Charafantah's Cave

Here are some pictures i took while am here in KSA, with my comments at the bottom

Main two buildings in Riyadh, Al Mamlaka (at the back) and Al Faisalyah (the one we got robbed at )
There are no other high buildings, most buildings are less than 5 floors.

Al Saraya Turkish restaurant in Talatiny Al Olaya St. ثلاثين العليا
No comment many countries would get offended if i commented on that one

On my first days in Riyadh, i thought that tamwenat is a brand name for a chain of super markets….
Then i discovered that a supermarket is caled tamwenat here
Its very common here, they are eveywhere.

El 7′eyata el regaleya IT IS EVERYWHERE this is where they make the galabeyas and the shema3′
هنا بيفصلوا الجلاليب و الشماغ و الحاجات دى……مع أن الجلاليب كلها بيضاء…بس فى 100 نوع قماش و 100 نوع ياقة و 100 نوع جيب و زراير و حركات.
بس فى الأخربرضو, كله جلاليب

The worlds largest Plasma TV Panasonic 103 inch (HOLY CRAP!!! CAN YOU IMAGE THAT!)
And the price tag says: 270,000SR (yes, thats almost 72,000USD and 400,000EGP)
أكبر تليفزيون فى العالم ب 400,000 ألف جنيه بس,,,يا بلاش!!!! كنت حجيب 2, بس للأسف مفيش مكان فى الشنطة

Al Tahleya St. something like gam3et el dowal st in egypt its where all the youth gather and go out, a lot of shops etc…..except you don’t see anyone walking in the streets (that’s how it is in KSA) and you don’t see any females (damn it! i haven’t seen a girl for LOOOONGGG time now)

Me and Osama in Dr. Cafe, few minutes after this picture, we were thrown out, because prayer time came and they had to close.

The only thing you can do in Saudi Arabia, EATTTTTTT
i think i gained like 6-7 more kilo during my stay here. the pic was taken at Chilli’s

It was a slaughter, thats what remains from the chocolate fudge with ice cream (yummmmyyyyyyy)

Me and Rami, stuck in the elevator

At the Faisaleyah mall, it says Single men are not allowed. You can’t enter the mall on weekends if you’re a single man, families only!!!!!! (holy crap)!!
ممنوع دخول العزاب!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Juice center!!! no comment
مركز عصير!!!! و كمان ماما نوره؟

أبح!!! كان فى حاجات تانية مش لذيذة,,بس قولت بلاش فضايح عالنت

الواحد و هو فى الغربة…..مفيش غير أهل بلده إللى ممكن يكسروا مرارة الغربة

So here’s my stories with the several encounters with Egyptians in Riyadh:

The Egyptian embassy in Riyadh:

We all went today to the embassy to report our stolen passports and find out how we will be back to Egypt, we already knew about a few papers to be done from the Saudi authorities, so we have been working on them during the past week.

We arrived at 12:00pm the consulate is located in a very nice building in the “Embassies suburb” in Riyadh.

Entering the building, required us all to lock our phones and had them over to the security guards. The first thing that popped into my mind was the decision of ministry of interior (وزير الداخلية….الأخ المبجل حبيب العادلى) to ban cell phones in police stations, right after the torture incidents (so i thought they’re going to torture us or something inside the consulate, and so they did )

We asked the receptionist what are the required steps, he showed us a paper hanged on the wall with all the requirements, he then gave us 3 papers to fill.

For some weird reason, the 3 papers, has to be filled 3 times (e.g. 3 copies of each one), yes, you have to write the same EXACT information 3 times for 3 different papers (please note that the 3 different forms had my full name,DOB, passport #,address, reason of visit, expected leaving date and phone number in common for all the 3 )

Thats might be because they are trying to save on photocopy ink, or maybe they will choose the one with the best hand writing and use it. I don’t have a clue.

Scrooge McDuck, the treasurer

But HEY!!! welcome to Egypt So far i feel happy being on Egyptian land

Until the guy receiving the papers starts telling us that if we’re planning to submit the papers today, it must be done NOW, or else we come tomorrow.
How the !(&*@#^ can we do that with the 9 stupid forms you gave us to write?it’s like a friggin exam!!!

Just when we are about to finish, the guy put a “Closed” sign on the window and left while saying that he already waited 15 extra minutes for us

Only to discover that the working hours in the consulate passports & Visa section is from 9:00am to 12:00pm wowowowowowowwowowo i want to work there!!!
it’s like a cinema men tes3a le etnashr

3 WHOLE HOURS PER DAY!!! THAT”S ALOT OF WORK!!!!!! الناس دى بتتعب أوى فعلا

يهديك يرضيك يا عم الحج عايزين نرجع بلدنا….مفيش……يا عم ورانا شغل ماينفعش نيجى كل يوم….برضه مفيش
فى اللحظة دى بجد حسيت أن أنا فى مصر….و فى مجمع التحرير كمان

We left then, and planning to again tomorrow early.

I forgot to mention, these 2 encounters with Egyptians in Riyadh:

• Taxi Driver, he kept talking all the way لوك لوك لوك……أكل ودانى and then he took a wrong road because “he missed the one i want” و من كتر الرغى و عدم التركيز دخل شارع غلط غير إللى أنا عايزه.
• There are no TAXES whatsoever here in Saudi Arabia on anything. So in any restaurant or shop, the price on the tag or the brochure is what you pay for, not a PENNY more.
  The only restaurant I saw adding a 10% service charge, was Al fishawy “الفيشاوى” which is an Egyptian restaurant owned and managed by Egyptians.

But it’s not all bad really, i met some *REALLY* good Egyptians here too, i met some people at work who are very nice,helpful and intelligent, and there is also that waiter at the hotel, who has been very nice and doesn’t speak much

I really miss being in Egypt, even though all noise\dirt\corruption and annoying people surrounding you everywhere in the capital , i still miss it and i cant imagine living anywhere else

It’s been a few days since my last blog, a few things happened, but i was so busy to blog (specially that i have no laptop now, so the only chance to blog is from the office, which as you might notice, i would be SO busy, so i can get out of here as soon as possible)

A few good things happened too, i can’t deny that finally things at work began to move a little bit and i made some progress.

Regarding the disasters, nothing really major, except that my tooth was hurting me really bad, dentist said it would cost 800SR just to fix it….it’s much better now, the pain is gone, i hope it’ll stay that way until am back to Egypt.

Apart from that, nothing really serious, just minor stuff, like we go to eat, we all order grilled chicken sandwich, and i am the only one who gets his sandwich with all the salad and topping but without the chicken (it’s ok, i returned it back to the restaurant)

Maybe also that once, where i was waiting for someone in front of the mall, and that weird dude in his car came and tried to “give me a ride”…it was so disturbing

But hell!!! life is much better now (compared to what it was a few days ago, it’s very relative…… moving from -100 to -20 is a great improvement, but you’re still in the minus )

Regarding the passports, we still have to complete some more papers before we could get new passports, we’ll see how it goes, police here is so bad (worse than egypt, can you imagine that?) and the Egyptian embassy is as bad as..ehmm i dunno,, as an Egyptian embassy

I had many people speak to me, saying that i am not so unlucky and there is no such thing as disasters magnet and that it’s all just a coincidence and that probably me putting all these thoughts in my mind is what causing it.

So i thought to myself, and i was like “Yea, it could be true, i’ll just not think about that anymore”

But here’s what happened:

All the Egyptians in the company working in Riyadh at the moment gathered in the office to watch the final match between Egypt & Cameroon (WELL DONE EGYPT!!! i never really thought we could make it….well done)
Thank God we won, or they could’ve killed me if we didnt

Our office is in a HUGE building called “Al Faysaliah – الفيصلية” which is one of the very few massive buildings in Riyadh.

There are 5 elevators in that building, so after the match we all decided to go back to the hotel and so, we get into one of the elevators and it’s really neat and clean, the elevator is BIG the sign says it fits 15 persons, it’s made by Mitsubishi and it’s really advanced (DOH! it needs an electronic access card to operate)

We were 7 inside it, less than half the allowed capacity, while the elevator moved down, a few shakes hit us, but it’s okay.
Just the minute we are near the ground floor, the elevator stops.

Opps, we’re stuck in the elevator!!!!!

We tried every possible button combination one could imagine, shouting and screaming and everything (the alarm button did not seem to work)

After a few minutes, we called our friends from the office who were lucky enough not to get into the same elevator as us to call the security, just seconds later, the speaker in the elevator worked (looks like that alarm button was working after all )

A saudi speaking guy, saying stuff i didn’t understand, later they translated to me he was telling us to wait, and asked how long we’ve been here.

They try to open the door, they successfully do, but we were afraid to jump, as the elevator was stuck between two floors, if it moves while someone is jumping, it could cut him in half

so we told them to leave the door open for a few mins to get some fresh air in, and to try and move the elevator from the main control unit. To do so , we had to close the door first (so the elevator can move)

But hey! no luck

It was more than 20 mins passed since we’ve been stuck in there, so i was really tired and i decided just to sit on the floor until we get out ( i have some pictures will post them later)

So we decided that if they can’t move it, we’ll risk jumping out of the door if that’s our only choice…. but (why must be always a but? ) they cant open the door again…somehow, for some weird reason, the tool they use to open the door, or the door itself i dunno, became loose and doesn’t want to open.

It’s like, i gave you a chance to escape and you refused it, now you’ll be stuck here forever
Many people decided to sit down like me, as we were all tired

we called the police to ask for help.

After about 45-60mins they managed to open the door again and we all jumped out safely.

You have no idea what looks everyone gave me , you know in the movies, when they catch an evil witch in the 17th century, how everyone look at her? i was the evil witch

So yea, 7 of us got stuck in an elevator for almost an hour

looks like i will have a disaster to blog about everyday, so wait for the series. You know what, the only good thing about this, is that no one gets hurt (so far, ya rab dayman)

After breaking two teeth while am in Riyadh (i don’t know what the heck is wrong with me, is the food?) i could no longer take the pain, i also couldn’t eat anything, specially that each broken tooth is on a different side of the mouth.

I had to go to a dentist, after a few calls to the office, they gave me directions to a dental clinic they recommended, so i took a cab to there.

The place i must say is nice and clean, the girl at the reception greeted me and took my personal information (do not be surprised, YES she was a girl, but she was wearing the moving tent, and convering every inch of her body and face)

I waited for a few minutes, during this few minutes i looke at the price list…and OH OH!!!! am in deep $hit…prices are the same as the prices in Egypt (remember my previous post about dental care pricing?) just multiplied by 2 or maybe 3 so i was scared to death i’d end up paying 1000 Riyal to kill the pain…it would have caused pain in my walled and i cant support that one.

Anyway, i got in, the doctor was Syrian, he was friendly, i told him what happened, he examined my teeth and told me that the temp filling i asked for will probably not last until i come back to Egypt.

But well, knowing the prices, i insisted on the temp filling
I am much better now…i haven’t eaten anything since then…but i *REALLY* *REALLY* hope that when i eat nothing else will break, or the temp filling will fall.

A good solution is to live on glucose w محاليل بقى والكلام دة

I am not in the ***** (insert a curse word here +ing) mood

I dont know why…

maybe because:

• I broke another tooth? (YES! ANOTHER F(*&!@# tooth, so its 2 now broken in this shitty country) i cant eat on both sides of the mouth now.
• Work sucks….not that it always does..but this time it sucks so bad…SUPER BAD
• I am SERIOUSLY bored
• Emotionally unstable

I don’t know why, seriously, all i can say is that YOU ARE LUCKY, not to be around me now….i could stab you in the face if did\said ANY thing wrong

you know “العفاريت بتنطط قدام وشى؟ and مش طاق حد يدوسلى على طرف؟ and also روحى بقت فى مناخيرى”