Yep... so while in Indonesia, the US, and countries in Asia and Europe the work week is Monday through Friday and people say TGIF (Thanks God it's Friday), in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia included), the work week starts on Saturdays and people say TAIW (Thanks Allah it's Wednesday). Well, they don't really say that... but you get the point.
Friday used to be the only day off, because it's the day where people go to the mosque. Just like Sunday is the day off because people rest and go to church in some countries. Thursday is also a day off, where people do things they usually do on Saturdays. For me, that means something like doing laundry, grocery shopping, and cleaning the house, unfortunately. They do have housekeeping service for 19 SR per hour, but I'm a graduate student who has to spend money on buying textbooks, you know? So I'm mopping my own floor.
But, we do have fun on the weekend (Thursday - Friday). Not too much fun, though, because it's Ramadan. Let's see, for the past weekend, I went to Jeddah on Wednesday until 2am, then on Thursday I slept in. I went to the Harbor Library to check out their book collections, and I found many interesting fictions, as well as cookbooks. Too bad it's not all that easy to find the ingredients on campus. Tamimi Supermarket on campus is great, but they don't have everything every time, so when I see that they carry a particular brand of dark brown sugar, I'll stock up on them. Also, there are times when I see something I really like, but when converted to USD, it's really expensive. They do have chocolate chips (only Hershey's kind), but it's almost 16 riyals (about $4.2??) per bag. I remembered I used to get lots of them when they're on sale for $2.00 at Safeway... Ghirardelli ones too. A box of soy milk costs about the same, 16-18 riyals. Oh but what can I do. On some days, I'll just eat some instant noodles to justify my chocolate chips and soy milk purchase. Indomie, an Indonesian brand instant noodle is just a riyal.
Anyways, the Harbor Library also has magazines, fun ones like People or Seventeen and even Runner's World and also more serious ones... things like Time or Newsweek. Starting this weekend, I'm gonna go to the Arabic class taught by a volunteer librarian. Hopefully I'm going to pick up some handy Arabic phrases.... Inshallah :)
KAUST has a cinema on campus which is pretty exciting. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there are only two cinemas, one in KAUST and another one in the Aramco complex in Dhahran. It used to be free, but per August, the ticket is 5 riyals (±$1.3). Not bad... I've watched Killers, a Hollywood-type drama/romance/action movie starring Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl. There are subtitles in Arabic (and I heard there's English subtitles for Arabic movie -- I'm gonna go see a Middle Eastern movie sometime soon to prove the rumor :)). Some of the scenes are cut, of course, but not too much that you won't understand the movie plot. Every week they show two movies, normally one Western movie and one Middle Eastern or Hindi movie. Tomorrow, I'm gonna go see Inception again. :)
People also go to the mall on the weekend. In case you haven't seen pics I took with my cellphone on Facebook, let me tell you that globalization is everywhere, including Saudi Arabia. There's Starbucks, KFC, McD, Coach, Sephora, Toys R Us, Chili's, Fuddruckers, Krispy Kreme, and even the Cheesecake Factory... the malls look just like malls anywhere else in the world, except there is no fitting room for female. Yep, the people here would just go shop in their black abaya, then pay for their purchases without trying them on! There is a return period... but still... as a girl, I think one of the fun parts of shopping is trying things on. Well, with time I'll adjust here. Also, there are "single section" and "family section" in restaurants and coffee shops. Single men are not to mingle with ladies and families while dining, I suppose.
In each of the malls in Jeddah, there's always a huge hypermarket. While Tamimi on campus is great, sometimes we still want to go to HyperPanda or Danube for the better selections and sometimes the better price. The hypermarket usually has some imported stuff, and it's just exciting to see miso paste or seaweed sold in Jeddah, although they each cost almost 50 riyals and I ended up not buying them.
Another fun thing to do on the weekend might be bowling at the KAUST Harbor Sports club. Or wall climbing? Or golf? I haven't tried golf... maybe I should sometime. It's just really cool to see the green golf course against the desert sand. KAUST also has a yacht club, marina, and a beach. I'll have plenty of things to do this coming weekend.
Also, classes have started and I think I've found a project to do my Master's thesis on... so, there really are plenty of things to do on the weekend: homework, reading and projects...
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