Now the stories

So many things happened in those 48 hrs. Good, Funny, Sad, Ugly, Angering... so many emotions! :-)
Travel wise- the causeway from Bahrain to Dammam, Saudi Arabia is the longest bridge in the world- or bridges, like the Florida Keys. When you get to the 1/2 way point- so you're on a small island between the two countries- you have to do the passport control and customs. I've been to Saudi alot now, so they looked at my passport, welcomed me back (which I was shocked how nice the guy was), and I went back to the car- no problems. Then my boss- British, with a new passport cause his had just expired- they took one look at the fresh passport, and passed him around from one station to the next until finally they took him into a room. All this was happening while I was in the car- after 30 minutes I started to get nervous. I'm in the car- in the middle of a body of water- between two countries- alone. I gave it another 30 minutes till I started looking through my bag for the International SOS phone number in the event I was going to have to get a helicopter to get me out of here. After an hour and 20 minutes, he finally was "released" and he was PISSED! It was a quiet car ride to Dammam after that :-)
Had it of not been for his customs issue, we would have made it in an hour which is really good.

All stores looked good, until we got to one in Riyadh. That was like I was dreaming. When I reflect on it- my adrenaline was pumping- none of the associates who spoke english were working which made it even worse, and it was busier than I had ever seen a store in the Middle East because it was the holiday. It was unreal. I haven't sent that feedback to the business unit yet because it was so bad.

Then after the long two days- as we were sitting in the Riyadh airport we had ordered coffee. My boss takes his latte plain, I get Vanilla. He drank his, and said- "I think I have yours." Takes off the lids, switches the lids, takes a drink of his, and says "they're both vanilla- damn."
LOL Then he sat there for 30 seconds and said "Did I switch the lids or switch the coffees?" HAhaha! We needed a good laugh like that- and we definitely needed the coffees :-)