Finally, the last phase of the visa application has begun. We are able to apply for our EAD (it stands for Employment Authorization Declaration I think). This is not easy process as it requires us obtaining our long form birth certificates (I finally found out how much I weighed when I was born), and a full physical including chest x-rays and vaccinations. We also need to get new passports before June so we have to do that at the same time.
I am trying not to get my hopes up, but if all goes well I may be able to start job hunting in May!!
Saturday, January 10, 2004
Saturday, January 3, 2004
The holidays are over
We had a great Christmas here in California. My Dad was with us from the 18th of December through to January the 1st. We did a little touring around while he was here to see some of the local sites including Alcatraz, Pebble Beach and the Carmel Valley (which would not be complete without a visit to The Cheese Shop), and Santa Cruz. We also went to Napa Valley to do some wine tasting. This is one place we had not been previously and we enjoyed in a great deal (one of the reasons we love having visitors because it gets us out to see the Californian sites.)
We hope everyone was as spoiled this Christmas as we were, and wish all the best to everyone for a safe and prosperous 2004! Remember, if you are a planning a vacation this year, we love to have company...
We hope everyone was as spoiled this Christmas as we were, and wish all the best to everyone for a safe and prosperous 2004! Remember, if you are a planning a vacation this year, we love to have company...
Monday, January 17, 2000
Royal Kingdom Of Camel-lot
After a very long trip we arrived in Saudi on January 5. By the time we stood in 4 lines at customs and the guard interupted his phone call on his cell to his friend to stamp our passports it was well after midnight by the time we got home. Since we were all wired up and Don was working nights we wandered over the the hospital to say hi.
The first few days we were here things were pretty quiet as it was Eid (the celebration at the end of Ramadan) Nothing was open, and if it was the hours were at the proprietors discretion. There was no knowing when the best time to go out was.
We quickly decided that of all the places we have been this one is the most foriegn. Landscape is completely different, cultures are incredibly different...it's just really different!
So far we have had the opporunity to experience the following:
Over the past week we have also experienced quite a few toilets and we are really starting to appreciate the MacLachlan's toilet. You learn pretty quick to 'go' everytime before you leave the house. The public toilets are never clean, smell awful and are usually holes in the ground...that is when they let me use them. Being female I am not always allowed to use public toilets! (I've never had any troubles...- D) All restaurants have family sections and men sections, including Burger King and Pizza Hut. You have to be careful not to get caught in the restaurant during prayer time becuase they turn out the lights and lock you in until prayer time is over. This is hard because they pray 3 times between 4pm and 8pm. You have very small windows of opportunity to go and eat if you don't want to get locked in!
Going desert camping with the MacLachlan's this weekend (Thurs-Fri) then off to Dubai on Friday night. After spending the last month with family getting going on this adventure may be a rude awakening, but we are excited!
The first few days we were here things were pretty quiet as it was Eid (the celebration at the end of Ramadan) Nothing was open, and if it was the hours were at the proprietors discretion. There was no knowing when the best time to go out was.
We quickly decided that of all the places we have been this one is the most foriegn. Landscape is completely different, cultures are incredibly different...it's just really different!
So far we have had the opporunity to experience the following:
- We traveled to the 'Edge of the World'. Riyadh is on a plateau and at the edge of the plateau there is a drastically sharp drop into the desert... it almost feels like you are standing on the edge of the world...thus the name.
- Yes, Camels are wild animals and they wander all over the desert where ever there is vegetation for them to eat. I thought they would be more like horses in Canada, mainly living on farms and fenced in areas but that is not the case. They are penned in the Camel Souqs, which you can drive around for a long long time and not see them all. One very kind Somalian man really wanted to show us his camels and be in our photos.
- Had a trip to the grocery store, which was quite an experience. Mary and I had a cup of coffee there, but being female we had to stand to drink it.
- Went out to one of the camel trails. This is the route built for the camels to walk up the escarpment. Quite a remarkable undertaking for the time that it was built. We had to remember not to put our hands under any rocks because of scorpions!
- Visited Baa'ta souq. This is the second hand souq, and you can get anything from generators and hub-caps, to rugs, TV's, sterios and dune buggies. You can also get the ugliest dresses ever. They are old princess dresses which would have cost a fortune to make originally and have great potential but they are made with hidiously ugly fabics, awful colours, too much lace and so many beads that they weigh up to 20 lbs!
- Saw a beautiful palace being built for King Khalid... who is dead!!???
- Visited Dir'iyah, the ancient city of Riyadh. This was home to 5000 people with 500 travelers stopping every day, and was being lived in until the beginning of the 20th century. All houses are mud brick with no ammenities. They look very ancient and it is hard to believe people have lived in them so recently. This one place where you could really see how far behind western culture this country really is. Mary figures they are 50 years behind. As a result things we take for granted, like recycling, are not in existant here. We are conditioned not to throw out plastic bags, milk jugs, newpapers and cans, but here there is not such thing as recycling. It's so hard to throw these things away!
- Rode dune buggies in the sand dunes! Very fun!!
- Went splunking and at the bottom of the cave was a pool of water that we went swimming in. Some people have carried dive tanks down and tried to see how deep it was. They did not find the bottom at 150 ft!
- Went on a weekend trip to Mada'in Saleh. This was one of the last main known settlements of the Nabetean people. They lived here from 100 BC to 75 AD. It is like Petra, inhabited by the same people who developed Petra, and this is where they went when they left Petra. The trip included camping in the desert (very cold), and stops at several sub-stations from the train line blown up during the Arab revolt in the time of Lawrence of Arabia. Our guide was Islamic but married a western woman and would answer any and all of our questions about being Muslim, about Saudi and the history of Mada'in Saleh.
- Went shopping as the souks are finally open as Eid is over. Been through a couple gold souks and actually bought some gold. You can't afford not to in this country, it is SOOO cheap and all you pay for is the weight of the gold, not the intricate designs or craftmanship!
- Found desert diamonds...now we just have to find somewhere to get them cut.
Over the past week we have also experienced quite a few toilets and we are really starting to appreciate the MacLachlan's toilet. You learn pretty quick to 'go' everytime before you leave the house. The public toilets are never clean, smell awful and are usually holes in the ground...that is when they let me use them. Being female I am not always allowed to use public toilets! (I've never had any troubles...- D) All restaurants have family sections and men sections, including Burger King and Pizza Hut. You have to be careful not to get caught in the restaurant during prayer time becuase they turn out the lights and lock you in until prayer time is over. This is hard because they pray 3 times between 4pm and 8pm. You have very small windows of opportunity to go and eat if you don't want to get locked in!
Going desert camping with the MacLachlan's this weekend (Thurs-Fri) then off to Dubai on Friday night. After spending the last month with family getting going on this adventure may be a rude awakening, but we are excited!
Friday, December 31, 1999
Late Christmas Presents
So Christmas has come and gone, and New Year's is tonight.
Christmas eve was spent at a party at Judy and Al's. We were still trying to get our Visas, so Dave spent a good part of the evening on the phone trying to get a live body at the King Faisal Visa office in Saudi. Ironically once he did get through he had to shout over the sound of Chrismas carols, and the "Babe" video that the kids were watching. Just what the Saudis want to hear...pagan worshipping rites, and a singing pig.
Christmas morning was great and we got some great travel loot. Dave left Vancouver on the 26th and went to Calgary where he got to visit some friends and relatives before meeting up with Jen again on the 28th in Ontario. Amazingly the flights came in within 40 minutes of each other, but we were still Visaless.
Mollie (Jen's mom) picked us up and took us out to Collingwood to party with some old ski friends. On the way to Collingwood, we decided that the only way to get Visas in our hot little hands would be to drive up to Ottawa and actually visit the embassey in person. Unfortunately it's a 5-6 hour drive from Collingwood to Ottawa, and the embassey is only open from 10am to 12pm (not bad hours eh?).
Painfully, we got up at 5:00 am (2:00 am our time) and started driving.
We arrived at the embassey at 11:00 and after doing some consulting with the person who was attempting to get our Visas for us , who recommended not going to the consulate, and Dave's parents in Saudi, who recommended we go in and have a hungerstrike if need be, we headed up to demand our Visas.
We were greeted by a locked door and quickly found out we were on Candid Camera when the door was opened for us automatically. We were ushered into a tiny little room with a security guard sitting behind a small particle board desk (with a nice dark oak finish) that was held together by strips of tape.
Upon his desk was a beautiful little TV monitor that let him watch up and down the hallway outside the embassey, a big black button for opening the door, and a collection of very important looking papers. Behind him there was a large package X-Ray machine, and a poster proclaiming the 100th anniversary of the Kingdom of Saudi (which I personally find hard to believe).
We had decided on the way in that Dave would do all the talking being the token male. The security guard asked Dave for his ID and took his Driver's License and started writing down every last detail on it onto a little pad of stick it notes he had in front of him. He then took both out passport numbers, out Visa number, my parents telephone number in Saudi, and we're quite convinced would have happily written down Dave's Air Canada card number, his blood type, and his MEC membership number had Dave offered them to him.
Just after he'd finished writing this all down, and looking at it and then looking at us, and then looking at it again in a kind of stuck up disbelief a lady came to a little plexiglass window beside us and asked us what we wanted.
The security guard waved us towards her, so we went over and stated our case. She immediately recognized the MacLachlan name and made a face at us and then said that our case had already been looked at for the day and that the papers hadn't arrived, thank you very much. She started to walk away, so Dave grabbed a pile of emails out of his pocket and waved them at her stating that a "VERY" important Saudi wanted us in the country. She stopped, turned back and read the name, made an indecisive clucking sound and told us to wait for a moment. Less than 30 seconds later she was back asking to see the name again. Dave slid the emails through the small hole in the plexiglass and she grabbed them and walked out of sight. A few seconds later she returned and told us that we should come back at 13:30 because a "Special" mailbag was coming in that might have our papers in it at about 13:00. Not quite sure what else to do we told her we'd be back and left the consulate. As we were walking down the hall we realized that she'd only returned 2 out of 3 of the emails to us. There was a moment of panic as we tried to remember what had been written on that piece of paper. Dave's Dad had sent us an email stating that if we didn't get our Visas that we should go and shoot all the Arabs. We remembered though that it was actually a scrap piece of paper that we'd grabbed at Judy and Al's, so with a great sigh of relief we turned back to the consulate to see if we could get our phone numbers back.
We went back to the locked door, waved at the little camera on the wall and were let in. As we stepped in to the room the security guard stood up and told us rather firmly that we were expected back at 13:30 and not a second before thank you very much. We quickly decided a retreat was in order, and went down to the local Mickey-D's to recover with some caffeine and grease.
A silver lining to this entire trip was that Dave got to visit the parliament buildings for his first time, so we wandered around in the -35 weather checking out our nation's capitol.
At 1:30 we returned to the consulate, and amazingly the mail had come through and our Visas were waiting for us. We are now the proud owners of 2 Saudi visas, which have been kept on our persons ever since.
We stayed in Ottawa overnight with some friends, and then drove down to Tottenham to stay with Jen's sister Katherine and her family.
Heros of the past few days are (in no particular order):
Thank you all very much!
Christmas eve was spent at a party at Judy and Al's. We were still trying to get our Visas, so Dave spent a good part of the evening on the phone trying to get a live body at the King Faisal Visa office in Saudi. Ironically once he did get through he had to shout over the sound of Chrismas carols, and the "Babe" video that the kids were watching. Just what the Saudis want to hear...pagan worshipping rites, and a singing pig.
Christmas morning was great and we got some great travel loot. Dave left Vancouver on the 26th and went to Calgary where he got to visit some friends and relatives before meeting up with Jen again on the 28th in Ontario. Amazingly the flights came in within 40 minutes of each other, but we were still Visaless.
Mollie (Jen's mom) picked us up and took us out to Collingwood to party with some old ski friends. On the way to Collingwood, we decided that the only way to get Visas in our hot little hands would be to drive up to Ottawa and actually visit the embassey in person. Unfortunately it's a 5-6 hour drive from Collingwood to Ottawa, and the embassey is only open from 10am to 12pm (not bad hours eh?).
Painfully, we got up at 5:00 am (2:00 am our time) and started driving.
We arrived at the embassey at 11:00 and after doing some consulting with the person who was attempting to get our Visas for us , who recommended not going to the consulate, and Dave's parents in Saudi, who recommended we go in and have a hungerstrike if need be, we headed up to demand our Visas.
We were greeted by a locked door and quickly found out we were on Candid Camera when the door was opened for us automatically. We were ushered into a tiny little room with a security guard sitting behind a small particle board desk (with a nice dark oak finish) that was held together by strips of tape.
Upon his desk was a beautiful little TV monitor that let him watch up and down the hallway outside the embassey, a big black button for opening the door, and a collection of very important looking papers. Behind him there was a large package X-Ray machine, and a poster proclaiming the 100th anniversary of the Kingdom of Saudi (which I personally find hard to believe).
We had decided on the way in that Dave would do all the talking being the token male. The security guard asked Dave for his ID and took his Driver's License and started writing down every last detail on it onto a little pad of stick it notes he had in front of him. He then took both out passport numbers, out Visa number, my parents telephone number in Saudi, and we're quite convinced would have happily written down Dave's Air Canada card number, his blood type, and his MEC membership number had Dave offered them to him.
Just after he'd finished writing this all down, and looking at it and then looking at us, and then looking at it again in a kind of stuck up disbelief a lady came to a little plexiglass window beside us and asked us what we wanted.
The security guard waved us towards her, so we went over and stated our case. She immediately recognized the MacLachlan name and made a face at us and then said that our case had already been looked at for the day and that the papers hadn't arrived, thank you very much. She started to walk away, so Dave grabbed a pile of emails out of his pocket and waved them at her stating that a "VERY" important Saudi wanted us in the country. She stopped, turned back and read the name, made an indecisive clucking sound and told us to wait for a moment. Less than 30 seconds later she was back asking to see the name again. Dave slid the emails through the small hole in the plexiglass and she grabbed them and walked out of sight. A few seconds later she returned and told us that we should come back at 13:30 because a "Special" mailbag was coming in that might have our papers in it at about 13:00. Not quite sure what else to do we told her we'd be back and left the consulate. As we were walking down the hall we realized that she'd only returned 2 out of 3 of the emails to us. There was a moment of panic as we tried to remember what had been written on that piece of paper. Dave's Dad had sent us an email stating that if we didn't get our Visas that we should go and shoot all the Arabs. We remembered though that it was actually a scrap piece of paper that we'd grabbed at Judy and Al's, so with a great sigh of relief we turned back to the consulate to see if we could get our phone numbers back.
We went back to the locked door, waved at the little camera on the wall and were let in. As we stepped in to the room the security guard stood up and told us rather firmly that we were expected back at 13:30 and not a second before thank you very much. We quickly decided a retreat was in order, and went down to the local Mickey-D's to recover with some caffeine and grease.
A silver lining to this entire trip was that Dave got to visit the parliament buildings for his first time, so we wandered around in the -35 weather checking out our nation's capitol.
At 1:30 we returned to the consulate, and amazingly the mail had come through and our Visas were waiting for us. We are now the proud owners of 2 Saudi visas, which have been kept on our persons ever since.
We stayed in Ottawa overnight with some friends, and then drove down to Tottenham to stay with Jen's sister Katherine and her family.
Heros of the past few days are (in no particular order):
- Katherine and Dave Waldock (for letting us stay with them)
- Joanna McNutt, Morgan Quarry, Wembley and Baggy (for letting us invade their humble homes)
- Mada and Mal Gibson (for letting Dave stay with them and getting him to the airport at an ungodly hour)
- Judy and Al Lee (for letting us stay with them, and getting Jen to the airport at an even more ungodly hour)
- Mollie and David Palmateer (sorry about the Calling Card Mollie)
- Mary and Don MacLachlan (thanks for pulling those strings)
Thank you all very much!
Thursday, December 23, 1999
Getting a little nervous
...still awaiting the Saudi visa's. Guess we really should have been prepared for this though. Sure won't be the first time there was a hitch in getting someones visa issued! Everything else is pretty much set to go...
Wednesday, December 22, 1999
Merry Christmas I think
Found out today that Dave had registered us for an Adventure Holiday in Africa. This was suppose to be a Christmas gift, but suppose I would have seen the $ missing from the joint account on this one :-) This program includes the price of writing your Environmental Ranger certification at the end. During the course we will learn about flora and fauna, animals and how to track them, how to drive a 4 wheel drive, and how to handle poisonous snakes... I'm hoping I can opt out of the last part!
Sunday, December 19, 1999
Cleaning our lives
We decided to create this web site so that people (mainly our parents) will be able to find out where we are suppose to be and see where we are heading next. Of course, things could change at any time... So, as far as what is going on right now, we have sold almost everything we own short of our underwear. We realized yesterday that we have reduced our belongings down to our packs, which is kind of scary and yet cleansing at the same time. You know all that stuff you have been carting around with you for a few years that you just don't feel that you should part with, well, this is your excuse... I mean opportunity!
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