Fun in the Land of Sand

After our amazing 16 day trip around Europe, Micah's parents followed us back to Saudi Arabia to spend 2 more weeks.  There's not really a lot to sight-see here in Saudi so luckily we were all ready for a little down time but poor Micah had to go back to work.  Sorry babe!  We spent most of our time lounging either at the beach or at the pool and working on our tans.  Marvetta was able to enjoy the compound life with me by going to play cards all day on Sundays, attending coffee mornings, going away parties, etc.  We just left Shelly at home with Gizmo during these times but I think he almost enjoyed his time alone.  However, we did have a few fun outings together.


One of the days that we actually left Murjan, we headed out to Khobar to sorta do my "normal" shopping outing.  First we stopped at a hole-in-the-wall bakery for some amazing cheese bread then we shopped at Silver Museum, Anteaq, and Desert Design.  Shelly and Marvetta loved Desert Design and walked out with some beautiful things.  Afterward we went to Chilis and were able to observe the Saudi "mall" culture and also the eating out culture with secluded booths and covered women.


Probably the most exciting outing we did was going to a camel farm.  I called and requested a certain driver who I had heard knew where to go and what to do.  We pulled into this little camel farm with two bedoin tents and approximately 25 camels.  Our driver, Jinto, went to talk to the Bedoin man who takes care of the camels to make sure he was ok with us coming out.  Let the adventures begin...
At first we just walked around and looked at the camels.  A few were interested in us and came up to us so that we could pet them.  Then the camel farmer came out of his tent and saddled one up so that we could ride.  He was a very good host and invited us into his tent to have Sudanese tea, water out of a shared bowl, and later he milked the camels right in front of us and let us taste it.  Yum (not really, I don't like any milk including camel). 

Tasting Camel milk

As I said before, most of our other time was spent lounging or shopping. Ohh yeah, and there were some vicious games of ping-pong, hookah smoking (trust me, it's legal), and many card/board games played. 

After 4 weeks together, it was time for the parents to head home.  We were sad to see them go. I missed having people to do stuff with all the time.  We miss you guys!