Jeddah

So today is our first free day, in Jeddah... and it turns out being a woman in Saudi is a lot more oppressive when your life isn't carefully planned with female friendly activities. We asked the concierge what we should do, and he said "Why do you want to go outside? There is nothing to see here. You could go to the mall?" So we just struck out on our own, and found a beach, and laid out in the sun on the shores of the Red Sea.

It didn't seem like we were having quite as much fun as the families sitting in their cars, so we headed back to the hotel to sit by our hotel's gorgeous pool. Of course women can't swim, but lying in the sun is nice too, especially when it's this nice out. Except that women can't lie down, they can only sit. The lounge chairs are only on the men's side of the pool, and can't be moved. The pool boy offered to uncover the straight-backed chairs and tables around the corner in the "family section," but we eventually gave up and went inside. Normally I would go work out in these instances, but women aren't allowed to use the gym. Sigh.

I don't want to make it sound like life is all bad here- it certainly is not. We had a great day on the beach of the Persian (or Arabian, I guess) Gulf yesterday, at a gorg eous private beach house of a very generous and friendly Saudi family who invited us over (thanks Hana!).

We all took off our abayas and ate lunch and chatted with the hip young women of Saudi Arabia, who told us all about their jobs (one was a petroleum engineer) and how they are trying to push the boundaries without breaking the system. There is even a full-service female gym if you work at Aramco. I could definitely get used to a life like that. But it's starting to make a lot more sense why every woman we've met has told us that the key to being happy in Saudi Arabia is to stay busy.