A few corrections, and good news!

Things are not as bad as I thought in the last post! 

First, the international calling rate turns out to be about 1 SR (that's one Saudi Riyal) per minute, which is about 25 cents. So our calls are turning out to be $10 per CALL, not per minute.  phew.

Mike went out and (after six attempts - yay Arabia) bought a router from a cell phone company called Mobily.  You can plug it into your computer, and then you get internet like you do on a smart phone.  So we are connected, even if the bandwidth isn't very big. 

Then yesterday, the internet got turned back on on camp.  Mike thinks it was because everyone was coming back from repat and discovering that the internet was out, prompting a FLOOD of complaints.  They decided better to risk hooking back up than deal with the angry populace. 

Unfortunately, our internet at our house is still out because they gave us a weird router when they hooked up our DSL, and it isn't back online yet.  ??   So we wait a little longer for the full solution.  But I am impressed that the company got the internet back in 15 days!  That is a miracle.  Let the blog continue! 

Three days until takeoff...have four bags half packed....can I get it all in??  Including the four months supply of baby food??  Stay tuned!