Second Week in Saudi

Worked 6 days the first week here (5 days of operator training and one day of misc.). A group of us (Raymond, Rodney, Paula (Rodney's wife), Jorge, Bill, Tom and I all went into Bahrain on our day off to eat out and do some shopping. Well, realy only three people shopped the rest of us just looked at all the neat stuff. We started off the day by leaving town at 7:45am and were able to make it across the dreaded causeway without incident (it has takn upwards of 8 hrs to make this trip in the past). Upon arrival in Bahrain, we ended up at Ric's (a dinner Rodney knew about) for breakfast. They had a very extensive menu and we all ended up eating an American style breakfast. I had the blueberry pancakes and actual pork sausage patties and it was all very good. Next stop was to the shopping 'center', which in this case was an area of town with a bunch of shops all squeezed in together in the same area. Unfortunately, since it was Friday (Saudi's Sunday) all of the shops were closed until 4pm for prayer. We all piled back into the vehicles and headed to the "Gold City", sort of an indoor mall dedicated to jewerly and such. Can't count the number of times I had to say "I don't wear a watch" or "I don't need a watch" to the guys behind the counters as we walked around looking at stuff. I don't wear watches and when I do, I hate paying $20 for an authentic one in the States, let alone paying $100+ for a knockoff. Looked at lots of neat jewerly and such and was rather grateful (for once) that I'm not currently seeing someone, cause it would have been easy to spend a lot of money on several pieces for her if I was! After looking around the stores we meet up with Khailil for an early dinner at a great Brazilian resturant. For those who haven't been to one, it is heaven on earth for anyone on an Atkin's diet. They basically keep bring out skewers of different meats (chicken sausage, pork sausage, chicken rolls, chicken wings, beef brisket, lamp, steak, etc.) until you say no more. Me being me, I was the last one to finally say no and I didn't pass up on ANY of the meats as they came out!

I have added some pics from the trip to Bahrain and hope they come through OK.