A Walk in the Park

After much discussion about the elusive park that is supposedly somewhere close to our building, five of us girls decided that we would finally go find it.  We planned all week to have a picnic there on Wednesday - the day we have no shopping trips so that we would have something to do other than stare at the walls in our apartments.

The plan was to meet downstairs in the lobby of our apartment building at 4:30 and head out together.  I knew I had a Skype interview at 4pm, so I wasn't sure I would be able to go.  Luckily, the call ended at about 4:40, so I decided to grab my abaya and the watermelon that had been in my fridge all week and head down, just in case they hadn't left yet.  At the bottom of the stairs, only Gemma was there waiting.  She said one of the others had come down, but had to go back up for something, and we were still waiting for the others.  We chatted for a while, and then Sophia came down, and I was admiring her sunglasses when I remembered that I had forgotten to bring my own.  Since we were still waiting for two more, I figured we still had time, so I ran upstairs to grab my sunglasses, leaving my watermelon and phone on the couch.  I must have been about two floors up when my phone started ringing.  Gemma, was quick enough to answer it and then ran the phone up to me.  I was glad she did as it was the interviewer calling back to answer a few more questions.  I did my best to answer them while looking for my sunglasses and making my way back downstairs so the girls wouldn't have to wait on me.

I needn't have rushed.  We were still waiting on some of the girls, and it just so happened that one of the downstairs rooms closest to the reception area was open, so we decided to explore it.  It was nearly the same as every other apartment, except that in the back corner of the living room was a spiral staircase connecting it to the apartment above it on the second floor.  Gemma and I couldn't help it, we decided to explore it.  We went up the stairs, which shook a lot as we went and made me slightly nervous.  Not as nervous as I was when I finally reached the upper apartment and found absolutely no railing at the top of the stairs.  The floor simply ended with a square hole cut out in the corner.  One edge had a step down for the stairs, but the adjacent side was just a straight cliff drop down into the apartment below.  These "Double-Decker" apartments were reserved for teachers with families.  I was cringing while I imagined a baby crawling across the living room to the edge of doom....  Gemma and I decided to leave quickly before either of us had the chance to accidentally fall into the hole ourselves.

While we were exploring one of the girls realized she hadn't said her prayers yet, so she went to the bedroom to pray quickly before we left.  She went to the bathroom to wash first, but because the apartment hadn't been used in a while, the water ran brown for about 2 minutes before it cleared up.  The water reminded Gemma and I that we had forgotten to bring water bottles, and as it was probably around 104 degrees and we weren't sure how far away the park was, we figured we would definitely need some water.  So we ran up to our rooms to get water bottles while the other girl finished her prayers.  When we got back down, my headscarf had come undone and Sophia was busy fixing it for me.  I used to wear a thick black shall that was made of material that kind of stuck to itself so I never needed pins to hold up my hijab before.  But recently I had been gifted a scarf that was made of much thinner, but also slipperier material, so it kept falling down more easily.  Sophia was trying to show me how I could tie it and when she was finally done, the final girl arrived, and at last, we were all in the same place at the same time, and ready to leave.  At least, we were ready to leave until the girl commented on how nice my headscarf looked.  She said I should take a picture, and then I remembered that I didn't have my camera!  So I ran upstairs to get it.

And when I came back down, only an hour after we had originally agreed to meet, we made our way out the door to head to the park.  We didn't get far.  At the end of our block is a Herfy's, which is an arabic kind of McDonalds.  We all decided that what would really make the walk to the park enjoyable would be some ice cream cones.  So we went inside to the family section and ordered some ice cream.  We had the option of choosing ice cream with chocolate syrup or strawberry syrup, and apparently the guy taking our order loved chocolate so much that he just couldn't conceive of anyone wanting strawberry.  We ordered 2 chocolate and 3 strawberry, and each time he said our order back to us, for confirmation, he got it wrong.  "So 5 chocolate ice cream?  Oh, so, 4 chocolate?  hmm... so, you want only 2 chocolate?.... oh, and strawberry? ... So, 2 chocolate and 2 strawberry.  Oh, 3 strawberry?  hmmm.  I think I have it, 2 chocolate and 3 strawberry? Yes?  Are you sure you don't want chocolate?"  It was like watching Abbot and Costello played by a single person.

Eventually we got our correct flavors of ice cream and headed out for the park.  There aren't sidewalks to speak of, so we decided our best bet was to walk along the median in the center of the road.  It was only wide enough for one person so we fell in line single file.  Five black shapes marching away down the road.  We got a lot of honks and stares, and several cars passed us on one side, and then a few minutes later were passing us on the other side of the road.  They sure have interesting ways of getting places if they have to keep flipping U-turns.  My ice-cream only lasted about half way to the park, so the last half of the trip felt longer and hotter than the first.  But I persevered.

The Park at Sunset

Finally we arrived at the small oasis of green surrounded by several apartment buildings.  There were two small playgrounds and one family had even brought a mini trampoline for the kids and enough jars of peanut butter to feed a small army.  It made sense when you started counting the number of kids that appeared to belong to the 5 women sitting around the trampoline.  We chose a spot with some bunches under a canopy, even though the shade wasn't really necessary any more since the sun went down just as we arrived.  We sat down and busted out our treats... cucumber sandwiches, deviled eggs, mango tang, and my watermelon.

Everything was delicious, except the watermelon, which I thought tasted a little worse for the wear, having been in the fridge all week.  It didn't taste like it had gone bad exactly, it just wasn't quite right.  The other girls noticed it too, but they seemed to like it.  "Wow, this almost has a minty flavor.. Did you add mint to it?"  I shook my head and added sheepishly, "You don't have to eat it, it might have gone bad..."  but the other girls said, "No, no, it's good!  I think you may have hit on a really good idea!"  "Yeah, we could have watermelon mint smoothies!"  That did actually sound like a great idea, only the closest my watermelon had ever been to mint was sitting a shelf under some mint-like local plant in the refrigerator.  Perhaps it soaked in the flavor?  I don't know.... I still think the watermelon was probably bad, but I guess if they liked it, and no one got sick, it's a win win.

Vogue Saudi Style

Never too old to be a kid again....

After eating, we made the most of my trip back for the camera and took a lot of "selfies" with the self timer. Its amazing how much fun it can be to act ridiculous in front of a camera.  Its a good thing too, because thats pretty much the only kind of fun your allowed to have in the park. There is a huge sign near the middle of the park with a list of things that aren't allowed.  I think if I were to design a t-shirt that explained what it was like to live in Saudi Arabia, it would just be a series of icons for fun things with big red lines through them.

Everything fun is forbidden

When it got too dark for pictures, we decided to head back.  We thought we would try a back road which probably went straight through to our apartment and would be a shortcut... we thought.  I don't think we will ever try it again.  The road ended up being a maze of back alleys, which somehow led us further out than we wanted to go, and in the meantime, we were being followed by a creepy guy in a pick up truck who would drive by and look us up and down.... I've never felt that exposed while being covered from head to toe.  He would slowly drive past, then speed off only to come back for a second and third pass every few minutes.  Meanwhile we were making our way through construction zones and attempting to avoid puddles of sewage in the middle of the street.  Luckily, our having gotten lost must have also confused our stalker, who couldn't find us either.  Eventually, we found our way home, having gone at least 3 blocks out of the way.  Even though it was dark by now, it was still over 100 degrees outside, and I had to ring out my t-shirt when I finally got back to my apartment.

It was worth it though... and we all agreed we should make it a regular Wednesday outing, minus the getting lost bit.  I secretly decided to nix the over ripe watermelon too.