Running and Stuff

I must say that I am really starting to enjoy myself here.  It sounds a little crazy with all of the rules and restrictions they have here, but the craziness of it all just adds to the joy factor.  As I don my abaya to go outside the compound it really just amuses me to no end.  This is not to say that I don’t feel some frustration with having to wear it all the time and being told to cover my head by complete strangers who aren’t even the Mutawa, but those things are so minor in comparison with being given the opportunity to  have the experience of living here.  

And really, It's not that I am getting out all that much, but it is enough to just get a little thrill from things.  Simple things really, but they just seem so different here.  Also, I am just loving my new apartment.  The old one was off to the side and away from the hubbub, but the new one is right in the middle of things.  When I look out my front window, I have a gorgeous view of the pool.  

When I look out the back window, I have a view of the tennis courts.

  (The people playing tennis are probably a bit unnerved by me watching them at times, but oh well, there are only two courts available on which to play.)  I definitely need to get myself a racquet because I am feeling the itch to play.  It’s been quite a few years, but since I could still ride a bike last time I checked, I am pretty sure that I can still hit a ball.  Although I must say that while I used to be quite good at roller skating and roller blading, the last few times that I tried that I felt so off balance that I resolved to give that up, so perhaps not everything is like riding a bike.  

There was another race with the running group that I joined.  It was a 5 miler at another compound.  It was much nicer than the last compound that we went to.  It had a homier feel to it and really quite an incredible pool.  There looked to be two pools there.

I am assuming that there was one for families (the fun one) and one for adults. Still, I do like the set up that we have here with bunches of pools all over the place.  It really makes for a serene feeling.  

Matt has been in Dubai for the past few days so he was not around for the race.  This race was at 8AM.  The change in temperature made all the difference as it was 86 degrees this time, as opposed to 105 the other time.  The sun was still quite hot but it was so much easier.  I felt better after finishing 5 miles this time than I did after finishing 5 K last time.  I was able to catch a ride with another couple that live here on the compound who have also joined the running club.  It was necessary to leave at around 7 AM in order to drive to the compound,  check in, and get ready to race.  I am not quite sure why it felt so early but it did.  We all seemed a bit bleary eyed as we set out.  

This compound seemed a bit smaller than the last one, but it was definitely a bit nicer.  All of the homes had their own private parking space which was nice.  Because of this, we had to park outside as there was no parking inside.  This actually made things much easier because we simply had to walk in.  There was still a gate that we needed to go through but it went much faster because there was no need to inspect the cars.  

Once inside my friend realized that they had forgotten the bag with all of the water inside of it.  Since it would have been ridiculous to attempt the run with no water, I went with her back out to the car while her husband checked us all in.  We were getting fairly close to the race time so we put our abayas back on and left to go get the water.  The car was probably parked less than 800 meters away but we didn’t want to be late, so we jogged a little on the way over.  So yes, I did run in my abaya.  And I must say, it wasn’t completely horrible, but it did get warm awfully fast.  I wish I could have taken a video of it because I am fairly certain we looked a little silly.  

But we got back in plenty of time! 

I wore my new running tank that I got here at the New Balance store.  I basically bought it because of the pocket on the back, but it turns out that the pocket is too small to hold my ipod.  No biggie though.  The race was 5 laps around the compound, each lap equaling about a mile.  Since I run with my Nike+ and it is fairly accurate, I believe that each lap was probably about 75 meters short of a mile, making the course about 400 meters short of five miles.  My final official time was 50:18.   This would have me running at about a 10 minute mile which is actually really good for me considering when I first started I was running at about a 13 minute mile on a good day.  However, since I believe the course was short, I am thinking that I am running more of 10:20 or 10:30.  Still good as far as I am concerned.  I actually ran an extra 400 meters at the end of the race just to make sure that I got in 5 miles and the time was more like 52 minutes.  (I like to be accurate)

When the race was over, the guy who won the race came over to say hello to us and introduce himself.  He was very nice and very humble.  He said absolutely nothing about winning the race but we recognized him as the super fast guy who lapped us twice.  When we asked him if he was the winner, he just said, “I was just trying to finish quickly before it got too hot.”  Too funny!  All in all it was a very nice day and I was very happy just to be there and be running outside.  I miss that.  A lot.  Evidently there are some runners who do practice runs around the DQ.  (No, that’s not the Dairy Queen, it’s the Diplomatic Quarter.)  Evidently it is about 10 miles around.  I would love to do that but I am fairly certain that Matt isn’t quite up to a 10 miler yet and also, their slowest pace group is at about 10:30 mile.  Since this is my race pace.... well, I think I either need a slower pace group or I need to do a bit more training.  Quite the conundrum!  How can I pick up the pace if I can’t get outside to practice?  I may just have to suck it up and just do it.  

Oh, and I have also joined a yoga group at yet another compound.  They have this humungous yoga room with blocks and blankets and straps and everything.  I’ve only seen the yoga room so I can’t really compare the compound but it seems quite nice.  Currently we are in the beginner class, but it seems a bit easy so we are going to try a yoga 2 class next week.  Should be fun.  Very relaxing at least!

Anyway, today I just think that I need to stop and take a moment to just look where I am right now at this moment and just feel gratitude.  Sure, this may not be the greatest spot in the world, but how amazing it is to have the opportunity to be here right now.  

Souq Shopping in Riyadh

So it has been a few days since my last post.  This is because I am actually getting out more and getting a bit of a life.  Since Ramadan is over, I guess things have been getting back to normal and there are a lot more activities and buses which leave from the compound.  Also, it seems that a lot of people were on vacation during Ramadan and now they are all back.  Anyway, I have met a few people and I am having quite a good time.

On Monday, I took the bus from the compound to the Deira Souq.  It's not an actual city bus, but more of a private bus.  If the bus were packed, it could probably carry about 24 people.  We probably had less than half that.  Anyway, Deira Souq reminded me a bit of shopping in Zhuhai.  A lot of outdoor shops.  All selling different things.  There were stores for jewelry, furniture, clothes, nick nacks, you name it.

I took a few pictures but then kind of forgot.  I was having a good time and didn't exactly want to get left behind since it was a pretty big place and I had absolutely no idea where I was.

This is a picture of the 5 riyal store. I should have taken a picture of the front, but I didn't.  We didn't go in but it is basically just like the dollar store.  (Or in this case, $1.25)  Also very similar to the 10 mop store. (And yes Nicole, I know that it wasn't actually called the 10 mop store... but I don't remember the actual name of that store and you know exactly what store I am talking about!)

Not exactly the most fashionable clothing there...

More nick nacky stuff.

So, I didn't buy a whole lot.  But I did buy some pillow covers.  They look like this.

I bought 4 of them.  Still need to get the pillows to go inside, but that will probably be next week.  They cost 70 riyal.  That's about $18.50.  Did I mention that I am a horrible bargainer?  It's true. I will work on that.

Now there was one thing that I just couldn't resist buying.  I thought it was just too funny.  And a picture just wouldn't do it justice so I must post video.

And yes Andrea, I was thinking of Collin when I bought that, so lucky you! That is coming home to your house!  And you thought that the lucky ducks and the penguin shuffle were annoying!  Just a bit of a preview for you!

The next day we went to the second hand souq.  It was even crazier than the first souq.  Very dusty and dirty but good fun to see all the stuff.  I bought an abaya with pink rhinestone hearts all around the sleeves.  It probably previously belonged to a 13 year old girl, but I really kind of liked it.  I need to get it shortened but it was only 20 riyal which is about 5 bucks.  I probably overpaid, but seeing as how we paid 500 riyal for my other abaya, it still seemed like a bargain.

Anyway, I guess the place is humongous and there are different sections for different things.  We were in the clothing section.  Here is the only picture that I remembered to take.

Also, I bought a couple of dresses at the urging of my new friends... but that is definitely another post for another time.  Anyway, I just had the best time.  After we were done everyone showed what they bought on the bus.  And a few dust clouds went up as we took stuff out.  There is just no avoiding the sand around here.  Also, it was sooooo hot.  I was sweating like crazy. But good fun.

Still Eating

My husband has a tendency to work long hours and never seems to want to take me shopping for groceries.  As a result, I tend to do most of my shopping in the compound store.  And if you think the restaurant has gotten old, believe me, so has the market.  Anyway, the one good thing about this is that when he comes home at night and asks, "So, did you make anything for dinner?"  I just say "Nope." And then we get to go out to eat.  Again.  

So tonight, we went to a new restaurant that just opened up.  I know this because there is a sign out front that says,  Now Open!  I think this is officially my new favorite restaurant.  It is called the Al Bahsaly Palace Restaurant.  

It is two stories.  This is the second story.  We actually ate in the window on the left.  There were a lot of individual rooms up there but since I walked in not wearing a head covering, they put us in the window.  It was kind of nice.  

This was what the downstairs looked like.  It's the mens section.  The family section was way better.

We had to walk around the corner and up some stairs to find the entrance to the family section.  From there we took an elevator up to the next floor.  This was the lobby of the restaurant.  Looks all fancy.

This was where we were sitting.  I was super hungry so I ordered a lentil soup to start.  It was quite good.  I ate the whole thing.  The whole menu was in Arabic with no English, so our waiter was very helpful and answered all our questions. He said that it was mainly Syrian food and also Turkish and Arabic.  Luckily there were a lot of pictures so we picked a few pictures and asked him what they were and he explained them to us. 

I made the picture bigger so that you can see a little better.  Please keep in mind that these are all going to be spelled wrong because I can't read Arabic and I can only spell these things phonetically.  Now the front picture was actually round, but we had cut it in half already before I remembered to take a picture.  Also I had already taken a bite of my half.  The waiter said it was kafta with yogurt.  It was soooo good.  Above that on the left is something that at first he said was dooshka and then he changed it to something that sounded like maria.  (like the name)  He said if it was with cheese, then it is called dooshka but we ordered it with vegetable so it is maria.  Anyway, that was just the best thing that I ever tasted.  So good.  There was parsley and onion in the middle of the plate and that was good on top.  Best stuff ever.  On the right top was mixed grill with vegetables.  Also very good.  But by far, the best was the maria dooshka whatever it was.  I was so full when we finished, but evidently Matt wasn't because he ordered Om Ali.  I had tried that at the hotel when I first got here.

This is what it looked like here.  You can kind of see pistachios inside.  Now of course, if someone orders dessert, there is always room to taste it.  And so I did.  And it was soooo much better than the stuff that I ate at the hotel.  And I had really liked it at the hotel, but this was just so much better.  It was so good that I tasted it 4 times just to make sure.  Delicious.  Anyway, we ordered all that plus a Perrier and a mango juice and it came to about $45 US.  Not too bad.  Although, groceries would have probably been cheaper.  But since I have hardly any pots and pans and stuff either, there is not a whole heck of a lot that I could do with the groceries anyway.  My husband would like me to point out that it has been about a month since I wrote my "Odd Discovery" blog.  He thinks this is why I am being a bit crabby.  But did I happen to mention that in a few days he is going to Dubai and he isn't taking me?  If he thinks that I am crabby now... just wait!  

Anyway, tomorrow I am going to something called a souk.  I don't quite know what that is, but I am going on a bus from the compound.  I am thinking it may be kind of an outdoor market?  I'm not sure, but I will let you know! It's on the shopping bus schedule so there must be some kind of shopping.   I will find out soon enough!  

Eating Out

The compound restaurant has gotten really old really fast.  Occasionally we do go eat outside the compound.  We have actually had quite a bit of Arabic food especially at the hotel during the Iftar buffets during Ramadan.  Those were amazing and the buffets were just as big as anything I've seen in Vegas and much better as well.  There was quite a selection that included many Arabic dishes as well as foods from other nationalities as well.  Anyway, we went to those with people from Matt's work so I couldn't take any pictures of the stuff but it was quite good!  Trust me.

Well there are plenty of restaurants here.  Some good, and plenty of the same old stuff that they have back home!  First and foremost.... there are plenty of Applebee's.  Not exactly America's finest.  Still, I did want to see what the inside of a Saudi Arabian Applebee's looked like.  Other than the portable screens in the family section... well it looks pretty much the same.

This is just one of the many Applebee's around.  We didn't go to this one, we went to one in the Mall.

Pretty much looks the same!

And the food is also pretty standard.  I ordered sliders with no cheese.  Pretty yucky.

Moving on!  In this same mall, there is also a Tony Romas.  Those are actually the only two restaurants in the mall.  Everything else is a food court establishment.  Anyway, traffic was bad one night and we were buying a vacuum, and we were hungry and so we ended up at the Tony Romas this time.

Hey... it's a step up from the Applebee's!

Here is a picture of the family section.  All of the booths are curtained in.

Here is me in my standard pose now, wearing my standard abaya.  Apparently though, this wasn't enough, because the Mutawa came through and one of them looked at me and told me to put on my head covering.  Well, he said it in Arabic so I am assuming that is what he was telling me.  Since we were sitting in the family section and the whole point of the curtained booths is so that you can take off your head covering, or hijab, (thanks Mary!) I just pulled the curtain closed and he walked away.  We would have left it open but I think the waiter was worried that they would come back so he kept closing the curtains on us.

This was our waiter.  Every time he wanted to come in he would say, "Sir, madam, may I come in?" Odd I tell you.  Very odd indeed!  Anyway, I wasn't all that hungry and so I once again ordered sliders.  But these were tenderloin sliders.  Really, I do eat other stuff... and this was at least a couple of weeks later.

These were actually much better than the Applebee's.  And they came with a mustard dipping sauce.  Mmmmmm mustardy goodness!

Occasionally we get out of the mall.  The other day we went to the Four Seasons Hotel, but at the time that we went, only the lounge was open so we had high tea.  We had an Asian tea and an International tea.  Both were very good but they came with way too much dessert.  I know, how can you have too much dessert?  Easy!

This was the tea when it came out.  Probably should have just split the International tea.  But the Asian tea came with sushi... and I never pass up sushi.

Here is the tea a little closer.  The scones were so good with clotted cream and jelly.  I could only eat one, but I did sneak the other two into my purse for later.  (That's how the really classy ladies do it!)

Also, we went to a Mexican restaurant.  Anytime I see a Mexican restaurant in a foreign country, I just have to try it.  This time was no exception.  We were actually planning on going to a rather fancy Arabic restaurant, but parked in front of "El Chico," and or course we never actually made it to the other place.

Luckily, in my abaya, I am always dressed appropriately no matter where we go. No need to post another pic... scroll back up... they all look the same... only the food changes.  And so here is the food.

It looks pretty gross, but actually it was really pretty good.  Way better than Macau.  These were tamales.  I was really in the mood for those.  Not bad at all.

And finally, tonight, we had Chinese at Golden Royal Chinese Restaurant.

Kinda hard to miss this place... and yet we walked into the restaurant next door instead.  Really not sure how that happened.

 I think that Grandma was there.  That top bird looks like a hummingbird right?  Grandma always did like Chinese food!

 Here is me... waiting for the food.  It was very dark in there.  Hence the candle.

And here is the food!  Really quite good.  There was shrimp chop suey, beef with bell peppers, and cashew chicken.  We ate everything.  Both very hungry I guess.  Oh and also, I realized that when you have your own private booth, well, you can blow your nose at the table and no one else in the restaurant will see.  Like I said... Classy!!

Prayer Times and Shopping

My sister says that I need to write less and post more pictures.  Too that I say pshaw! Just skim sistah!

So, something that I don't think that most of my friends back home realize is that over here they pray 5 times a day.  At specific times.  There is a prayer schedule that changes each day by a few minutes.  Here is yesterdays schedule as copied from Yahoo Maktoob.


Fajr         Dhuhr Asr        Maghrib Isha
04:20 11:50 03:18 06:01 07:31
AM         AM          PM    PM         PM

The top part is the name of the prayer.  Underneath that is the time and whether or not it is AM or PM.  The prayer times vary in length and I am unsure about how long each one is.  I am sure that I could look it up but I am not sure where to do that just yet.

Sometimes the prayers last for 10 - 15 minutes and sometimes they are a half an hour or longer.  Pretty much everywhere that you go, there are prayer rooms. There are separate rooms for men and for women. They are in all of the malls.  The thing about prayer times and shopping is that when they happen, they pretty much close up all of the stores for the duration of the prayer time.  They announce it first.  Something like, prayer time is in 15 minutes and the store will be closing.  Basically, if you are in the store when prayer time rolls around.  You will be locked in.  Not forever, mind you, just until prayer time ends.  We were in the Danube Hyper Market once and they announced it and then they just started rolling down the doors.  We were already in line at the time and we made it outside before the prayer time started.  If you don't make it out in time, well then you just have to sit down and wait and hope that its not a long one because basically you aren't going anywhere.

The 5K race the other day was over by the IKEA, so afterwards we went there so that we could exchange a duvet cover.  (It was too small.)  We went inside and went over to the return area and there was no one around.  After waiting around for about 5 minutes we figured out that it was probably prayer time.  I went and looked around the check out area and I just saw a bunch of people waiting around and no one ringing anything up.  Yep, definitely prayer time.  I took a quick video.  Nothing great, just to give you an idea of what it looks like.

I looked at the video after I posted this and I could barely see anything, so I am also putting up another video that I took.  Still nothing great, but I guess it's better than nothing.

Since the IKEA is so big, I guess that they don't lock it down.  Kind of like the mall.  The individual stores close, but not the mall itself.  Anyway, we stood around and waited and after about 10 minutes they announced that all IKEA employees should return to work and then things just started right back up again.

Another day, we went to the mall over by the Four Seasons Hotel.  I took a few pictures. Oh, and by the way, I think that Grandma showed up!

Hi Grandma!

Here is a picture of the directory from the mall by the Four Seasons.  It shows where the bathrooms are and also where the prayer rooms are.

And this is a picture of where the ladies prayer room is.  The door isn't open... but its in there.  I peeked in once and there are diagonal rows on the floors.  They put prayer mats down.  They just look like little rugs.

This particular mall also has a ladies only section.  Notice the sign up above.  No men!  It's roped off and they make sure that only women can go up there.

I am not exactly sure what goes on up there, because I haven't actually been up there.  Matt isn't exactly patient.... so I just don't see him waiting around for very long while I go up there and have a look around.  But one of these days I will go up there and have a look around.  Then I am sure that I will blog all about it!

Anyway, prayer times do make it a bit difficult to get things done sometimes because they really need to be taken into consideration when planning something.  Basically, if you think that you are going to be doing your shopping, well you better check the prayer times first because you may just end up waiting outside the store or, as mentioned earlier, waiting locked up inside.

Running!

As I have mentioned in previous posts, my compound is really small.  It is difficult to run here because there is just no where to go.  It's possible... but it is really just one main block and a bunch of dead ends that you can run to the end of, but only to turn around and come right back.  I have only tried this once and it was early in the morning at about 7 am.  This is not to say that I have not still been running, I have just been doing it indoors on the treadmill.  Also, I am still using Nike + but the website has been having trouble all month long but they keep sending emails telling us to stick with it as they are working out the kinks!

Anyway, during the month of Ramadan it seems like a lot of the expats go on vacation so things have been pretty dead on the compound.  But of course, the kids all start back to school in September so it seems to be filling up some these days.  I am actually seeing people out at the pool and there are a lot more kids around riding bikes and playing.

When I first got here, I noticed a flyer for a local running group that hold races at various compounds.  (Obviously not mine!)  Anyway, I emailed the group and got the info and I have been waiting for the first race for about 3 weeks now.  Today was the day!  I must say I have been getting a little sick of the treadmill these days.  I listen to music and they have 2 TV's in the gym but it still gets a little boring.  I always prefer to go outside.  Also, I just feel like half the time the treadmill is doing too much of the work for me.  I crank up the incline but it just never feels the way a good hill should.  Besides running on the street, I was also looking forward to seeing another compound because so far, I have only seen my own.

The race today was at a compound over by the IKEA.  It didn't take long to find it but it did take a long time to get in.  I had to send in our information a week ago so that they could put us on a visitor list to enter the compound.  We had to go through about 3 different checkpoints to get in and they inspected our car twice for bombs.  Once when we first got there, and again a second time as we worked our way through a maze of concrete barriers.  These guys were not messing around.  This was what the second checkpoint looked like.

Again... I apologize for the bad picture but they don't exactly let me get out and take better ones!  If you look down at the ground, its kind of like when you go to the Jiffy Lube.  There is a guy down there who is thoroughly inspecting the undercarriage of the car for bombs.  They also checked our id's 3 times.  On the third time, the took my passport and Matt's Iqama card and issued us two visitors passes. When you leave, they give back the id's once the visitors passes are returned.

The whole process took about a half an hour, but there were a lot of people in the line.  In fact, the race ended up starting later because it was taking people so long to get through the entrance.  But on to the race!

I have had a few people ask me what I would be wearing to the run.  What exactly is acceptable?  I wondered this myself.  Luckily, they have a website with pictures posted from previous races so I could check and see what everyone else was wearing.  (I would hate to be inappropriate!)  Everyone in the pictures was just wearing regular running clothes.  Since it was 105 degrees out at the time, I decided to go with shorts and a tank top since it is what I usually wear when running.

I also had on lots of sunscreen and my favorite Fleet Feet hat.  So miss that place!  I froze my water bottle before I left, but by the time we were finished, there were only a couple of swallows left and they were quite warm.  They had water there, it was in these individually sealed cups like the kind that you get with a meal on an airplane.  They had stacks of them at different stations along the route, but the only problem was that they had been sitting out there for at least an hour and were also quite warm.

Well, we got there and we registered and then waited for a bit until they started the race.  While this compound was much bigger than our compound, it definitely had a bit of a military feel to it.  It felt a lot like army barracks.  I kind of like where we live better.  It's just laid out better and has a much homier feel to it.  Even if I am going to end up running myself in circles!

Before this race, the hottest that I ever ran in was 100 degrees.  It was a four mile training run in Sacramento.  (Remember that Rachel?)  It was hot and a bit miserable.  Well... this was hotter.  But much less miserable because I was just so happy to be out!  Also, it was a mile shorter than the previous run and that made a huge difference because my lungs were just burning at the end of the race.

They even had a timer for the event.  Here is a picture of it.  But that was not my time.  I took the picture after I had been in for a while.  I believe my time was 32 minutes and something seconds.  Not sure what the official results were.  I wasn't exactly going for a personal best.  I was just trying to make sure that I didn't pass out at the end because that would have been embarrassing!

At the end of the race, I felt OK.  Definitely not great.  Like I said earlier, my lungs were burning a bit not only from the heat but also because the air quality just isn't that great.  This is what I looked like at the end of the race.  Keep in mind that isn't all sweat.  It was so hot that we started pouring the little warm water cups over our heads to cool off.  It helped some.

At the end of the race there was water that was actually cold, sodas, gatorade, and fake beer.  There was also a small buffet served in the compound restaurant. The restaurant is directly behind me in the picture.  It is way bigger than the restaurant on our compound.

The whole thing was very nice.  I enjoyed myself very much!  The rest of the races are longer and they will be in the morning at 8 am.  Here's hoping that I can get Matt out of bed early on his off day twice a month.  Either that or I need to find another ride!

IKEA Saudi Arabia

So I finally got to go to the IKEA!  It is a good thing that I am so easily entertained because I just had the best time there! I just love the IKEA.  This is what the IKEA looks like in Saudi Arabia.

When you go inside, pretty much everything looks the same except that everything is in Arabic.  So first things first.  Of course, if I am going to go to the IKEA in Saudi, then I am going to want to check out the cafeteria because who wants to shop on an empty stomach right?

Specials menu looks a little different from back home.  I still don't know my numbers yet.. but I will eventually.  Not sure how much this stuff costs... but it is IKEA so it is fairly cheap.

The cafeteria line.  Pretty much looks the same.  The big difference is of course... where you eat.

This is part of the family section.  Each table is curtained off so that you can eat in private.  There were tons of kids running around in there.  Really didn't seem all that private.

That is the men's section.  Excuse me... Bachelors section.

Here is me in the Family section.  I had not yet closed off the area.  I really do need to start wearing a little make up when I take these pictures but I just never know when I am leaving the house.  It was like 9:30 PM at this time and I had run 8.5 miles that day and just didn't feel like bothering.  Always regret that later when I look at the pics... but oh well!

Now of course... if one is at the IKEA well then you have to get the meatballs.  It's just like almost required by law.  In the States... the meatballs come with mashed potatoes.  Here, you can get them with either fries (everything comes with fries here... I sooo don't understand that) or rice.  Since I don't really like fries... I got them with rice.  Would have preferred the mashed potatoes but they were not an option.  Anyway, I really do think that the meatballs are actually better in Saudi than they are in the States.  Perhaps this is a different recipe?  Not sure if the ones in the States have pork in them or not.  These were probably all beef.  Still, it is difficult to fine tune ones palette in an IKEA cafeteria.  I liked them but I didn't like like them.  Nuff said!

Now I still find it fascinating that you can totally curtain yourself off here when you are eating.  So I took a little video for you so that you can see how we do it.

I look really stupid at the end but haven't figured out yet how to cut them so I will just have to look dumb.  Not the first time.  (Nicole... even if it says 0:00 click the little arrow key down at the bottom!)

Anyway, the rest of the IKEA was pretty much like any other IKEA except everything was in Arabic and I couldn't really tell what the prices were on anything.  We bought a couple of duvet covers and some organizer boxes for the bathrooms.  Also bought a few odds and ends.  I thought that it was funny though that they accessorized their closets with abayas.  I saw a few of them hanging around. Like this:

 There were tons of other things that I would have liked to have looked at but alas...all good things must come to an end.  Oh, but IKEA my old friend... I haven't yet seen the last of you!