Tea, anyone?

Today is just a random collection of thoughts and observations regarding my stay in the Kingdom.  One of the things I have to get used to is the money.  It's not U.S. greenbacks anymore.  Not only is the money different colors but it's different sizes, too.  Making purchases reminds me of learning a language.  Huh?  You might ask.  The comparison I'm drawing is that, when learning a language, one spends a great deal of time and energy translating from the native language to the new language......you think about what you want to say in English, for example, and then translate the words into Spanish in your head and then speak them.  As your familiarity and comfort with the language increases through repetition and usage you eventually just think in the new language.  Much easier...much faster.

Money is similar.  Today, for example, I went to the store for, among other things, a tube of toothpaste, and saw that it cost 9.75SR or 9.75 Riyals.  I had no idea if that's a lot or a little.  Sounds like a lot.....but is it?  So....let's see....the exchange rate is 3.75:1 so 3.75SR is $1 so 7.50SR is $2 which leaves 2.25SR / 3.75 is about 55 cents so the toothpaste cost about $2.55 or so.  Pretty fair price but it took some thinking to figure that out.  (In my case a lot of thinking!)  Eventually I hope to just know if the tooth paste is overpriced or not in Riyals.  Just to make matters more interesting, they don't do coins here.  My tally at the register today was something like 14.50SR and I gave the cashier 15SR.  My change?  A piece of candy.  Perfectly acceptable here and a nice treat to boot.

You'll note from the picture above that only one side of each note has the value of the bill in English.  With a little memorization, the color of money will come in handy.   To save you the calculation, the  USD value of the 1277SR above is about $340 and a piece of candy by the way.  The exchange rate is fixed so I don't have to worry about that issue in my calculations.

But what about the tea?  That's just another little thing I find interesting.  My hotel room has an electric pot which produces boiling water in a minute or less.  The tea and coffee are not unlike that in any U.S. hotel room.   What's different is that, as with so many things here, English and Arabic coexist.

Finally, a piece from today's "Arab News" states " It’s that time of the year again when the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Haia) “sees red” at shopkeepers selling Valentine things — or even strawberries on cakes."  This particular commission is affectionately known as the "Religious Police".  The article also states "The Haia editorialists have been out in full force in the days up to the annual holiday, publishing letters in local dailies warning florists, pastry shops, cosmetic stores and gift shops against selling red gift items and red roses for “un-Islamic activities.”  Imagine my surprise when I went to dinner at my hotel and found red tablecloths, low lighting, and a particularly lavish buffet laid out in honor of, you guessed it, Valentine's Day.  Saudi Arabia is just full of contradictions.