Al Hadaba, Asir. May 2018.
[from FB post: May 25, 2016]
The hardship of being far away from home: in this case, I am a contract employee pretty much held hostage my my employer. I say "hostage" because I must get permission to exit and reenter the country. That is not unique to Saudi Arabia, by the way... Japan does it too. Then add to that, I live in a small city with a small airport whose flights are booked out weeks in advance. There is no "hop on a flight" here. If you don't book more than two weeks in advance, then you have to just keep on airline websites constantly refreshing the page in hopes a seat will pop up. I have seen my friends do this for HOURS trying to get out of town. And finally, the USA is one of the few countries in the world that makes its citizens file for taxes overseas. I have a big income exemption and I don't have to pay anything -- but I have to file nonetheless. AND -- I should not stay more than 33 days in the USA in any tax year to retain my tax exemption. Thus I must also count the number of days I am back "home". So when tragedy strikes, it's not like I can hop on a plane and just "go" -- there are layers and layers of variables to wade through. Tomorrow starts an extremely long vacation -- it is starting with sadness. I hope that that will change into happiness as the days progress. To infinity and beyond! Next stop, Dubai
The Megavacation
The photos above represent killing time with EB out on the Escarpment while our Saudi taskmasters at King Khalid University [see: King Khalid University] made us wait until those precious exit permits were issued and we could leave. At least Abha had lovely mountains and great weather.
My vacation took me to Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, then back to Singapore, again to Dubai, then Europe (Portugal, Spain, Netherlands), the USA, again Dubai, and finally back to another year in Saudi Arabia. I had FOUR MONTHS OF PAID VACATION!!
I am a planner and I saw it coming from the the start of that academic year. No one believed me. It was the perfect confluence of the end of term and Islamic holidays. We were going to finish exams and not have to show our faces in the Kingdom again for four months. I kept telling everyone, Saudis included. No one heeded me. Then, around April, the Saudis "noticed" it. They were outraged that we foreigners were about to be paid for four months with nothing to do. We actually had an official meeting about it where we were told that we would have to work on a project over the summer. OK, we were all prepared. Four months was a long time not to work. I could deal with something to break up all that vacation. Even THAT did not come to pass because it meant the Saudis would have to monitor the project and receive the results and with no foreigners on campus to do their work, they promptly abandoned that plan.
As I remarked in my FB post above, there was no staying in the USA more than 3-4 weeks due to tax reasons. I always wanted to keep a few days in reserve of my 33 days per year just in case there were a family emergency. I have to admit, by the time I got back to the US after all that travelling I was tired. My last real tourist stop was the Netherlands and I honestly had to force myself to be excited about it. I had done too much and stayed in too many hotel rooms. Even something you love can become a chore - a lesson learned. No, I would never want to travel for the rest of my life. It would become tedious.
Looking back, I can't believe I had a job where I had a four month paid holiday. I was the envy of friends and family. After doing it, I was actually relieved the following summer's holiday was only going to be three months. Too much of anything - travel, coffee, red wine - reaches a point of diminishing returns. I learned it early in life about coffee and red wine and much later in life for travel.
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