Saudiversary

June 29, 2010.  Ohh I remember that date so well.  Sadly, I remember it because the next day the new Twilight movie came out and I was SOO upset that I was going to miss it.  I mean because the next day I would be in Saudi :)  Yes, I honestly did try to get Micah to change my plane ticket so that I could go see the movie. Anyway... This past year has been indescribable. There will probably be lots of adjectives in this post.  Sorry if they get repetitive.

In the Past Year We/I:
- packed up and moved across the world
- flew little Gizzy  around the world as well
- moved into a new apartment
- waited for my stuff to move across the world and unpacked
- made amazing new friends for life.  Feimster's, Ford's, McGuire's, Railey's- You are all such a blessing to us
- welcomed old friends to Saudi.  My life wouldn't be the same here without the Perry's.
- I watched two families grow as they welcomed in new babies that were both born in Saudi and one more to be born July 2! (Can't wait to meet baby Railey)

- played many games of "Settlers of Catan" and "Ticket to Ride"

- learned to cook way more things

- learned how to shop around prayer times

- wore an abaya often and even wanted to buy lots of them

- played lots of cards
- learned how to sew

- threw my first murder mystery party
- Celebrated 4 years of marriage

Best of All: 

- We have been to: Qatar, Bahrain, Kenya, Tanzania, Australia, Maldives, Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.  10 countries in 1 year!! Not including Saudi or USA.

- We have seen lions, zebras, giraffes, cheetah's, rhino, and elephants in the wild, had Manta Rays swim over us, snorkeled with a Whale Shark, seen Koala's, scuba dived the great barrier reef, climbed the Syndey harbour bridge, watched the Nutcracker at the Sydney Opera House, went on the Sound of Music tour in Austria, Paraglided in Switzerland, hiked in the Alps, walked the ground that Hitler once walked, drank beer in an authentic beer garden, drove the Great Ocean Road, watched Penguins coming in from the ocean, and walked the Charles Bridge in Prague.

It has been an incredible year full of new and exciting experiences.  I have been the places that I dreamed of going and to places that I never even dreamed of.  Living abroad completely changes your perspective on the world and on life.  I will never be the same. Thanks to my wonderful husband for being my fellow adventurer.

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!

European Tour 2011 part 2

I finally decided I should finish up our vacation before I forget everything we did.  Where did I leave off...ohh yes, leaving Munich.

A popular theme for our vacation was to leave a city for another city but stop at a very popular tourist site on the way.  On our way out of Munich we drove to Neuschwanstein castle.  This is a very beautiful castle built by King Ludwig II starting in 1869 and built over 60 years however, it was never completely finished.  King Ludwig II was only able to live in the castle for 172 days before his mysterious death.  The castle is beautiful and is the castle that Walt Disney used to design his Cinderella castle.

Close to this castle is King Ludwig's fathers castle which is beautiful but far less impressive. 

Upon leaving the castle, we drove a whole 8km to the charming town of Fussen. It was such a cute town I wish we would have had more time just to enjoy the town.  But we did have a great meal and a cute hotel with a living room.  It began to rain that evening so we decided to play some cards.  At some point Shelly and I ended up running through the rain in search of more...beverages.  

Again, we were on the move.  Now we were headed to the great land of Switzerland.  Of course, it was partly cloudy and rained on us on occasion but it only did this to us on our drive.  We drove through the most beautiful country I have ever seen.  Let me reiterate, Switzerland is BEAUTIFUL!  Anytime we saw something pretty and had a place to stop we would all hop out and take pictures. 

We decided to stay in the "Jungrau Region" of Switzerland and within that region we decided to stay in the tiny town of Murren.  Murren is a car free town and in order to get there we had to park our car in Lauterbrunnen (down the mountain) and ride a sky tram up the mountain.  Once we were up we had to hop on a little train to ride across to Murren. It was a fun, different experience. 

As I mentioned before, it was rainy/cloudy our first day.  So we checked into our hotel, sorta explored the town (most things were closed) and then found a comfy place to sit in our hotel and play cards. Our hotel had the most wonderful views.  While we were sitting we were blessed with beautiful rainbows.

  The next morning we woke up early and headed to the Schilthorn (via cable car) for a 007 style breakfast. The James Bond movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"was filmed and set here.  The Schilthorn is a summit where you can get great views of the 3 famous mountains: Jungfrau, Eiger, and Monch.  From this point we literally felt like we were on top of the world with the clouds floating below us.  Our breakfast included champagne and a rotating view of the mountains all around...very 007.  

After a long leisurely breakfast at the Schilthorn we returned to Murren with nothing big on the agenda.  Micah and I decided to head out for a hike.  We had a slight idea of where we were going and the paths were well marked.  At the beginning of the hike I was excited and happy.  By the end I was still excited and happy but kinda thought I might die.  Altitude is a killer. 

Are we there yet??

For our next day in Switzerland we decided to head to the Jungfraujoch or "The Top of Europe".  It is the highest train station in Europe at 11,782 ft.  The train ride is long with 7 km of it completely inside a tunnel dug through the mountain- getting there is half the excitement.  Once you get there you go up an elevator to amazing views and even an ice palace.

At the Jungfraujoch they also had a little place set up for skiing and sledding.  Micah and I had a blast racing each other down the mountain.  We sledded in the Alps :)

Even while planning this trip and our time in Switzerland Micah and I were really hoping to go paragliding.  Luckily, we were able to work it out to where we could drive to Interlaken on our way out of Switzerland and make a quick stop for some adventure sports.  All 4 of us ended up going and we even paid extra for extra air time.  It was such a great experience and I'm so glad we all decided to go.  If I lived anywhere where paragliding was possible I would have to take up the sport.  

Sadly, it was time to leave Switzerland.  Although there were a couple days left of our vacation I felt like Switzerland was the end.  After that we were just on the downhill slide.  On our drive we headed back to Germany via the Black Forest.  We made a stop in the Black Forest at Triberg to go see the Triberg falls. These falls are supposed to be the longest in Germany.  This is where I talked Micah into buying me a beautiful cuckoo clock.   

  

From Triberg we continued driving to Freiburg which is a city still in the Black Forest.  This is the first place we ran into hotel problems.  First it took us forever to find the hotel and once I did they had no memory of our reservation and they had no vacant rooms.  The lady I was talking to first didn't speak English so she had to get her cook out to translate.  Poor guy had to be the mediator of our slightly tense argument.  In the end she helped us find another hotel and gave us 24 euro for the price difference.  Of course I would have preferred the hotel I picked but in the end it turned out ok. At last we settled into our new hotel and headed out to explore Freiburg.  It is definitely a cute place with a college town atmosphere. 

The final stop on our tour was Heidelberg.  I chose Heidelberg because so many people had told me how wonderful it is and my grandpa was stationed there for about 2 years.  We really didn't have much time in Heidelberg but we were able to see the main streets, castle, bridge and eat our final German meal.  Again, it was a cute town that we could have spent more time exploring.  

It's time to pack up the car for the last time.  

Look out Saudi Arabia, the Sperling's are on their way!