Children's Paradise

Last night, both children were invited and attended birthday parties. Both started and ended at about the same time and were rather close in proximity... So we spent our Thursday night driving around town, dropping kids at parties, having dinner at Café Blanc, a traditional Lebanese restaurant with a modern twist and picking up exhausted kids from parties. But, boy, was it worth it!


Emma has been invited to a Wave Pool party that could compete with any wave pool at an expensive water park! The location was in the Diplomatic Quarters, tucked away from the street and protected from eyes and noises by high walls. Her classmate’s parents had reserved the entire facility and expected between 200 and 300 children. Emma loved the full-size slides, the enormous waves and had the time of her life. When I dropped her, I met both parents who were very nice and welcoming. In typical Arabian hospitality, the mother invited me to stay, have coffee and eat a few sweets…so, in order not to be rude, I accepted and sat down, ate my sweet, a delicious chocolate covered with Almonds and nuts and drank a small Arabic coffee, but explained that I couldn’t stay as my son also had a birthday invitation and we still had to drop him. After inquiring about ending time, I left Emma in all the surrounding nannies’ hands and only came back five hours later to pick her up, exhausted, fed, happy and bearing more gifts than she came with! Those party favors would rival any “regular” birthday gift you could offer a “regular” child back in the States or in Europe! We’ve already decided to try and visit that wave pool again, as a family…

Alex had been invited to another Swimming party at a Palace…We had the map, with the location in red and it looked like it took an entire city block.. and boy, did we find it easily! It was THE biggest palace we’d seen before in a residential neighborhood. After showing the invitation to the gate guard (since they never expect Westerners to attend those Saudi royal kids’ party) Alex, his friend Toby and I were let in. Not sure where to go, we were about to knock on the front door…but a nanny came out of a “smaller “residence and gestured us to follow her, in a marbled floors, highly decorated maze of hallways all the way back to the children’s residence! Yes, you are reading this correctly, the children have their own house, decorated and equipped with children in mind: colorful, kids sizes furniture, TVs all over, 2 elevators, one disco, a play theater, indoor video games, indoor riding cars, popcorn and soft ice-cream machines…

But that was nothing compared to the outside playground… Alex calls it the “Fun Land” and it really truly was just that. A foot deep pool with a interactive water playground, bumper cars, carousel, Disneyworld “make you throw up” teacups, a train, 2 inflatable jumpies, one plastic ball pit, and a pool over 6 meter deep made for diving and swimming with two slides worthy of any water park. By the way, did I tell you that all this was there permanently…? The kids have their own play land and use it whenever they want!

I had the chance to talk with the birthday girl mother for a few minutes. She was super nice, wearing a beautiful bright yellow silk/satin gown, made up and coiffed to go out. Following protocol, I shook her hand only after she extended it; we chit-chatted a bit and talked about how much fun the children were having, how much they were enjoying the play areas and the disco. She was happy to hear this and said that this was for her children and their friends to enjoy and that my children were welcome back any time. It was just two moms talking about their kids… Just the two of us, the Belgian-American mother of two with Her Royal Highness, daughter of King Abdullah and granddaughter of King Abdul-Aziz, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia.

After all that fun, it was time to leave. Kids gathered their stuff and we were led back through the maze of hallways, stopping at the party favors table that again would put to shame any gifts you would think appropriate to give an 8 year old child!

All in all, a pretty exciting, fun-filled, "normal" Thursday night in the Magic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia!

10/10/10

So, where are you today, on 10/10/10 and what did you do? Today was as uneventful as a regular workday can be… Do you remember where you where on 9/9/09? I was in the States with the children while Worth was on the way to Saudi! How about on 8/8/88? That day was a pretty cool one…I was just a kid, hiking in the French Tarn area, sleeping in tents and under the stars, kayaking by day and bivouacking at night…Great memories of that summer camp! On 9/9/99 I guess I was at work too…if it was a workday. Otherwise resting on the weekend. Nothing memorable that day!


Anyways, I just had to log something in for today, 10/10/10! And see you all on 11/11/11!!! Let’s make cool plans for that one!

A culinary victory

For many expats, living in another country is a very culturally and culinary enriching experience, tasting new foods and discovering new places. However, one of the problems encountered living in a new place is not finding the usual ingredients used in recipes from "back home". Living in the States for 15 years, I know there are a few ingredients I couldn't find for my favorite Belgian recipes...and learned how to make do and use alternate options, or would bring back pearl sugar and others directly from Belgium.




Well, moving to Saudi has brought on the same issue. Just yesterday Alex, my son, wanted Southern Style Buttermilk biscuits for breakfast...so; I tried to make him some, knowing full well that I did not have buttermilk or shortening, two basic ingredients for the recipe! Well, the buttermilk biscuits were awful and hard to swallow, both as a food and as a culinary mess-up. But, as the great Charles Chaplin said "Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself." that failure was not important...and gave me courage to try again...this time after seeking better ingredients!



Last night, while at the grocery store Danube, I found what the Saudi call LABEN. I decided to give it a try as a replacement for the buttermilk. This morning, upon opening the bottle, my guess proved correct: ...not milk, not yogurt...not sure what is really is but it smelled like buttermilk and had a very similar consistency...



So, this cooking fool tried her hand again at buttermilk biscuits...and they turned great! Flaky consistency outside, moist and dense inside...just like they should be. Best proof of the success: the baking sheet is empty as my three buttermilk monsters ate them all!

Class Representative

Today, Emma, my 9 year old daughter, scored her first political victory when she successfully ran for class representative for the Grade 4 girls.  We spent about an hour last night making "Emma 4 class representative" flyers, all decorated with stickers...  She also wrote her speech, talking about how she's made friends with all of them, how she's not afraid of speaking up her mind in front of older students, how she will strive to make her classroom community better for all, and she even finished it with a little catchphrase "A vote for me is a vote for you!"  To be honest, she did get a little help from both her parents, but still, she's the one who wrote the speech and she presented it to her classmates this morning!
We are really proud of her, first for wanting to run and second for winning.  Emma is still the "new kid on the block" and doesn't have any title attached to her name...as the majority of her classmates are real princesses with titles to match.  She won "fair and square" with the girls voting for her.  Now, is she the most popular girl in her class?  Not sure, but the fact is that she was chosen a particular student who seems to be the bossiest of the class! 
Sweet victory!