Let me start with the American brunch. Who would have thought that copious amounts of bacon and champagne would go so well together? But the truth is when something is banned it suddenly becomes exponentially more desirable. I wouldn't have thought the unavailability of bacon would particularly bother me about living in this country, but when I saw the crispy oily goodness hot off the grill, it was all I could do to not grab the whole serving tray and run! Same goes champagne or any other alcoholic beverage - I'm not sure entirely how they get them into the country in the first place, but since the Embassy is technically American soil everything is available. And in the heat of the 35C afternoon, nothing beats drinking a Smirnoff Ice next to the shimmering pool (okay, lots of things beat that in my mind, but it was still pretty fun).
Then the Canadian Embassy... I have to say their decorations were better than the Americans - Christmas lights everywhere, little floating flowers in the pool, and obligatory statues of a moose and a beaver. Again, everything you never knew you loved until you moved to the Kingdom was available. The night's entertainment included music classics like Footloose, drunken dance floor mishaps, and flirtatious Turkish diplomats flaunting their diplomatic immunity - my life thrills me!
Then on to Janadriyah the next day... I really didn't know what to expect, but it ended up being a day well spent. The gates only open at 4pm which is partly because it's supposed to be a day of rest, but also because the heat is way too oppressive in the middle of the day. This whole country mostly comes alive at dusk when the sun is no longer trying to kill you. Most stores are open until 11pm or midnight!
Anyway, the entire fair ground is set up like a map of the Kingdom and each area has a pavilion with different displays of cultural artifacts and highlights of that area. The Riyadh area has a lot of government booths which, although not exactly thrilling, was interesting. The national treasury had displays of money in use in the area throughout history - at one point they were using French silver coins and just stamping some arabic word overtop of the image!
In the area representing the interior of the country, we walked past one stage where people seemed to be yelling at the audience very angrily. Faris (our hospital appointed guide) explained to us that this was a poetry competition (kind of like Youth Talent Showdown for the Stampede inclined out there). You could have fooled me that that was arabic poetry! But apparently poetry is very respected here and poets are given quite high esteem.
In one of the ladies only areas, a group of ladies took great pleasure in dressing up one of our group as a traditional Saudi bride and then drumming and dancing and laughing. The whole procedure of getting Christina ready for her "wedding" took about half an hour and by the end she looked like she was ready to drop dead of heat exhaustion. Our antics attracted quite the crowd and the whole little building was filled with veiled women trying to get pictures of us as we danced and sang along with our "bride". One veiled girl even wanted a picture of just herself and I, of course I obliged and got one too.
During the entire day, we were quite the hit with the locals and I'm certain the number of not so clandestinely taken pictures of us is well over 100! Any time we were standing around people would stop and openly stare at us, then whip out their iPhones and Blackberries and start snapping pictures of the white girls in abayas at the festival.
The day finished with watching some traditional dancing and singing, essentially the Kingdom Grandstand Show - there were even fireworks! The crowd observing the show was jubilant and joined right in on the dancing and waving of swords (I obviously missed the BYO sword memo). We had to leave the show a bit early to catch our bus which meant we had to push through the crowd of men (women sit up on the hill, only the men join in the festivities). As we were wending our way through the crowd all the men were turning to look at us while still dancing, in a moment of what must have been temporary insanity, I decided to join in the fun and started mimicking their dance moves. At first a few started to cheer and shout, and then suddenly the entire crowd of hundreds of men was shouting and calling and surging towards us with their swords at hand. I wasn't really expecting that! And neither was Faris who immediately panicked and started hurrying us along and shoving the men back. Lesson learned - no dancing amidst arab men!
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