Friday Night at the Movies

This weekend, a few of the teachers and I decided we wanted to go to the movies.  There is really only one place here that shows movies in a theater setting - the IMAX in the Scitech museum.  So off we went.  We took the usual weekly company bus to the corniche in Khobar ( a nearby city).  The corniche is a fancy name for a sort of boardwalk area.  Here there is a big park, lots of American chain restaurants like Chili's and Red Lobster, and a mile or two down from our bus stop, a Science Museum called Scitech which includes and IMAX theater.  I presume these movies are okay to show because they are educational and not strictly entertainment.

The bus dropped us off at about 3:30pm, and since it was still well over 100 degrees, we opted to take a taxi instead of walk to the Scitech museum.  When we got there it was prayer time, so all the interactive exhibits were closed.  In fact, aside from one other family, we seemed to be the only people there.  We stood in line, and after some discussion, we decided we should splurge and buy tickets not only to the IMAX, but to the museum as well.  So for the low low price of 40 Riyals (about $10) we had tickets to see Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Journey  and to peruse the center, which according to the brochure they handed us with the tickets "has 7 main exhibition halls, addressing topics in different areas of science and technology, carefully chosen to support the educational subject in the Saudi curriculum, which is closely linked to.  The topics are also presented in a scientific learning with fun style."

We had about 15 minutes to kill before the IMAX started, so we checked out the main entrance hall which described the different regions of Saudi Arabia, had architectural models of a proposed "perfect city" which seemed to have more parking lots than anything else, and a giant column with pictures of Makkah (Mecca).  I had already seen Makkah on the TV in my room, but the small camera angles only showed about 1/4 of the whole thing.  In this picture you could see just how large and crowded the area was.  Imagine the biggest football stadium in the US.  Then imagine that they sold two or three tickets for every one stadium seat.  Then imagine that all those people were circling a box the size of double wide trailer home, some lucky enough to be close to it down on the field, and others making laps around the whole stadium.  It's amazing.

But we couldn't stand around forever staring at these pictures of a place I will never be able to see unless I convert to Islam, we had an IMAX to catch.  By this time, there were more children and families in the center and we wanted to get good seats, so we were the first ones in line.  One of my friends, Fazia, hadn't eaten yet, and was hoping there was food in the center.  She spotted a security guard with a cup of tea, and since she speaks Arabic, she asked him where he got it hoping to find out where the cafe was. He told her it was upstairs, but said it was closed for prayer and would open later.  His security guard buddy gave him a nudge and whispered something fiercely in Arabic.  The first guard looked sheepish and then looked at his tea a little sadly,  and then sighing extended the cup a little to my friend saying something softly.  She laughed and thanked him, but told him no, she didn't want his tea.  The other guard let us in, but as we passed, I noticed that he shook his head and gave his friend a look that seemed to say something like, you are hopeless man, you had a perfectly good chance to impress this girl, and you blew it because you wouldn't give her your tea.

Inside, the theater was more like a half moon shape.  Instead of one great big screen, it was like being in a planetarium.  One of my friends, Gemma, had never seen an IMAX movie and was already impressed.  I told them we should probably sit towards the middle for the best effect.  We sat down and waited for the movie to start.  As we watched Saudi families climb the steps to their seats, Gemma commented on a two or three year old girl leading her fully veiled mother up the stairs, "If that isn't the blind leading the blind, I don't know what is...."

Just as we had gotten comfortable, one of the guards was back.  He motioned for us to get up, and move to the other side of the theater.  We were confused but thought, maybe there was some rule about where women could sit or something.  So we got up and started walking down the stairs to get across to the other side.  As soon as we were at the other side, he motioned for us to come back and handed us each a set of headphones. We all felt very cool and extra special having wireless headphones for translations.  We decided to sit back down on the original side, thinking he had motioned us over just to get the headphones.  Nope, as soon as we were seated, he motioned for us to move again, so we crossed to the other side, and up the stairs.  He pointed to some seats in the corner, but vaguely, we weren't sure what row he meant.  Gemma made her way down one aisle and sat right behind the camera, which had big bars around it to keep people from leaning in.  I suggested that we move down the row a little so we didn't have bars in our faces.  We went a few seats over, and then, as a joke, because we had moved so many times already, I told Gemma we ought to move one more time for good measure.  Clearly, I need to work on my British to American humor translation, because she took me seriously and we moved yet again.  Once we were settled in, and the movie started, we all put on our headsets and hear... nothing.  They were on, the green light was lit, but only white noise was coming through.  We motioned to our guard friend and he came over to test the headset.  He wasn't hearing anything either so he took my headset off to fix it or something.  Turns out, nothing was really wrong with it.  Once the preview was over, and the movie started, the voice over narration started and Gemma and Fazia had no trouble with their headsets.  The guard was long gone by now with my headset, so I just looked at the pictures and tried to decipher some Arabic.  Unfortunately, Rosetta stone doesn't have a unit on prehistoric sea monsters, so there wasn't much hope.  Luckily, the guard returned with my headset, and that familiar voice that narrates all nature movies took over.

About ten minutes into the movie, two women entered the theater late.  The moved into our row, and one women crawled over all three of us to sit closer to the middle.  Her companion resolutely sat to the right of us, clearly not wanting to climb over us during the movie.  The woman stood waiting beside me for her friend to follow, but the friend was obstinate.  Neither of them moved.  The woman on the other side of us sat down and stubbornly looked at the screen.  The woman on the other side of me made impatient jerking movements with her head, staring the woman down.  My head was whipping back and forth, wondering who would give up.  This little drama was far more interesting than the discovery of a Tylosauras in Kansas in 1918.  Finally the seated woman got up and moved over us to join her friend, in the process stepping on Fazia's toe.

After the show, we mad our way out but were temporarily delayed by watching the man reload the IMAX camera for the next show.  They had a glass wall above the projection room that let you look down and watch like an operation room in fancy hospitals.  Gemma and I were transfixed.  The reels were huge, at least 5 feet in diameter, and the film itself was pretty wide, maybe six inches or so.  It was really cool to watch the operator change the film, and I was suddenly like a little kid again, excited about simple things and curious to know how everything worked.  I guess that is what museums are for, isn't it?

Of course, we had to make a quick pit stop to the restrooms before we were off to explore the real exhibits.  I was waiting for the other girls to finish when a cleaning lady came in and starting talking with me.  She asked me where I was from and I told her America.  She told me I was beautiful and thanked me for coming.  She told me the last time Americans had come to the museum was months ago.  When Gemma and Fazia came out to wash their hands, she was in the middle of a great outpouring of affection for America, and all the great things about America.  She clearly assumed they were also Americans, and gushed all the more for their benefit.  When we left she was still going on.  Gemma said, "Well, I guess us Brits are just chopped liver then, eh?"  I promised that I hadn't paid her to say all those things before they came out.

Snowboarding Challange

The first exhibit we went to was the traveling Math Alive! exhibit.  I know what you are thinking, because it's exactly what I thought.  An exhibit all about math?  Dull.  Not so my friend, not so.  There were all kinds of really neat interactive activities, and even better, there were tons of Saudi families and kids playing away with tessellations, and stationary bikes, and snowboarding games, and photosensitive cameras and code breaking, all of it fun, and way better than an afternoon at the mall!

Light Dancing with Digital Delay

I won at peddling on the bike to match the graph, Gemma won the snowboarding match, and Fazia took home the dancing queen prize in front of the animation camera.  We all got our pictures taken in the 360 booth.  The most shocking thing was the men helping demonstrate all of the hands on activities.  In the states, you would never have a worker be allowed to pick up kids and help them by moving their hands on the controls at the right time, or lean down and kiss them on the top of their heads when they did a good job.  Here, it was all welcomed, encouraged even.

We spent way more time than we meant to in the math exhibit, and when we finally emerged the center was crowded.  In the once empty entry hall, there were now a bunch of different stations with hands on activities for kids.  There was a coloring station, a blocks station, a dental health station maned by two (women!) dentists, and a cake decorating station.  Unfortunately, some poor planning meant the dentist table was right next to the cakes, therefore, the dentist station was empty, while the sugar drenched cake frosting area was bombarded with kids.  The three of us contemplated just how bad it would be if we were to stand in line for a cake for longer than I care to admit before heading up to the other exhibits.

We headed first to the living hall which according to the guidebook "contains samples of different kinds of animals and plants that adapted - with God's well (their typo, not mine) - to live in different areas in the Arabian Peninsula." One corner of the exhibit housed a rather dusty collection of taxidermied birds, lizards, small mammals, and one hamster.  It also had a skeleton of a camel with all sorts of fun camel facts.  For instance,  did you know that camels have a third eyelid that is translucent so that they can close it during sandstorms, but still see?  Also, camels have an extra long tube in their intestine, or bladder (can't remember which) that lets them filter and recycle more water, which means, they can drink salty water and plants with high salt content that humans can't.  Human urine is nearly all water, while camel urine has almost none.  Camels are also extremely loyal and smart.  When it's hot, they turn themselves so the skinny part of them faces the sun, when they are cold, they turn the broadside to the sun.  The hump is fat storage, not water storage, and they have a split lip, which lets them eat plants low to the ground.  Camels are great environmentalists too, they never rip up plants by the root, or eat all the leaves on one plant, instead they just sort of trim the plants up and move on to another plant.  I could tell you more about a camel's brain, liver, and skin, but I ran out of time to read the whole thing since we wanted to move on to the aquarium.

This fish was bigger than the Sea Turtle

The aquarium was really just a round fishtank.  I don't think it could have been more than 30 feet in diameter, which may seem like a lot until you realize there were at least two sharks, three enormous eels, a sea turtle and a huge fish, plus lots of fake coral and other fish.  I think I'd rather live in our apartments than crowded in that tank.  The huge fish turned out to be the most interesting.  It had a cartoony human looking eye, and made you simultaneously amazed, sad, disgusted, and curious when you looked at him.

We passed the prayer rooms (men's and women's separate) on our way to the next hall and we realized it was almost time for prayer and we had better make our way back if we wanted to catch the bus in time.  We called the taxi who had driven us here, but he was busy, so we figured we would just start out along the road and grab a taxi on the way back.  It was dark by now, and the temperature wasn't so bad.  We walked along and got plenty of honks, but oddly, no taxis.  We passed a huge building which looked too big to be a house, but which didn't seem to be anything else.  Just as we were turning to go up a street to get to another main road, an SUV with at least a half dozen boys under the age of 12 in it.  The car slowed, then stopped and with all the windows down, they simply stared at the three women walking along the road.  Eventually the driver moved on, but stopped about 100 feet ahead of us and began reversing.  Luckily, we had already started to cross the road and soon we were on the opposite side of the road with a median between us.  It's possible he would have offered us a ride, and it's possible that it would have been a genuine offer of help.  But I'm glad we didn't end up needing to test that possibility.

Once we reached the main road, and were by my best guess about halfway to where the bus picks us up, we finally found a taxi.  We got in, and at the next light, pulled up next to two cars that had just been in a fender bender.  This is such a normal and frequent occurance, that no one really bothered to bat an eye.  Granted, the lights here last a long time, but even so, before the light was green again, they had exchanged information and were back in their cars and on their way.

We made it back to the bus with 20 minutes to spare.  I went into the grocery store to get clothespins, but ended up making out with a whole meal of free samples.  I got a chicken salad sandwich, a tuna fish sandwich, some grilled chicken, and about 4 cubes of cheese.  I almost got a drink too, but they ran out just as I got there.  I have to say, it was pretty much the perfect way to spend a Friday in the Kingdom.    I plan on going back when they release the newest IMAX flick.