February 16, 2013 - Update

It has been a while since our last post...sorry for that.  We have been quite busy here in the Kingdom.  Since we have last posted (which was before Christmas, way too long between postings) a lot has happened.  We have traveled to Italy for Christmas break, done some painting in our villa, taken a few more trips out to the desert, gone to the Embassy a couple of times, and most recently enjoyed a Valentine's Day dinner with some of our new friends.

ITALY
Italy was AMAZING!  We flew into Rome and stayed there for about a week.  We rented a quaint apartment in Trastevere which put us within walking distance to Vatican City, The Colosseum, Palentine Hill, The Forum, Trevi fountain, The Pantheon, Piazza Navona, and many other Piazzas that we thoroughly enjoyed.  We found a Steeler's bar (Thanks D'Amico!) so Sam was excited to go there.  We also found many excellent restaurants and pubs that we put at the top of our "Will Be Back Again" list.  After we left Rome, we drove north to Venice for a few days and then from there we spent a week in Greve in Chianti.  Venice was great.  We got to be on the water so that is always a good thing.  We were only in Venice for two days so we spent most of our time walking and taking water taxis (getting lost if you ask boys) around Venice.  We did get to see St. Mark's Square and Basillica, traveled through the Grand Canal, went to Murano Island to see a glass blowing demonstration and exhibit (beautiful pieces galore!), and had a chance to taste our first Mulled Wine...very tasty and warms you up on a cold day of walking too!  We were also introduced to a unique room accommodations in Venice as well.  It was the first time we had to insert a metal card into a slot to make the electric in the room for the electric to work, including the heat.  Our last stop in Italy was right outside of Florence.  We rented a cottage in the hills on an organic farm in Greve in Chianti.  This was the most peaceful and relaxing part of our trip.  The place was gorgeous and allowed us to settle down, find some much needed peace and healing.  We miss you Grammie.  The cottage where we stayed was on the same hill as the birthplace of "Lisa" of Leonardo da Vinci's The Mona Lisa.  Very cool historical fact that we didn't know until we checked in.  While we were in Greve, we traveled to several neighboring towns and got to see a few castles, numerous vineyard and olive tree farms, and we took a few nature hikes as well.  We were going to go into Florence for New Year's but decided that we didn't want to fight the crowds, so we stayed home and enjoyed the night as a family.  We did however travel to the edge of Florence on our way back to Rome on our way home and were glad that we did.  We found a great market where we found some fantastic deals on some scarves, gloves, blouses for Billie Jo, and some other small odd items that we don't get to find in Riyadh.  We also had a great lunch from a market vendor and ate on a park bench before getting back in the car and driving to Rome.  In all, Italy is definitely a must do again for us but may have to wait until Gabe & Sam are off to college so that we can enjoy more of the culture of Italy...in the words of Gabe "are we going to see another building?"  Although the LOVED the Colosseum and wanted to do that again!

Desert Trips
We have traveled out to the desert a few times and each time has been to a different place.  The first time was to the place expats here at the school call "The Dunes."  We found huge sand dunes that we had fun climbing and sitting on top of and enjoying the view of the expansive desert.  We also had the great pleasure of getting stuck a few times in the sand.  This is where we met some very nice locals that helped us, and the two other vehicles we were with, out of the sand.  Very fun!  We were invited to have lunch with our new friends but they had a heavier foot than us on the highway and we lost them.  The second time we ventured out was to The Escarpment.  This is at the foot of the +/- 2000 ft plateau of Riyadh.  We found some wicked rock sculptures and some more great hills that the boys had fun climbing.  The interesting part of this trip was when we were pulling back onto the highway we were passed by a Lamborghini and a Bentley that were pulling off of the highway to go offroading!  I guess when you have money, you don't care about getting a new paint job on your $200,000+ vehicle.  The second trip to the desert, we went past the Escarpment to a dried up lake, Lake Kharara.  We had to drive a few miles offroad to get to the place we were headed and at one point we drove on the dried up bed of the lake.  This lake fills up in the rainy season from all of the runoff from the surrounding areas but does not stay a lake for long.  The place we ended up was at the spot of the waterfall, or at least where the waterfall would be after the rains.  On one side a vast desert of mountainous red sand dunes.  On the other side a rocky landscape that stretches what seems like forever and made me think we were somewhere close to the Grand Canyon.  This site has pictures of the lake with and without water Lake Kharara.  We tried to use some sand board and a sled to ride down the dunes but the sand was so soft here that the boards just dug into the sand.  We are planning to go out to the first spot in the desert to try the boards again...hopefully with better luck!

Night Outings
We have traveled out to the DQ (Diplomatic Quarters) a few times for various events and have found that we like the Australian Embassy and the Canadian Embassy the best so far.  Uncle Sam's, the lounge at the US Embassy, is good but very pricey.  But we suck it up and try to go to as many events that are open to us as possible because we do get to fell a bit of home while we are there, even if it is only for a few hours.  This past weekend we were pleasantly surprised by our compound with a Valentine's Day dinner.  It was very affordable and was decorated as good or maybe even better than any of the embassy events we have gone to so far.  The food was excellent and what was best is that we were within walking distance of our house.



Here are some pictures of some of what we have been doing:

Gabe & Sam cheesin at one of the fountains in Rome

Vatican City

Can't find these in Riyadh!

Family portrait in the Colosseum

Glass blowing in Murano

St. Mark's

Couldn't pass up this man working in the fields

Boys being boys even on vacation

Birthplace of The Mona Lisa

Sam waling on the ledge of a sand dune

Taken at the top of a dune

The dried up waterfall

Good look at the division of sand and rock

A friend of mine is in the background of this picture somewhere

Camels, camels, everywhere

Chillin on a hill at the Escarpment

Billie Jo on top of the world!!!

Sand Dunes

It's been a while since I posted...sorry for that, it's been busy here in Riyadh.

Well, a few weeks back we traveled out to the dunes with a few AIS-R friends and had a GREAT time!  Got stuck a few times but once again got pleasantly surprised by the generosity of some of the locals.  If you are ever in Riyadh, I highly suggest you take a trip out to the red sands of Riyadh.  Miles and miles of untouched, rolling, amazing creations of sand.  We are planning a trip back to do an overnight camping trip so hopefully we will get a few sunrise and sunset pictures to post here too.

 

Wadi Hanifa

I totally forgot to post some pictures from when we went to the damn in Riyadh, Wadi Hanifa.  It was very interesting to see running water in the desert...even though this was NOT fresh water.  We went with some friends from school and had another fantastic time.  We went on Saudi National Day and the locals were in great spirits!  Although I was not able to take a picture of it happening, we were treated to one local "friend" climbing a date palm to retrieve some dates for us to taste.  They weren't quite ready to eat, but we tried them anyway.

The water trail goes for over 75 km straight through Riyadh and then some.  We did not travel the whole distance of the flow, but we did go several kilometers along the banks to get some really cool pictures and experiences.  Some of the locals were fishing and had some bread that they offered to the kids to throw into the water to attract some fish.  Surprisingly enough this body of water holds some fairly large fish.  Not exactly sure what species they are but they looked on the lines of a catfish, but I could be wrong.  I would NOT recommend eating anything that comes out of this water as it is not the cleanest of water sources, but it would be a great place for catch & release.  That being said, I am not sure what the local law enforcement agency would think about us fishing there so we probably will not be the first to try.  HA!

 

Along the water way, there were several roads, villages, towns, and further up and down were date farms.  We didn't go to any of the date farms yet but they are definitely on the list of places to see while we are here in the Kingdom.  If you can get past the uncleanliness of the water and the fact that the locals do not use the trash receptacles very much, the Wadi Hanifa Damn and water way is a very interesting place to visit and get some really great pictures.  

Day with the camels

We found the Camel Souq and farm today...WOW!  It was truly amazing to see how many types, sizes and colors of camels exist in Saudi Arabia.  We (Billie Jo) found this wonderland of camels online from another that was previously in Riyadh.  It sounded unreal and we thought it would truly be something the boys would be into.  I mean what pre-teenage boy wouldn't like to see thousands of camels?!  It was definitely an experience.  We read that the locals take pride in their camels and we were definitely shown that today. 

When we pulled up to the outskirts of the farm, we were greeted by several locals that were feeding their stock.  They were extremely friendly and seemed very happy that we were taking such interest in their camels.  Then another local drove up and struck up some conversation with us and offered us to come see his camels so we got in our car and followed him about 1/4 mile down to his camel pen.  There we were treated to our first camel rides!!!!  It was very cool!  The very kind man asked us if we would like to take a ride and we obviously could not be rude and turn his generosity down.  So, we each took a turn riding his camel.  You don't realize how tall a camel is until you have sat on the back of one and they stand up...very quickly for such a large animal I might add.  A truly memorable experience.  Sadly we were not able to have a very long conversation with this nice man as his English was limited and our Arabic is zero at this point.

After we left our new friend, we got back in our car and traveled a little farther down the path to see the sights.  This is were we found two camels that will always stay in our minds.  The first, Sam's new friend, was a young all white female camel.  This camel fell in love with Sam and I believe the feelings were mutual.  She didn't mind if anyone else scratched or pet or touched her, but she definitely was fond of Sam.  If Sam moved, she moved.  If Sam stood still, she stood still.  Needless to say, it was hard to get Sam away from his new friend.  The only thing that did it was a beast of a camel next to our new friendly camel.  This new camel had to be the largest camel that we saw all day, and we must have seen literally thousands of camels.  The best word I can use to describe this beast is...dinosauresque.  Books and movies do not do the camel any justice.  They are very a intelligent, very social, very inquisitive animal.  We did not witness any of the bad nature typically displayed on television.

After our camel experiences, we traveled down the highway to the King Khled Wildlife Center.  In truth, we didn't see any wildlife, not that we really expected to see any, but we got to see some amazing sights.  That and we found a skeleton of what we think was a camel!

In all, today was a very educational day for the Heister's.  We found new friends in the human world and in the animal world.  We are convinced more and more every day that the CNN effect back home is terrible for knowing the real people of Saudi Arabia.  Today we were invited in to the lives of some locals (Saudi and Yemen) that we could barely communicate with and were treated like old friends.

The biggest camel we have seen in our time in KSA!  A gentle giant.

Sam's new best friend

How do you not like this face?

A mother camel and her calf

Sam gets to ride a second camel today!

Awe struck by the size

Our new friend from Yemen

Playing with bones!

Another sign you don't see back home!!!

Wild watermelons maybe??

Archaeologist Gabe

At the edge of a cliff

Truly an amazing day!