17 – Where I live

My apartment is located at lat 22.40474, lon 39.07697.  You are welcome to follow along on your own Google Earth screen.

Most construction in the King Abdullah Economic City isn't yet visible on Google Earth.  KAEC (pronounced "CAKE") is about 80 km (65 miles) north of Jeddah.  (Arabic uses glottal stops, so Jeddah is pronounced JED-duh, almost like two separate words.)  In the map below, Jeddah is 1/4 inch below KAEC, where a pair of little 'horns' jut into the Red Sea.

Google Earth is GREAT!  Note scale in lower left.  Click for bigger photo.  (Slightly bigger.)

Below, zoomed in a little, you can see Highway 5 that runs northward from Jeddah to KAEC, and beyond to Rabigh, the nearest city.  Rabigh can easily be found on Google Earth, and is pronounced ROBB-ick, except make the nastiest ch/ck sound possible at the end of the word.  Think angry evil German dude.  As a matter of fact, because of a few sounds like this, Arabic speakers often appear -- to me -- as if they're about to break into fisticuffs.

Jeddah, Mecca, and KAEC

I called Mom on her birthday from a street corner in Rabigh; well, it was July 3 in Rabigh, anyway.




Happy Birthday, Mom!  As is often the case,
the photo doesn't capture the full scope of the scene.

The picture below is the environs of KAEC.  This is the residential and office section only.  The industrial and port sectors are 15 kilometers farther north.  The lower Water Canal is for the superyacht marina; the upper section is just aesthetic, to bring the unbelievably turquoise water into the office district.  The Crescent and Star mark the bigger of the two city mosques.

No boats in the marina yet, although some are expected before I leave

My apartment is fully 15 km from the port site -- King Abdullah Port. (pronounced KAP.)

There's nothing but sand here.  I am not exaggerating.  (Blue squares are photos available on Google Earth.)

We have about 20 engineers and managers on the team, and five or six cars: Hyundais, Renaults, and a Chevy Savannah 12-passenger van. I do not have, nor do I want, driving privileges.  Our clients are a trio of consultants for the King: an Englishman from Newcastle (Malcolm), an Aussie (Alistair), and a Greek (Leonidas).

Most of our team is Lebanese (our Beirut operations group) and all but me speak Arabic fluently.  All speak English fluently, too.  Almost all live in company apartments in KAEC, although a few have elected to stay in a hotel in Rabigh.  The tradeoff is activity and access to stuff in Rabigh, but much lower quality accommodations and a 35-minute commute each way.

I have worked with a few of the team before, when they've come to Boston for projects.  They're all pretty funny, and half are US educated.  Despite being Arabic cousins to Saudis (and at least one a devout Muslim) they cannot help but find humor in the strict customs here.

Us KAEC dwellers live in brand-new apartment block B on the Red Sea. 

Pretty sweet, eh?

I share a two-bedroom apartment with views away from the sea (no setting sun in our windows).  My roommates are Marlon (24, Costa Rican, recent mechanical engineering graduate from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) and Daniel (Pakistani, 24, recent electrical engineering graduate from KAUST) who have been buddies for a while.  They share a bedroom but have a private bathroom each; I get the bigger bedroom with the ensuite bathroom.

[aside]  While Saudis heartily endorse equality in general, they do not do so in practice.  Reminds me a great deal of the South in the 50s and 60s.  Today, in Saudi Arabia, I am a white educated American, and always get the front seat in the car, the first crack at communal food, the best seat at the conference table.  This is leavened, of course, by other hierarchies of power: our client, our senior project managers, and potential Saudi customers are ranked higher than me.  After a lifetime of turning down preferential treatment, it is taking me considerable effort to acquiesce.  Why acquiesce at all?  I suspect an egalitarian arrangement would insult my hosts.

da beach during da night.

Here are shots of the interior.  Please understand that I have two kids as roommates.  I'm hereby blaming all the visible mess on them.

 

Tub and shower with sufficient counter space

The bathroom is quite nice.  Excellent ceramic tile and glass.  Fixtures are verrrrry nice.  Toilet is tucked under the counter a bit, though, and the shower head aims directly at the glass door ensuring a wet floor.

Perhaps that's not a big deal here; they hose down the floor, remember?

Not much furniture, but it's a comfy mattress. Picture of my boys on the windowsill, and one of brothers, wives, and cousins from Mom's most recent birthday  

All of the furniture and fabric items are from IKEA.  Struck me as funny.  There are big built-in closets, a maid's room, and one machine that's both a clothes washer and dryer.  Will be testing that out tonight.

Three guys, and two of them are twenty-somethings.  What do you expect?

Living room with very effective "window blinds"

 

The living room is an interesting thing that says volumes about my roommates.  They assembled the IKEA furniture, but saved the boxes to cover our two large living room windows.  They 'borrowed' two additional unassembled couches in boxes to lean against the windows and further block out the light.  This is important since they (we) watch movies using a hand-sized projector.

This, my friends, is a BIG television screen.  Can you imagine Georgia Tech football this big?



Stereo and iPhone playing Radio Paradise

The digital movie is streamed from an external hard drive, through a PS3 game console into the projector (video) and stereo (sound).  The video is projected on the opposite wall, producing a picture 12 feet wide and 8 feet tall.  My second night here, we watched a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and when Penelope Cruz appeared life-size on the wall, I almost fell out of my chair.



The boys were impressed when I shared my audio setup: a deactivated iPhone (no cellular service) streaming Radio Paradise through the wifi connection and pushing it through the stereo.  They were also impressed that I listen to rock music, but when I reminded them I'm an American, they sagely nodded and said, "But of course!"

The last photo is pretty telling.  There are Drivers Accommodations in apartment block B.

Aspirations for a second career: driving a Rolls Royce, a Bentley, a McClaren, or slumming in an Audi S8.

Ramadan starts tomorrow.  That will change things.

Next: Where I work.