As most of you know (because the majority of the people who read this and they are likely all related to me), I live in the Middle East. In Saudi Arabia to be exact. I moved here with my husband right after we got married almost a year ago and it has been quite the big adventure. Obviously, I haven't done much writing about this journey while we've been here but we recently hit the 100 day mark before we move back to the US and I wanted to make an effort to capture the craziness of this life we are temporality getting to experience.
On a whim, I started a little project on Instagram where I try and post a photo that captures some part of our life everyday for the last 100 days we are overseas. I've been hashtagging (is that a word now?) these snapshots #100daysinKSA (KSA = Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and I thought I might also share these photos on the long neglected blog with a little more explanation.
These photos are definitely an exciting countdown of the days left until we get back to Denver (where we can have wine and bacon and not have to watch football games at 4:00am), but they are also an effort to remember and appreciate the wild ride that comes with life as an expat. It will certainly be bittersweet when this countdown comes to a close but there is a whole lot of fun to be had between now and then!
On a whim, I started a little project on Instagram where I try and post a photo that captures some part of our life everyday for the last 100 days we are overseas. I've been hashtagging (is that a word now?) these snapshots #100daysinKSA (KSA = Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and I thought I might also share these photos on the long neglected blog with a little more explanation.
These photos are definitely an exciting countdown of the days left until we get back to Denver (where we can have wine and bacon and not have to watch football games at 4:00am), but they are also an effort to remember and appreciate the wild ride that comes with life as an expat. It will certainly be bittersweet when this countdown comes to a close but there is a whole lot of fun to be had between now and then!
Day 100: A tree outside our house.
That's it. Exciting huh? I snapped this while walking back from the gym and while it's certainly not the most exciting picture in this countdown, it's something I see everyday and is how I got started with this little project. There is beauty in this desert but sometimes you have to look a little harder to find it.
Day 99: My Abaya - quite the fashion statement, no?
I didn't realize this was blurry until I enlarged it here, sorry about that. Anyway, this is my outfit of assignment anytime I leave the compound here in Saudi Arabia. If you saw this on Instagram you probably noticed my reference to Hogwarts because this getup always makes me feel like I need a wand or a broomstick. It does make things simple when picking out clothes but when the temperatures are upwards of 115F it's not exactly the most breezy outfit.
Day 98: Gigantic chandelier in our house.
This picture does not even do this ridiculous light fixture justice. It's about 6 feet across and hangs above a curved staircase and the ceiling above is painted with lovely blue clouds. This in itself isn't really that interesting, although I kind of like how this picture turned out, but in comparison to the rest of our house here the chandelier is quite comical. We live in the large villas shown in the picture on day 97 below and while we have a fancy painted ceiling and dramatic lighting, there is little to no space in any of the bathrooms and the kitchen is just as small as the bathrooms. I will have to do a house tour sometime soon to better demonstrate this hilarity but for now just take my word for it.
Day 97: Our compound.
We live here. Despite the hilarious proportions and decorations in our house that I described above, it's overall a pretty nice place to live. The best thing that I can think of to compare it to in the US would be a small college campus. We live in one of the villas shown here but the compound actually includes a large number of apartments, some green space, a pool, two gyms, a restaurant, and a small conveinience store. While this view certainly isn't bad and the amenities are quite nice, sometimes I do go a little stir crazy sometimes when I'm stuck here all day (you know, because it's illegal for me to drive myself).
Today is actually day 91 of this countdown but i'm a little behind in deciding to post these pictures to the blog so I'll catch things up in small batches. Hopefully you will find these little snapshots of our life interesting and I'd love to hear if there is anything specific you would like to see!
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