Fish Market.....

First off, sorry for the bombardage of posts all in one day. I don't update for a month, then I post four at once. Anyway, took a fun trip yesterday and wanted to tell you about it.
I am a member of the Women's Group here at Aramco. They have weekly meetings, activities and it's just a generally fun group. Yesterday they hosted a trip to Dammam, a city about half an hour away to visit a fish processing plant, fish market, herb shop and vegetable market. We left on the bus at 7:00 am. These are my two good friends, Leanne and Donna, on the bus. These ladies make living here fun! First we arrived at the fish processing plant and immediately had to put on these "surgical" looking caps, gowns and masks. Guess they didn't want germs getting on their fish! At first I thought the masks were for the smell but there really was no stink at all.

They gave us a nice tour then served us a fishy snack. (see later post.)

We saw fish of all colors, shapes and sizes. Some were pretty, some were not!

Next stop: Vegetable Market!

A few funny things from the trip......

Between the fish and veggie markets, we stopped at a little herb store. We found a couple of interesting items!

A closer look so you can read it.......so....what do you think this is for?? Oh, and darn those "manufactural" cycles, aren't they a pain?? (click to enlarge)

I've been meaning to post a picture of one of these. This is what a typical Saudi restroom stall looks like! Yes, basically a hole and the floor with no toilet paper. But there is the handy, dandy sprayer. At the bigger places like the malls, theaters, etc. there is usually the option of a "Western" toilet. And the floors are always soaked even if they are clean! Go ahead and try to get a visual of us maneuvering this situation with no hooks to hang your purse and doning a floor-length black abaya! You'll enjoy it!

And yes, my friends, those really are skinned goats you see hanging. Tempted??

Never a lack of something fun to see here in Saudi Arabia!

Vegetable and Fruit Market.....

I cannot even begin to tell you how great the vegetable market was!
These guys love to have their pictures taken. He was pretty proud of his squash.

Now I really do understand that these are way, way, way too many pictures of fruit and veggies. The problem was I love them all and couldn't decide which ones to post, so.......I posted lots, but trust me, it's not all!

....and can I say how much I love my new camera?!?!?!

Here are all the ladies loading our stuff onto the bus.

After the market, we were brought back to a beautiful park in Dhahran for an Arabic picnic. Donna, Leanne and I decided it would be fun to unload all our stuff on my front lawn and take pictures of it. So fun!

It was just a super fun day!

Fish Sticks......

Ever wonder how fish sticks are made. The wondering is all over for me! We watched it first hand at the fish processing plant. It all starts with a big, rectangular block of frozen fish. They put it through a machine that cuts it into little rectangles.A little guy stands there and straightens them all out.

Next, they are sent through a stream of flowing batter.

After the tour they had us go in a lunch room and they served us fish sticks and fried shrimp.

Just for the record, this place was super clean and I would totally buy Alasmak brand of fish.

Day trip to Bahrain.....

So since Brad and the kids were off of school and work this week we took a little trip to Bahrain with two other families. We had the best time. The Masons rode with us and we followed the Moselys. There wasn't much traffic on the causeway so we got there in record time. We went straight to Ric's, our favorite American restaurant in town. We got our fill of bacon and sausage since we can't get that here in Saudi. After we ate all we could, we drove over to the Gulf Hotel and checked it out. It's is super nice and we were all tempted to stay the night and if we had brought extra clothes, I know we would have. The pool was beautiful and so tempting! (There was some talk of a ladies' slumber party there at the Gulf when all the kids and guys are at Youth Conference) We headed to the Seef Mall and caught some movies. The choices weren't great for once. Whitney and I saw "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" or something like that- not great. The guys saw something else. We shopped around awhile then ate at Johnny Carino's. Delicious! More shopping at City Centre and some Cold Stone ice cream. Whitney had heard that Pinkberry was open there now but we could only find the sign that it was "coming soon". Cold Stone was just fine! It was such a nice day.
Here are a few scenes from the day:

Whitney outside the mall in front of the Johnny Carino's sign

All the kids relaxing at the Gulf Hotel

Evan posing with the newspaper man. (Notice he is holding Evan's hand in the picture. Haha Here that is just a friendly gesture. He was a nice guy and happy to pose with us!)

At the Grand Mosque posing behind some columns

Whitney and Tori by the Ric's sign

The whole group enjoying a good old American breakfast complete with all the pork we wanted!!

A little spoiled?

Quote of the week: I think we are getting a little spoiled. We drove in the driveway last night and noticing that the light outside the garage was burned out, I commented that we needed to change it. Without a second thought, Brad says "Well, call maintenance." Uh...serious?? We both had a good laugh. "No, I'll change it tomorrow." (He really WAS serious until he realized how ridiculous that would have been.)

Dates.....

If you would have told me last year that I would love to eat dates, I wouldn't have believed it. I'm not a very adventurous eater and I'd just never been introduced to dates before. But let me just say, they are delicious and very abundant here.



They are heavy on all the trees so the outside maintenence guys trim the trees and they just drop down in the street. Our friends gathered a bunch and brought them to church for whoever wanted them. We put them in a bowl and have been eating them all week. I did a little research and found that they are about 20 calories each. No wonder they taste like candy!