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Al’s Saudi Adventure

augustus 2024 - juli 2025
  • Alistair Penny
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Just a little travel diary/blog to document my time in Saudi Meer informatie
  • Alistair Penny
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  • Jordanië Jordanië
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  • Alistair PennyReizigerAl’s Saudi Adventure

    An evening in Souq Waqif

    5 februari, Katar ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    I have been hanging out to play some golf since I got here and with an eye firmly on my annual trip away with the boys in March I packed up my clubs and jumped on a plane to Doha for a few days of golf and to see the sights.

    Doha itself is only slightly larger in area than Hamilton, according to Wikipedia but from my journey in from the airport, the scale of the development that has taken place over the last few years was mind boggling. Dozens of massive skyscrapers, ultra luxurious hotels, a brand new metro system and no less than 8 world class international football stadiums that were built for the 2022 World Cup.

    A colleague of mine used to live in Doha and she gave me a really great list of recommendations of things to do and most importantly places to eat and enjoy a drink, so once I got to the hotel and got settled I headed out to explore the city.

    I ended up spending most of the first evening and night wandering through Souq Waqif - a beautiful old market area that has been operating for over 100 years. The streets were wide and filled with people and families out and about, eating dinner, drinking coffee and generally just hanging out. After walking through the market and getting my bearings I stopped at a busy corner coffee shop and enjoyed an excellent coffee and a fresh pomegranate juice before making my way to the first recommended restaurant Danat Al Bahar - a BBQ seafood restaurant which sounded right up my alley.

    I had the most incredible charcoal BBQ'd whole sea bass covered in an amazing, spicy marinade. A dozen fat juicy prawns swimming in garlic and butter, a side of rice and washed down with large glass of fresh lemon and min juice. It was stunning - can not recommend this place highly enough if you are into seafood.

    After the meal I walked through the market and stopped off for some fresh ginger tea on the way back to the metro station.

    10/10 first night in Doha    Meer informatie

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  • Alistair PennyReizigerAl’s Saudi Adventure

    The Gathering

    3 februari, Saoedi-Arabië ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    After a busy few weeks back onsite after the Christmas holidays our department at work scheduled a team building evening to celebrate our recent successes and prepare us for a busy year ahead.

    The gathering was held at a really beautiful desert site about 25 minutes from site, slightly inland from where we are on the coast. The site was set up with a traditional Arabic tent , a big central area and a dining area – all really impressive. We were at the base of a huge sand dune/hill that a few of us scrambled our way up and the views across the area were something else.

    The scenery is so different to New Zealand, and in a very different way to home, even though its mainly sand, its really quite beautiful.

    The evening itself was full of traditional Saudi music, Arabic coffee, sweet black tea, fun games that everyone got involved in and was rounded off with an excellent meal of a whole roasted lamb cooked in the Saudi equivalent of a hangi – it was cooked in a smoky fire pit dug into the sand and covered up. They don’t use sacks soaked in water so the meat is much more roasted than steamed like in a hangi but it was so so good.

    I enjoyed the evening a lot and it was a great chance to see more of the Saudi culture first hand. My biggest take away is that is really similar to Maori culture. Many of the Arabic people greet each other with khashm-makh, which is touching of the noses, identical to a hongi. The tent we were in for the gathering reminded me a lot of a wharenui, as you can see in the photos the walls and pillars are decorated with designs that reminded me of tukutuku. The way dinner was cooked and then how important music and singing is in traditional events. The similarities are quite striking.

    All in all it was a really great evening and hopefully there will be more to come.    Meer informatie

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  • Alistair PennyReizigerAl’s Saudi Adventure

    Back in the 09 and the arrival of Granny

    27 dec.–2 jan. 2025, Nieuw-Zeeland ⋅ 🌬 23 °C

    After a brilliant few days in Hawkes Bay with the whanau we were back in Auckland for a busy week or so before I got back on the big bird and headed back to Saudi. One of my big goals for my time at home was to do a big clear out of the garage and the house and yard in preparation for the sale of the house, which will happen later in the year. So a large pink skip bin arrived on the 28th and we set about clearing things out and filling it up before we packed the girls into the car and headed into the city for the treat we had organized for them, and for ourselves too.

    Over the years Joan has absolutely loved being able to get away from time to time and spend a night in what used to be The Langham, now The Cordis hotel in central Auckland. We booked a night away for all of us and were treated to a massive family room, with incredible views out over Auckland City, which blew the girls minds. We relaxed in the club lounge, ate and drank lovely food and cocktails, swam in the rooftop pool and spa and generally chilled out and enjoyed spending quality time together. It was brilliant and something we have decided we will try and do each time I am home.

    The next day a very special visitor arrived off her flight from DFW via Fiji. After spending Christmas with Richie, Noreen and Chloe, Joan’s Mum was in New Zealand for 6 weeks to spend time with the girls and to help Joan out during the school holidays. After a bit of a rest we headed down to the beach for the first of many visits over the next 6 weeks I’m sure.

    We all spent New Years Eve day with Deanna and Ollie at Rainbow’s End, thanks to a brilliant Xmas present for the girls from Gran and Pop. It was absolute carnage as the girls and Ollie ran themselves ragged going on all the rides including the space ships, the flying bikes, the sheer drop ride and loads of others. Frankie absolutely loved the Car Wash ride and went on it about 10 times and Scarlett couldn’t get enough of the roller coaster, which she was tall enough to be able to ride by herself, which she was very proud of.

    We spent New Years Eve evening at Ruth and Jeff’s place with their awesome friends and family. After a chaotic, fun day with the girls this was the perfect place for us to be for great company, food, laughs, dancing and some questionable bilingual singing – ha ha. Scarlett stayed up until midnight which was a miracle after spending all evening doing cartwheels, so much so that she inspired a cartwheel competition amongst the adults, which could have ended very badly but the standard of which was surprisingly high.

    New Years Day was my last full day at home, which we spent doing more things around the house while Linda kept and eye on the kids. Something that seems so trivial but made such a difference to Joan and myself. We had a lovely fish and chips for our dinner before turning in and getting ready to head back to work the next day.

    After saying goodbye to the girls at the house Joan and I headed out to the airport and had our now traditional coffee and almond croissant before another now all too familiar farewell. It’s always so hard leaving Joan and the girls but this time was different, I knew that Joan was going to have lots of support and help with the girls while Linda was with us and that the girls were also going to have so much quality time with their Granny, which really is priceless. And then once Linda headed back to Texas it would only be another 6 weeks until I was back again in NZ. It’s never easy leaving but this was as close to being fine with going back as I have ever, and will probably ever be. Ka kite Aotearoa – see you soon.    Meer informatie

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  • Alistair PennyReizigerAl’s Saudi Adventure

    Meri Kirihimeti

    22–27 dec. 2024, Nieuw-Zeeland ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    The flight itself was packed and uncomfortable after I made the rookie error of not changing my window seat for an aisle seat so ended up not getting up and about anywhere near as often as I normally do so after landing pretty tired in Auckland at 4am the trip took a very unexpected turn for the better when I was greeted at arrival by Joan and the girls in their matching jammies with an amazing Welcome Home Daddy sign, which got the happy tears flowing early. Frankie then held my hand all the way to the car which was super cute as well.

    After getting my arrival day wrong and actually landing a day later that I thought I was going to, we then had no choice but to get in the ute and head straight to Mum and Dad’s place in Clive after dropping Bella at the kennels for her holidays. It was so awesome to see Mum and Dad again and to see the new house for the first time. The new house is awesome and is a little bit like the tardis in that it looks a little small, compared the what we have been used to, from the outside but once you get inside its not small at all and has everything you would ever need. Loved it.

    Managed to sneak in 18 holes the next day back at the home course Maraenui with Rocket, Ennor and Cosmo which was brilliant. No golf whatsoever for almost 4 months meant expectations were very low but I actually managed to play a decent round and scraped together a respectable 85 which I was really happy with. So great to be back playing the course where it all started for me with a group of my best mates – hard to beat. Only dampened very slightly by the fact that inexplicably the bar was closed 2 days before Christmas, when everyone was on holiday. Go figure.

    After a BBQ dinner out at the beach, getting Santa’s Guinness and cookie and the reindeer’s carrot ready and the now standard Christmas Eve present wrapping marathon it was on to the main event – Christmas Day !!!! As expected things kicked off bright and early with Scarlett bursting into our room massively stoked that Santa had come and that there were loads of presents to open. Once Frankie had finally decided to wake up we had a fairly leisurely start to the day opening presents, talking to everyone in Fermanagh and Texas and getting food prepared for the big Christmas lunch out at Chris and Michelle’s place at Waimarama. Seeing how much the girls get excited about Christmas is one of my absolute favourite things in the whole world, and I think we are right in the sweet spot now where they are both old enough to get really excited about Santa’s visit and they are both 100% into everything about it. We have something special planned for the girls next Christmas when we will be in Europe, so that will hopefully only galvanise their love of Christmas, and maybe some day they will love Christmas as much as their Mum does – ha ha.

    Chris and Michelle’s place out at Waimarama was so awesome and we had such a chilled lovely afternoon and evening with Mum, Dad, Hud, Taz, Carys, Oti, Chris, Michelle, Ethan, Dom, Maureen, Claire, Phillip, Audrey, Randy and a couple from Canada who work with Michelle. We just all hung out, ate an incredible feed – special shout out to Muka’s brisket and Peb’s smoked fish dip .. stand outs in a table of amazing food, listened to music, went down to the beach for a couple of swims, video called Mike, Liz and the girls down south, rode the scooters, kicked the football around and just generally had an awesome Christmas Day. After being a little unsure how the day was going to go this year after everything that has happened lately I honestly don’t think it could have gone better – 10 out of 10. Can’t wait to do another one out there, next time with Mike, Liz and the girls hopefully too.

    My birthday was pretty chilled, as it always is these days – a great day with Joan and the girls followed by an outstanding meal at Madame Social in Napier – highly highly recommended. After a lovely relaxed day we packed up, said our goodbyes to everyone and headed back to Auckland, slightly delayed by my bloody ute deciding it didn’t want to start. The delay meant we had to postpone our surprise for the girls back in Auckland but we got that rebooked and headed home to Maraetai.    Meer informatie

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  • Alistair PennyReizigerAl’s Saudi Adventure

    The countdown to Christmas

    18 december 2024, Saoedi-Arabië ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    The last month or so in the run up to Christmas was crazy at work with a load of different mini projects and some major pieces of work due to be completed by the end of the year . I managed to walk out the door on the 19th with most things completed or as much done as we could possibly have done so I was able to get excited about my trip home for Christmas with no work stresses at all which was awesome.

    After getting an upgrade on my last trip home I arrived at the counter in Doha full of hope and expectation of maybe snagging another one, but as the saying goes – it’s the hope that kills you and I boarded the flight and headed for my seat in economy slightly deflated but massively excited about getting home and seeing Joan, the girls and most of the whanau over the next few days.    Meer informatie

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  • Alistair PennyReizigerAl’s Saudi Adventure

    Home sweet home - Part 2

    14 november 2024, Nieuw-Zeeland ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    Sunday at home was a lovely day where I took the girls out for a swim at the awesome Otara pools and we headed home and everything was going well until at around 6pm when the girls were playing around and all of a sudden Frankie was not happy and her arm was suspiciously swollen just above her wrist. Given Scarlett had just come out of an above elbow cast which she had on for 6 weeks we hoped for the best as we headed to East Care to get checked out. After 3 hours waiting we finally got seen and the doc confirmed what we were hoping wasn't the case - Frankie was in a cast after getting a small green stick fracture. Just what Joan needed, another girl in a cast.

    We couldn't afford to be slowed down though as Monday was a big day, our annual trip to see Santa at Smith & Caugheys. After Frankie spending the day at home with me, the girls and I took the ferry into the city and managed to have enough time to call in and see some of the old crew at Stride on our way up Queen Street.

    This is the last year apparently that Smith & Caughey's are doing their annual Santa photos due to their financial problems, which is a huge shame as we have always enjoyed coming in to see Santa each year with the girls. Because it is the last year and with everything else going on it was a shame that they had really noticeably scaled back the scale and quality of the famous window displays, Santa's forest and the number of Santa's available for the photos, but on the plus side Santa was a proper legend. He spoke to the girls like they were long lost friends and they were so pleased that Santa remembered them from last year. The girls were impeccably behaved, which does not happen that regularly - ha ha, so we treated ourselves to a ginormous pizza from Sal's as a treat before heading home.

    I managed to sneak a cheeky 9 holes in the next day at Formosa after a trip back into the city to catch up with a few more people and get a much needed haircut from The Shortland Barber, my go to barber in the city. The golf was predictably awful after 3 months of not swinging a club at all but it didnt matter - it was just great being back playing and doing the thing I missed the most after Joan, the girls and Bella. \

    The highlights of Tuesday and Wednesday were the local running races, where Frankie just did her own thing as per usual - when her first race started she ran off in the opposite direction to where she was heading to and in the second race she just sat down, which was hilarious. Wednesday was touch night where Scarlett has just started playing with a team made up of her friends locally. She was a little nervous as this was her first game back after getting her cast off but after some great words of encouragement from Coach Mark and Coach Kate she was off and running, quite literally. Scarlett scored a magnificent try from halfway out pacing everyone and scoring in the corner - it was poetry in motion, but then I am very biased - ha ha. The try on debut earned Scarlett the Sportsmanship Trophy for the week and the wee pet was so proud she slept with the trophy and then took it to school the next day for news. It was awesome.

    Scarlett was so keen to take the trophy to school for news she decided that she wanted to do that rather than coming out to the airport the next day to see me off, but I was more than happy with that - it was so nice seeing how happy she was from being part of that team.

    I had an absolutely amazing week at home with Joan and the girls, it was far too short, as I'm sure all my trips home will be. It was amazing to see what an incredible job Joan is doing with the girls and home life in general considering all of the other things that she is dealing with after Ernie's passing. I am so proud of her resilience and how good a Mum she is to our girls.

    After a teary but determined and strong farewell with Joan at the airport, I made my way through everything hoping for another upgrade on boarding, but alas it was not to be - back to cattle class for me., and back to the sandbox.

    A month or so of hard graft ahead to try and close out some big issues at work and then back to NZ again for Christmas and New Year. Counting the hours and minutes already.

    Ka kite Aotearoa    Meer informatie

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  • Alistair PennyReizigerAl’s Saudi Adventure

    Home sweet home - Part 1

    8 november 2024, Nieuw-Zeeland ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    My trip home to see Joan and the girls was a roller coaster of emotions to start the trip off. After getting on the bus to get down to Yanbu Airport everything was going smoothly until we were about a hour and 15 mins down the and our bus made an unscheduled stop, where we sat and sat and then sat some more before I realised something might be up - I got out of the bus and in the drivers broken english I deduced that we had broken down, which is when the panic set in because if I missed this flight there wasn't another one to Doha for 3 days, which meant I would have missed my connection to Auckland and the trip was a write off. Long story short a mechanic arrived from a town up the road presumably and we were off again with our driver attempting to set the landspeed record in a 50 seater bus. The good news is we made it with time to spare and I was on my way.

    The trip took a significant turn for the better when I went to board my flight to Auckland and was informed that I has been upgraded to Business Class - I was so happy I could have cried . I can report that business class is everything it is cracked up to be - the food and drink was great, proper coffee and best of all the laydown bed meant I got 8 hours sleep.

    I managed to get home at 5am where Joan and Bella were up and waiting for me with a cup of tea I'd been waiting for for 3 months. Scarlett and Frankie woke up around an hour later and we had an amazing reunion where we all hung out and laughed, hugged and cried a little bit - it was just what I had been hoping for. Scarlett went off to school and she didn't know it at the time but we would be back at the school later that afternoon to see her receive a principal's award in front of the whole school at assembly. A very proud Mum and Dad moment timed perfectly for me to be able to see.

    So then, just in case there wasn't enough happening on my first day at home I went off to see Pearl Jam with Mum, Mike and Liz at Mt Smart Stadium. It was so awesome going to a gig with Mum and we were treated to the best Pearl Jam concert we could have hoped for, and the best I have seen them in the 3 times I have seen them live. Also managed to catch up with Stef, Cat, Sven and Jules pre gig which was awesome too.

    After a much needed night's sleep it was up and at 'em again on the Saturday when I took the girls to Scarlett's swimming lessons before heading home to get ready for Uncle Boat's 80's party for his 40th birthday. Scarlett and Frankie were decked out in their fluro space kitties costumes and Joan and I were dressed up as Ghostbusters in the awesome costumes Joan had put together and made for us. We had a brilliant night with our friends but after 3 months of not drinking in Saudi the hangover the next day was not much fun.    Meer informatie

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  • Alistair PennyReizigerAl’s Saudi Adventure

    First 3 months done and dusted

    6 november 2024, Saoedi-Arabië ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    My third month in Saudi started off in a very embarrassing way when I fell for what is apparently a very widely know about telephone scam. I received a call allegedly from the Ministry of the Interior telling me I had to reverify all my data in relation to my residence permit. Now I have done more IT and Technology training programmes than I care to remember over the past coupe of years but I still managed to get suckered in and they ended up stealing my mobile number, which controls access to all your important information here and they tried to access my bank account but thankfully the awesome Government Relations team at work managed to get me protected before they drained my bank account - lesson learned ... trust no one.

    The weather here has definitely started to change and on my way to the gym early morning a few weeks back now we actually had some fog and I thought we might get some rain. No such luck yet though but apparently its coming and we will get a couple of days of torrential rain when the weather breaks and it starts getting cooler .

    We've had a magnificent run of sporting results in the past month though with the All Blacks winning a great contest at Twickenham and an absolutely unbelievable 3-0 test series whitewash to go along with the America's Cup with and the ladies winning the T20 world cup - great time to be a kiwi sports fan

    But the best thing about my first three months coming to and end is that I'm heading home for a week to see the girls and Joan and I couldn't be happier about that. Its been an incredibly challenging first 3 months away for a number of reasons but the thought of going home and being able to give Scarlett, Frankie and especially Joan a massive hug is incredible.

    Oh and I've also just run out of Vegemite so the timing couldn't be better - ha ha

    And I almost forgot to mention I'm going to see Pearl Jam the night I get home, so lots to love about the next week or so

    Next stop Maraetai !!!    Meer informatie

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  • Alistair PennyReizigerAl’s Saudi Adventure

    Saudi National Day and Ireland

    23 september 2024, Noord-Ierland ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    Saudi National Day is celebrated on the 23rd of September each year to commemorate the date on which a proclamation was made by King Abdulaziz ibn Saud that renamed the Kingdom of Nejd and Hejaz as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932 by way of a royal decree.

     Saudi National Day is a public holiday here and an opportunity for the Saudis to showcase their culture, customs and traditions. All across the site, the common shared areas were all decorated in the national colours of green and white and there were a few events during the week to celebrate culminating in one large event held down in the beachside community tent.

     There was traditional music, food and other cultural activities along with other displays including falconry and basket weaving. I managed to eat my body weight in some incredible dates covered in crushed pistachios and filled with other nuts, which were unreal. I was less keen on the Arabic coffee I tried which was quite bitter and a light brown colour.

     The other benefit of the public holiday being on a Monday was that our work also gave us the Sunday off (Friday and Saturday are the weekends here) so we had a 4 day long weekend. So after talking to Joan and Linda I booked some flights and headed back to Ireland to see the family and to help out with a few things around the place.

     Landing back in Dublin to 14 degrees was a bit of a shock to the system after starting to get used to temperatures in the mid 30’s here. Managed to watch a couple of Enniskillen RFC games while I was back, heading over to Omagh to watch supercoach Shiner’s 4th XV play and then also got to watch the 3rd XV at Mullaghmeen on the Saturday and catch up with a few old friends over a couple of quiet pints of Guinness on the sideline. Also managed to get a few tidy up jobs done at their rental property, which was getting ready to go back on the market to find new tenants as well as help to draft up some template tenancy agreements for Linda to use going forward. Its not very often my work skillset is actually of practical use to people so it was nice to contribute something to the cause – ha ha.

     The highlight of the trip though was a visit to the Nun’s Pool in Bundoran – a semi natural rockpool area where we took cold water plunge and swim on the Sunday morning – the pool was brutally cold to start with, but after a while was actually really enjoyable. Couldn’t stay in for too long but it certainly energized everyone that went along, especially Shiner and Louise’s awesome friend Katy, who loved it so much she decided to give birth that evening. Our trip to Bundoran was finished with the best coffee in months and the best sausage roll I’ve had in a long long time. We were also treated to a fantastic Sunday lunch with Louise’s family on our way home to round out easily my favourite day since I’ve been away.

    The weekend went by so fast and the journey back to site was long but I am so glad I did it – always great to reconnect with family whenever possible.    Meer informatie

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  • Alistair PennyReizigerAl’s Saudi Adventure

    One month in

    15 september 2024, Saoedi-Arabië ⋅ 🌬 34 °C

    The first month onsite has been a bit of whirlwind with everything that has been going on but I feel like I’m getting into a bit of a routine now. The good news is that I am no longer in the hotel and am now based onsite, which makes a huge difference. Being part of the accommodation team certainly has its advantages, as most of the people I joined with are still at the hotel and may be there for another month at least.

    I am now in a really nice studio apartment which has a kitchenette with kettle, microwave, fridge and a washing machine/dryer, decent TV and couch etc, loads of storage space and a dining table/desk area too along with a really nice bathroom.

    The work itself is really ramping up in terms of a handful of high priority, historic items that really need to be resolved so the days are going by really quickly. My team has also been moved to a different department in the last couple of weeks, which doesn’t really impact our day to day activities directly, it just means that I report to a different director.

    Having my first Father’s Day away from Joan and the girls was really hard but the lovely cards that Scarlett and Frankie made me and the awesome presents of golf shirts and a Guinness water bottle and coffee cup certainly helped make it a bit easier.

    Also managed to watch the second All Blacks v Springboks test live with a workmate of mine, which despite another last quarter capitulation was a really nice connection to home. Even managed a couple of non alcoholic beers during the match.

    After Ernie’s passing I am also determined to get healthier and lose a good bit of weight for myself, Joan and the girls. Nothing quite like a wake up call like that to make you realise you need to make the most of every day you have available to you. So I have been going to the gym or swimming lengths first thing in the morning every working day since I got back from the funeral as well as trying to be really careful in terms of what I am eating here and I already feel much better for it – long may it continue.

    One month down, two to go until I get to head back to NZ and see the people that mean the most to me.    Meer informatie

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