Starbucks…
Kentucky Fried Chicken…
Cinnabon and Seattle’s Best Coffee (with pictures of Pike Place Market)…
McDonalds…
Burger King…
Baskin and Robbin…
Time to gather up the courage – today another family is taking us on our first excursion to the “real" Saudi Arabia. I didn’t think we would be going off the Dhahran compound, the bubble that insulates us from the surrounding foreign culture just days after arriving. I am nervous and excited at the same time. OK, mostly nervous. Will I be able to contain my anxiety in front of the kids? Will we be able to find our way around? Will I be so uncomfortable that I will never want to leave the compound again?
My borrowed abaya is too short and ill fitting. “Don’t worry,” my new friend tells me. “It only has to be shapeless. The only issue is that we can see slightly above your ankles. Just wear long pants under it today.” That works, except for the fact that it’s one hundred and six degrees (with the humidity it feels like one hundred and thirty two according to Accuweather). Begrudgingly I find some lighter weight yoga pants and put them on. I’m hoping the mall will be well air conditioned and I won’t be all that uncomfortable.
Two security gates, a short time on the freeway and ten minutes later, we pull into the parking lot of the Mall of Dhahran, the largest mall in Saudi Arabia. Built eleven months from conception, the mall boasts one million square feet of premium shopping space. The Mall of America dwarfs this with two point five million leasable space (I assume shopping space and leasable space are similar?). Nonetheless, compared to anything I’ve seen yet, this is an Aramco shopper’s dream, with unimaginable amounts of parking to boot!
The boys are delighted when we arrive at the ten thousand square meter entertainment area, complete with an ice skating rink, train, arcade games and numerous carnival rides – all inside the mall. We pull out the credit-card type things that have replaced tokens and begin swiping them in the arcade games. Aramco subsidizes the cards: we buy them for 40 SAR ($10.60) and get 150 SAR ($40) worth of games or rides. We will likely becoming here again at that price – what a great, air-conditioned way to keep the kids busy until school starts.
Quite frequently I notice blonde hair in abayas walking by, carrying large shopping bags. Oddly, there are never any women walking alone, only in pairs. A few are with their husbands, who are all dressed in short sleeves and long pants despite the heat. All are animated and happy, walking as though they own the place.
As we leave the entertainment area and walk further into the pristine retail paradise, I begin to recognize stores. A large Starbucks is on my right. A Cinnabon that serves Seattle’s Best Coffee is on my left. Many of the fast food favorites are in the food court, albeit with limited but certainly adequate menus.
At the French hypermarket chain store, Geant (similar to a Super Wal-Mart), I find Dove soap, Crest toothpaste, Frosted Flakes and Hellman’s mayonnaise. And the Holy Grail of the Green family shopping list…Goodnights pull-ups. Not only are they the size and style Jake needs, but they are priced similarly to what I would pay in the states and are made locally as a joint venture with Kimberly-Clark. I am invincible now – there will be no shopping challenge I cannot defeat!
I never dreamt that leaving the walls of the compound could make me feel more “at home.”
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