Hundred years

I'm re-reading Hundred years of Solitude. last time I read it I was at a very interesting stage in my life, I think it gave me allot of missing perspective. I spend my summer days sitting in my office chair on my flat's balcony reading books instead of studying for exams. I feel I'm not missing out. I was asked once what book I would choose if I could only leave one book to a reborn humanity. I chose Hundred Years over Newton's Principia.

So this is my chair where I read. I sit in it and look over Cape Town and don't learn much about computers. My tan is probably better than my class mates though.
When I finally understand the last lines of the book, I think I'll get them tattooed onto my thigh. Above my shorts line.

My new flat in Cape Town

These are some pictures of the views from my new flat in Cape Town. The flat is really cool.

Night view from the balcony

Day view from the balcony

Night view from my bedroom

view of my bedroom

View from the Kitchen

Thats all for now.

Back in Africa

The minute I got to breath non-Arabic air I could already feel how much happier I was going to be in this country. Just driving and walking around over the last few days I have been struck by how great this country is. Simple things I never noticed before, like how you can always smell the scent of plants in the air, really make a difference.

Some sights in Khobar

In the interests of education we took a short phtographic expedition around the city of Khobar to try bring back some pictures that really capture the essence of the land. We did this early on a rainy friday morning (The authorities here don't seem to be too hot on people using camera's).

Hygiene and cleanliness

As you can see here, allot of pride is taken in the cleanliness of the land. Most of Saudi looks like this. Trash strewn lots with arbitrarily placed buildings. Because the oil industry gave the country such a rapid injection of income the cities didn't grow and evolve like normal cities, so huge buildings get placed in the middle of nowhere. The surrounding area can be a desolate trash heap and and nobody cares.

Big Malls Everywhere

This is Khobar Mall, about 5 km away is the Mall of Dhahran. They're both huge. All malls everywhere in the world are the same (At least thats my theory) and somewhere there a rediculously rich italian that sold the fake marble florrs for all of them. Malls are the only thing here that borders on entertainment, except taht they don't have cinema's (To much like fun) but do have tons of womens clothing shops, and lots of mens clothing shops selling the exact same item of clothing.

Really Long Road Names

This is one of the major roads in Khobar. It's name after the King. Of course the couldn't just call it King Abdullah Rd (Previously Prince Abdullah Rd), the kings full title must be used when ever he is referenced ("Custodian of The Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz"), listening to news reports here is also funny, it takes almost the whole report to just say who its about. So when a king dies they have to rename all the streets named after the king and any of the princes whose status subtely changes. pretty much every road here is named after a memeber of the royal family. SO please don't complain about minor road renamnings in South Africa.

Driving

This is the sign for the "Khobar Model School for Car Driving". I don't think its a very successful educational institute. But if the sign were true it would be a great place, a school where they can teach Saudi's to STOP DRIVING!!!

Frame of reference

Yesterday at a tech support centre I saw a male employee helping and talking to a female customer. I thought, "Wow, that's really liberal". Your frame of reference changes fast here.

Highlights of Dubai

Dubai is a strange place, thats much is obvious, I was only there for 8 hours (After having to rent a hotel room in-order to get a Visa) but these are the three pictures I thought were the most interesting. I could go one ad-nauseum about how ridiculous Dubai is, but it would bore me. But in a way it reminded me of the Dune books, I felt like at any moment a spice feighter was going to dock with the top of one of the buildings.

Burg-Dubia

This is the tallest Building in the world, twice the height of the empire state building. When it's finished it will stand around 820m high. You can pick it out from miles away when you're flying in, it makes the surrounding 50+ story buildings look flat and squat.

Burg Dubai from up close

In comparison to the surrounding city

Ski Dubai

The worlds first in door ski slope, why do you need a ski slope in the desert? No one cares, you don't need reasons for massive pointless investments here. This is from a restaurant over looking it. We tried to get a picture of it from the outside but couldn't get a clear shot.

Ski Dubai

Dusty in Khobar and Freezing in Riyadh

A Sand storm came through yesterday and washed the clean off all my plants. After the sand storm the air looks like a dirty fog and when you walk outside you can feel the dust when you breath. The dust gets everywhere, a room with a window left open will have a layer of dust over everything, like a prematurely aged ruin. The temperature dropped today, it's cold (2°C min - 12°C max). It will hit freezing in Riyadh tonight. I have an odd desert experience.