo-story that does a better job.

Also, you can view two short video of the kayak trip we went on.  On the Shore and Kayaking.

Enjoy