An interesting fact about Saudi Arabia is that there are NO addresses here. At all. Let me tell you, finding anything here is quite an adventure. We've been lost more times than you can imagine. People always give directions using landmarks. We recently went to a friends house for dinner. Here are the directions they gave Allen for us to get there:
1. Take the right exit off the rainbow roundabout
2. go left at the traffic light but stay on the access road, don't get on the highway
3. After an empty dirt lot turn on the street to the right (no street name)
4. When you pass the school on the left, turn right
5. When you get to the compound go through the left gate, then through 2 more gates.
6. Once inside the last gate take 2 lefts and 2 rights to our house
For real. These were the directions. (The compound has a name but for the sake of privacy I will not include it here.) Using our GPS device is always pretty funny too. We've resorted to marking our frequent locations ourselves since there is no way for the GPS to find them without an address. If we're going some place we haven't been before we get directions and hope for the best. A few weeks ago we tried to find the fruit, flower and seafood markets and because of bad directions we had to give up. Unfortunately you can't really stop to ask for directions since most people don't speak English!
Every day we learn and experience something new here in Saudi!
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2 comments:
Hilarious! Finding houses was like that in Chile sometimes, and when I went to Ecuador to meet Stephen at the end of his mission. He had a night discussion at a comfortable house but it was kind of in between streets and he said you had to know how to get there! It's actually like that in Show Low AZ where Allen grew up - you described things by landmarks, not street names! He should be right at home.
So glad you're safe and having this adventure.
Mom Frost
How in the world do people get mail? That is the strangest thing I've ever heard.
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