Thursday Morning Walking

I woke up this morning at 7:45, got in the shower, and by the time I got out at 8:01 my ride had left without me. Frustrating. But, because I am turning over a new leaf of incredible productivity, instead of going back to bed I walked to Sarawat, the supermarket about 2km away. It took about half an hour, in the direct sunlight. So I'm a little toasty now, after walking back. But I got some necessities so I can survive another week without milk or veggies, I hope. I am so proud of myself. It's 11am and my day has just begun! I am kindof exhausted though, so we'll see how long I hold out before I take a nap.

However, I had a great walk to the store. I wore my bright blue headscarf and put my ipod up all the way (under my headscarf and abaya) so i could totally ignore everybody and everything and just stride down the street listening to The Dandy Warhols (who are arguably the best band for purposeful striding). Once I got to the store, half an hour later, I realized there was no way I was going to be able to cover my head on the way back, so I take off my headscarf, and then standing unobtrusively in the juice aisle I unbutton part of my abaya so I can get to my ipod to turn it off. But of course, some young man walks by at just that time and whistles at me. Peachy.

And on the way back, wearing my abaya but no headscarf, I got NOTICEABLY more attention. Part of it might have been that i was walking over there early, before things opened, and on the way back things were open and there were people around, but i have to believe part of it was my shocking blond hair. I passed two little children and their mother - the kids were sitting on some sort of abandoned sofa on the side of the road, and as I pass by the little girl sees me and her eyes widen. I smiled at her and she looked even more incredulous. She starts tugging on her brother's shirt saying "Shoof! Shoof!" ("Look! Look!") and pointing at me. Perhaps they've legitimately never seen a blond person before? I can't really believe that to be the case, there are too many foreigners in Jeddah. But who knows what kind of sheltered lives these kids might lead. Anyway, at least I provided the world with some entertainment. That's a good start.

The pictures are of where I live, by the way. The bit you can see from outside, anyway. The gate of the residence is on a roundabout with a giant sculpture of a book in it; it's really a beautiful sculpture, it's too bad it's so out of the way. In the picture at the top you can see two of the biggest landmarks of my part of town, as well: the NCB Bank building, which is situated right in the middle of balad, the old city, and the Khozama Palace water/observation tower (I'm not entirely sure which it is), which is situated right across the street from us in its own fabulous compound (which includes, I am told, an Olympic-size swimming pool. I live behind the gate. Fairly intimidating, no? The gate is enormous, and has a huge padlock on it, although I don't think I've ever seen the padlock locked. Maybe in the middle of the night they lock it. The gate guards are there 24/7 to let you in, though, so it's not as much like a prison as it looks. You can pretty much wander out and wander back in whenever you want, as I did this morning. It is pretty heavy, though, and squeaks like crazy, so I don't think you could sneak out very well. Pity.