No Abbya!

On New Year’s Day Laurie, Timmie and I woke up at 0400—yes that’s 4am. We were leaving for Khobar, a coastal city, for three reasons—1—buy Laurie her “dream” sewing machine, 2) go to some craft store and 3) go to an Arabian store that caters to Westerners (meaning everything costs $$). There were three cars caravanning—we were following since I wasn’t 100% sure on how to get to Khobar. We left Riyadh at 0515—(yawn) for an adventure.
We arrived in Khobar—with no stops—at 0900ish—a nice long, sometimes boring, 4 hour drive. Desert all the way—though we did see camels and they really are beautiful when they’re walking. They seem to glide along the desert—like ships in the ocean.
Khobar! A coastal town that is somewhat more “liberated” than “conservative” Riyadh. It just seemed more laid back—like most beach towns. Laurie and I rolled down the windows to smell the salt air and we were not disappointed—the air smelled so good. Khobar has a large Western community thanks to ARAMCO—the oil company that has been in the Kingdom since the 1930’s or 40’s. ARAMCO still has a lot of influence in that part of Saudi. We even saw the first gusher. Most signs were in English—including numbers (in Riyadh most signs are in Arabic—especially numbers).
We parked at the craft store. It was big. The bathrooms were nice and clean—Timmie always has to check out the bathrooms. There was lots of stuff..stuff..stuff. I have to admit the store did have a really good selection of crafts and materials—if you’re into that. Timmie and I got bored—especially when we remembered there was food and water in the car.
We left the cars parked and went to the sewing machine place—up 4 blocks take a left and then three blocks or something like that. Walking to the store through the traffic, the people, the variety of stores—that was an adventure. We found the store. Wow—nice (it must cater to Westerners too since the guys all spoke great English and they knew a lot about sewing machines). But it was more than sewing machines. There were fancy watches, binoculars, knifes, etc…..Laurie was thrilled. I got bored and walked around outside. When I came back Laurie was buying the machine. Now all of us drivers walked back to the cars—but not the same way we walked to the store—walking back seemed to take longer. We drove to the store and the machine was loaded into our car—off we all went. We only have about 45 minutes and it’s prayer time.
The last reason we were there was to visit Desert Designs—a very very nice Arab store. I was wowed from the minute we walked in. Furniture, tablecloths (they even have the Iranian one that we have), rugs, art and knick knacks. If you want Arab this is the store. I fell in love with a piece of furniture—then looked at the price—still in love but now from a distance. The women were going gaga—and when we come back to the States we’ll be bringing gifts from Desert Designs. Laurie wasn’t feeling well so we went to the car—relaxing smelling that ocean air.
Ok we did it—we made it to all three places before closing / prayer time. Everybody is happy. Now we go to the corniche. We walk around, take pictures and end up eating at McDonald’s. Timmie and I look over at the bridge to Bahrain (the bridge to freedom—movies, alcohol, pork and hookers –I’ve heard Russian and Thai—hey you need options according to Laurie). Laurie starts feeling better now that she’s got some solid food in her stomach. We load up and drive home to Riyadh. We get back at 5pm—it’s been a long 12 hour day. Timmie did not complain at all—you know I am always amazed at how much he can take—he rises to the occasion when he has to.
So back to my title—No Abbya. In the craft store we saw a woman—Western—no abbya. Not even carrying one. No head covering. Nothing. She was wearing a long sleeved shirt and pants—dressed very nice. BUT the amazing thing—none of the men or women in the store seemed to care! And then I saw her walking down the street. Awesome. As we were leaving town we were at a stop light. Laurie and I both noticed a tall, stunning looking (and she looked Arab) woman. But what was really stunning to us is that she wasn’t wearing an abbya either! Now she did have her head scarf on and was carrying an abbya—but she wasn’t wearing it. She had on nice brown jeans, long sleeved brown shirt and high heel boots. Again, nobody seemed to care or be paying attention. I’ve heard that Khobar was more “liberated” and to me this proved it. Granted it was only two women—but hey it’s two more than I’ve seen in Riyadh.
I love being here. There really is an adventure everywhere we go.