Simplicity

Sometimes I find myself being completely bored out of my mind here. Granted, there isn’t much to do- no theaters, no clubs, restrictions on restaurants women can go to, and so on. It’s no secret that life here can be difficult at times simply because it is so boring.   The cool thing about this,…

The new normal

I spent my vacation in USA and it was so liberating. I was able to do all the things I can’t do here in Buraidah, like go to a restaurant, watch a movie in a cinema, drive, so on…. Basically the normal things that we in the west take for granted.   Readjusting into society…

عروس

Before I moved to KSA I sat down and really thought about what I wanted to do when I was here. I knew I wanted to make the most of my life here, I wanted to experience the rich culture of the Middle East, to experience a new culture to the fullest. In order to…

That’s cheesy

Getting around in this country is rather difficult, especially for women. I mean it’s hard for men because most of them are scared to drive, but women aren’t even afforded the choice of driving or not. It’s straight up illegal for a woman to operate a car here.  Yeah, it’s a stupid rule, and demeaning…

On our first full day in Egypt, we did what almost any tourist would do- we went to see the pyramids.Our hotel paired us up with the best taxi driver I’ve ever had in my life, and we set off. He was very friendly and knowledgeable of all the sites in Cairo as well as the history,…

The Proposal

I am writing this now because the incident happened recently, however I am going to schedule it to post at a later date because I don’t want word to get around… It is my first day at work, and one of my supervisors calls me into her office. “The dean wants to interview you, please…

Sassin’ the Sheik

So, if you didn’t read part one, maybe head on over and do so before you read this post. M had left to find the other sheik he had spoken two. He had made two separate trips to the courthouse to speak to this man about our marriage, and he had agreed to marry us….

Marriage Mayhem

Saturday evening  I took an overpriced taxi to the airport so I could head to Riyadh. The man working at the counter recognized who I was  while I was wearing a niqab before even checking my ID, which was a neat experience. In reality he probably only reconized me because I don’t speak a single…

January break is coming, and just for fun I thought I would check the price of a plane ticket back to USA. I popped the dates in the website, and nearly choked when I saw the price. I stalked the website for a few days, and tickets continued to be below $900 USD. I mean…

Me fail Engrish?

Today I went for some groceries, but was a total laze and ended up buying fast food instead of actually cooking real food. I ordered my food, in English of course, as I haven’t learned Arabic yet because as I stated earlier I am a total laze. I started talking with the employee and was…

Motawhatever

This is part two of a two part post detailing my weekend in Riyadh. If  you want to read part one click here.  As soon as I saw them, I immediately recognized them as motawah. They have long beards, short dishdashas, and the face of a bastard with an angry snarl that never quite goes away….

Other mother

The other day in class I tried explaining the concept of a nuclear family to some of my students. During the lesson it dawned on me that maybe it was a stupid thing to teach despite being in the book, because most of my student’s fathers have more than one wife, so what I was…