You call that a mall?

Ontario's newest mall called "Vaughn Mills" opened out in suburbia a few years ago and at the time we were all quite excited about it. We hadn't had a new mall in ten plus years, and the pre-eminent mall experience was a toss up between Yorkdale and Eaton Center. We were thrilled with the 200 odd stores in it, a lot of them being outlet style stores of my favourite brands, it just seemed like a bit of heaven. Tsk tsk. I was so young and naive.

I'm afraid coming to the middle east has forever ruined my expectations of what constitutes a mall. The bar has been raised so incredibly high that it's such a let down to visit the old shopping haunts in Toronto. In Bahrain, the City Centre mall has a waterpark, brand spanking new cinemas and 350 stores. The Dubai Mall in Dubai has a full sized skating rink, a giant aquarium, a three storey waterfall, a full cinema, and a thousand plus stores. A THOUSAND. Brands carried in the Kingdom Mall here in Riyadh include places like Tiffany's and Burberry - stuff you would only see on the ritziest parts of Bay & Bloor in Toronto. Most of the malls in Riyadh are attached to full sized grocery stores too! It's effing brilliant! While the mix of stuff you find in the middle east clothing wise is not always to my taste, the malls are really incredible here and they are a huge relief for Western women. I myself am very grateful for having so many to choose from in Riyadh.

And by the way ladies, NOW is the time to shop till you drop. The summer sales are on and I know once you get into a mall and see those 50% off signs, the part of your brain that normally gives you the willpower to show restraint in purchases will completely shut down. Go go go!

Date me

I have a sweet tooth and I absolutely slobber when I see dates. It is the one of the few middle eastern treats that I adore devouring.


If you've never had a date, maybe you should try deodourant. har har har. I couldn't resist. Eating a date is like biting into a giant raisin, except instead of the grape taste, you taste something akin to maple syrup. They are delectable little things, though they are very high in sugar content. The locals will sometimes tell you it's a 'healthy sugar', which is probably baloney, but don't argue, just chew. If you argue, you might not get another one! Quick how many can you stuff into your purse while no one's looking? On our last trip to Dubai they kept an unlimited supply at the front desk of the hotel and I routinely made up excuses to walk by and grab them. I usually eat four or five of them at a time and typically stop one date short of feeling completely sick.

I should probably write something cultural about where they come from, about date factories and such and such, but then I don't really care - I only care about where to get more of them. The softer the better. Any suggestions out there?

exit re-entry visa. argh.

You've finally made it here, and now you can't wait to get out, so you've got two tickets to Istanbul and a big smile on your face. Not so fast buster. In order to exit the Magic Kingdom and to re-enter post vacay, you will need to shell out either 200SAR for a single exit re-entry visa where you are allowed to exit once and re-enter once, or 500SAR for the "multiple six month exit re-entry visa" where you may exit and re-enter freely within a six month period starting from the date of your first departure. If it sounds like it's straightforward, rest assured that there are many things that can go wrong.

Typically the office 'runner' will be the man in charge of handling the visa for you, and he will collect your passports, money, your sponsor's scribbly wibbly (i.e. written permission), and sometimes when the mood strikes him, passport pictures. In theory, the paperwork should only take a day or so to complete, but getting anything done quickly in the Kingdom is like putting a stick in the Red Sea and expecting it to part. If your name isn't Moses, then you better plan ahead.

The most important thing to remember after you get your exit re-entry visa is to bring it with you to the airport. That sounds simple enough, but the fact that the visa is typically a loose sheet of dot matrix A4 paper makes it easy to confuse the document, with say, a receipt, or to leave it behind with your airline ticket at the check-in counter, or for your well meaning maid to throw out for you.

Let's explore a hypothetical. Let's say you are now on your way back to Riyadh from a nice trip to Germany. As you are lining up to get onto the plane bound for Riyadh, you notice the flight staff checking visas. Has it been six months since you first used it?? Gee you've had so many Worsteiners you can't remember. You examine your visa, but can't read the dates on any of the stamps because they are in arabic(!), and not only are they in arabic, but they utilize the arabic calendar (!!!). The staff denies your entry on the flight to Riyadh (!!!!!).

Now what? Well remember all those documents you had to collect before you came to Riyadh in the first place? Yup. Resubmission time. Not to worry, your exile should only last a few weeks since the paperwork is already in place and all that needs to be done is for your runner to submit everything again along with the ever important letter from the sponsor. But as we have covered, you are not Moses, so expect there to be mistakes and delays.

happy travelling all!

burning skin vs. frozen spine

So what would you rather live in? A country that is dismal and chillingly cold for about six months (Oct-Mar) out of the year with a three month summer, or a country that is summer all the time with about four months (Jun-Sep) of suffocating heat? We've reached the mid-forties celsius in Riyadh and the air is just right for whining. Going outside in Riyadh during this time of year is like getting a hug from a sumo wrestler, except the sumo wrestler is made of fire. Is it possible for your eyeballs to feel sweaty? I say yes!

Well I tell ya, even so, I like the heat and all the beautiful sunny days in Riyadh, and I do *not* miss the weather in Canada. You would think I might long for a white Christmas and skating and snowball fights, but the truth is that after coming here, I can't understand how I survived Toronto. Seriously there were times back then when I counted a full two weeks without seeing the sun! Canadians: now that it's summer, you can all congratulate yourselves for not committing suicide back in February when you were seriously considering it.

In Riyadh, things get hot, sure. And on certain days you really might be able to fry an egg on your car, sure. But the nice thing is that every enclosed space you encounter has proper air conditioning, and lots of it. I will take burning skin over frozen spine any day, because the reality is that your skin will only burn for the 30 seconds between a car and a door, but I found my frozen spine would last all day in Canada, and the heating systems were always too much or too little. It is also mean and unfair to make a woman choose between looking good and being warm.

How did I manage to complain about both countries in one post? It's a special Canadian skill. But Riyadh still wins hands down for me, weather wise.

Tim Horton's fans

Without a doubt, every expat Canadian that goes abroad will at some point mention and lament their loss of access to Tim Horton's. Affectionately known as Timmy's, this is an affordably priced Canadian coffee & donut chain that has a fanatically loyal fanbase. The franchise was started by a much loved hockey player in 1965, and now has about 3500 locations across Canada. The chain dominates both the fast food and coffee markets in Canada and outcompetes both McDonalds and Starbucks by wide margins, so it is really beyond a word like "iconic" - it is *legendary*. Along with serving up a damn good coffee and a myriad of donut varieties, they sell their wildly popular "timbits" which are basically bite sized donut holes. In the mid-80's they expanded into soups and chillies, then sandwiches and bagels in the 90's, and have most recently been in talks with Satan to purchase outright ownership of Canadian souls with ads like these:



(This commercial has been known to make grown men cry)

The fanatacism has reached such heights that should you mention Tim Horton's to even the most unanimated Canadian expat, they will positively light up with excitement as they describe their favourite timbit to you (SOUR CREAM GLAZED!) or talk about their Iced Caps. You may even see some mist in their eyes as they mention the painful hole in their heart that Timmy's used to occupy before it was ripped out by moving abroad.

So I'm writing this post for all the Canadians expats who know what I'm talking about. Don't forget to check in with a comment and tell me what your favourite thing to order was ;)

Are those handcuffs?? Where am I?

I am in Jeddah right now! And I cannot resist posting the pictures I took of a lingerie shop at the Red Sea Mall. I heard that things were a bit more relaxed out here, but I didn't realize it was *this* relaxed!


While I was looking into the store making surprised remarks about it, hubster disappeared halfway down the hall to disassociate himself from the woman with the camera yelling, "they sell WHIPS in here! Come look! Where are you going?!" He is the first to sell me down the river whenever he hears the words, "look out for security, okay?" Honestly where is the loyalty? Curiously, there was no mall security chasing me down for taking pictures anywhere. Was it just good luck? Or is this Jeddah?

line up etiquette

Okay this is one beef that Canadians always have when they come to Saudi. In Canada, we are all very (ridiculously?) uptight about not cutting in line for anything in any situation. Whatever the line up, the attitude is always first come first serve no matter who you are. The level of personal insult incurred with a cut in is on the order of slapping everyone you have just cut in front of. We have a tradition of equality that people take really seriously even if you're just buying donuts and you are pretty sure the guy in front of you is drunk: if you are truly Canadian, you will still wait patiently behind the drunken man while he spills the contents of his wallet out and asks how much a single timbit costs in pennies.

Here in Riyadh, things are different. The culture here is hierarchical by nature and it is reflected in little things such as line ups. Whenever you go to the airport or pass through Bahrain, you will often see Saudi nationals jumping lines to pass through customs. Part of the story is that there are less documents to check and so they actually pass through very quickly, and another part of it is that there is sometimes simply an attitude of entitlement present that is tolerated far more in the Middle East than it is in Canada and the U.S. Even purchasing clothing, I have literally gotten to the counter after lining up only to have a local with her entourage swoop in from behind me and demand to be cashed out first. It happens at the grocery store too, especially when prayer is just about to hit and a scramble occurs.

So anyways, I'm sharing all this with you as a preface to a recent experience. I went to McDonalds and there were two Saudi women waiting for their food after ordering, busy chatting. I fully expected them to continue blocking the counter until they got their food and left. But not long after I arrived, one of them saw me and pushed her friend out of the way to make way for me. Yes actually, a lot of them (the majority of them!) are polite and respectful, but since line up etiquette is so very important in Canada, we really remember the bad stuff more than we notice the good. The reality is that for every one Saudi that cuts the line there are ten that will wait patiently just like you.

I mean, this doesn't change the fact that I've become obsessively territorial when I'm waiting in line and deliberately spread my bags out as far as possible as a preventative measure, but it is a reminder that there are a lot of Saudis out there who feel that showing respect and courtesy to others is just a part of our every day lives.