Just got back from Riyadh Sunday morning, had been there since Wednesday. Riyadh, during Ramadan is an experience. I knew to expect a more strict layering on- especially as this is the holy'st of holy Islam countries, but still it was a shock. There is no food available anywhere until sunset, even my hotel's restaurants were closed, which is a surprise as hotels usually do have a small cafe or snack bar curtained off in the basement for us infidels. Also, the malls did not open till 9pm which is after last prayer, then were open till 2am. So my store visits were from 9pm till 2am- literally doing store visits till 2am! It was funny because a colleague of mine in the US was texting me about a project and she was like "...wait- isn't it 12:30am there? What are you doing up!" Oh the days of working 9-5.
This obviously changed my sleeping pattern to not getting up till noon the next day, which was fine, it allowed me to have a shorter amount of time to do nothing put sit around the hotel room watching tv. I feel bad for the US store managers we have working in Riyadh though; not only are they stuck in their hotel rooms for the next month, but they have to work when things are actually going on, so it is horribly boring for them. But I tried to reinforce to them that it is a once in a lifetime experience- keep smiling! Make it work! :-)
On the way back to Dubai, after what seemed like a month in Riyadh, my reward was that my plane was a new 777-300! (pictures above) YAY! It was gorgeous, and business class was like sitting in first class on an A380. I hope I get this plane when I head to Kuwait tonight!!
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