I thought that being the only woman in a room of 200 or so men was the low point of my Christmas (believe me, it’s a creepy feeling); turns out I was wrong. The low point would be the part where we take a wrong turn coming home from the Intercontinental Hotel, reach a dead-end...

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Four months in Paris and my teeth are fine. A month in Saudi and already a dental problem. A part of my molar cracked while eating pistachios.  Which is a damn huge cause for alarm, because I cannot, of course, take a taxi or anything to see a dentist by myself; I have to wait...

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I’m happy to report that you have nothing to worry about when it comes to medical exams for an iqama in Saudi Arabia. No crazy ladies herding you from room to room like cattle, no one shrieking “Yallah yallah” in your ear, no hurried nurses savagely stabbing at your arm for blood. I was the...

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Some observations after two weeks in Saudi: - It’s true, there are no fitting rooms in clothes shops! We were at Dharan Mall and I just had to see if this is an urban legend or not. Apparently, it isn’t. There are fitting rooms, however, in the toilets. But for someone like me who has...

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A 6-hour plane ride is all it takes to change your life radically. We took this plane ride from Paris to Bahrain. I won’t go into details, but even though we flew business class, it was working class for me all the way as Lila hurtled up and down the aisles, pulling blankets off sleeping...

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