Safe at Home

I promised to update our blog after returning home from my trip to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, so here goes. We left from Houston on Saturday Aug. 2 for Bahrain. After about 20 hours of travel (16 hours flying and 4 hours layover in Amsterdam) we arrived in Manama, Bahrain Sunday night. I was completely wiped out as I did not sleep as well as I would have liked on the plane. Fortunately we were able to fly business class which makes a big difference on long flights like that. We were not able to see much of the city when we got there as it was dark already, but it was bigger than I expected. We got to the hotel (Ritz Carlton) and checked in and went straight to bed. The next day we didn't meet until the afternoon so you would think we would all be rested. Not quite. With the change in time zones, I did not sleep well that night at all. Fortunately the meetings on Monday were just a run through of the presentation and not too stressfull so I made it through and was able to sleep much better on Monday night. The hotel was amazing. I have never stayed in a Ritz before and I will try to include some pictures in here, but it had an indoor and outdoor pool, a private beach, and everything else that you could think of. What I saw of the city on Monday was pretty neat. With all of the money that the Middle Eastern countries are earning right now there is a huge construction boom going on. It is almost like they are all competing with each other to see who can build the coolest cities. Some of the building in Manama were incredible with the architecture and engineering that has gone into them. The Ritz was built on a completely reclaimed area of the island. When I asked what that meant they said that they dredge the ocean and extend the bounderies of the island. It was pretty cool. If you want to look at some cool things look online for pictures of Abu Dhabi and Dubai and see what they are doing in those cities.

But anyway, we went out to eat that first night and had delicious stake. The restaurants, hotels, shopping, etc. was just like in the states. I was surprised by how open things were. The only difference was the language, although most people in Bahrain speak English so that was not a problem. On Wednesday after our meetings we went to a shopping center called the Gold City where every store in the mall was a jewelery store. I found some beautiful things to bring home for Kristi and the girls. Then we went to the regular mall and it was huge. It looked just like a mall in the states which meant that I was completely bored in about 30 minutes. Then we went back to the hotel and prepared to leave for Saudi Arabia the next day.

Saudi Arabia was an interesting country. We were not able to spend much time there as we arrived in the afternoon on Friday and left at midnight Sunday morning. Most of the time was spent driving between the airport and the city where the refinery will be built (about 3 hours each way). Everything I expected about the dessert were true. The drive made West Texas look interesting and full of beautiful landscaping. But in the city where the airport is (Jeddah) there were some pretty cool things. We were able to drive around with our security driver for about 3 hours before going to the airport to head home. We went to a couple of malls, which again were regular malls for the most part. It was strange seeing all of the women with their heads and faces covered although we had read before leaving that you are not to stare at the women, take pictures of them, or talk to them in public unless you are related. The most interesting thing about the malls and other areas in Saudi Arabia though is that they have family only areas. They do it to make areas where families can go and have a good time and be away from the teenagers and singles crowd. But if you do not have a family with you, you cannot even go into the areas, or the restaurants, etc. It was pretty cool. In a lot of ways it was neat to see an entire country where family is important, and religion is taken seriously. I never felt threatened at all in the couple of days in the kingdom although we had to have our security driver take us everywhere and couldn't go anywhere alone.

We saw some pretty cool sites. Among these was a huge water spout that shoots water up about 172 meters into the air. That is over 500 feet straight up. When we asked about it we were told that they are going to build another one next to it and have them point towards each other. Then where the water falls and creates a curtain they are going to shoot a laser showing a picture of the king. That will be really cool when they finish it. The other things that I noticed about both countries was the cleanliness of the countries. The roads were clean, the bathrooms were clean, the malls and restaurants were clean. It was great.

Well, the trip home was pretty uneventful. It was another 21 hours of travel time followed by 2 hours in the Houston Airport to get through customs and immigration. I remember a time when it was easy to get through customs as an American, but I guess times have changed. But that is my report. I came back feeling very comfortable taking my family to any of the countries in the United Arab Emirates if that is where our winning contractor is located, however, there is no need to worry about Saudi Arabia. ConocoPhillips will not send families into Saudi right now for security reasons. So it is safe to say that we will not be moving there at least.

Talk to you all later.
Curtis