Morning Outing

Running errands in Arabia is quite the task.  First off, everything has to wait until the weekend because I can't drive off camp.  Then once you get to a weekend, the first day is Friday, which is the holy day, and nothing is open until 4 pm.  At 4 pm, everyone comes out in a huge crush, so the traffic is terrible.  And then you've got all those pesky evening prayers to avoid, because everything closes up for either 20 or 40 minutes for prayer time, depending on which prayer it is.  Saturday is the better day, because shops open at 9 am, close at noon prayer (which happens at a different time every day, but is usually between 11:20 and 11:50 am), and then reopen again at 4 pm. 

Also, running errands here is not like at home.  Nothing here ever pans out like it ought to; stores that should be open are closed for no reason, stores that always carry such-and-such won't have it when you come to buy it, no one there speaks any English, it takes 50 times longer than you think, and/or some other thing happens to prevent you from accomplishing what you set out to do.  And that's just your first errand.  Wanted to get two things done?  Forget it.  After living here a while, you learn that anything more than one errand per Saturday is just terrifically too ambitious, and if you get one thing done, you are doing fabulously well.  Oh, how our expectations have plummeted since living here.  

In September, poor Clyde needed a new battery.  So we all waited until Saturday, and then piled into Rosie for our one errand of the week.  A long drive - something like 30 minutes -  into Dammam got us to the surprisingly modern looking Hyundai dealership. 

Mike jumped out while the rest of us stayed in the car.  The kids are never thrilled when we say we have to run an errand on a Saturday, because it usually means that they get to stay in the car the entire time as one of us runs in to get whatever-it-is done. They were good sports about it this day. 

Also keep in mind that this is my big trip off camp for the week, so it's less fun for me if I don't actually get to get out of the car during my outing.  

The view from the parking lot where we were waiting.  Thrilling. 

Amazingly, after about 15 minutes, Mike came back with the appropriate battery and we drove home.  Success!!  A miracle!!  That never happens, that it works the first time.  Hooray for us!

A few weekends after that, we recreated this errand for something for Rosie, so we had to drive to the Chevy dealership.  It was inexplicably closed, so we tried two other stores, and they were also inexplicably closed.  We drove home after two hours, defeated.   Oh well.  You win some, you lose some.  Better luck next Saturday.