Daylight Savings Time - No Prob!

One advantage to living in Arabia that comes to mind today – changing my clock isn’t necessary for the end of daylight savings. There is no daylight savings! This is awesome!

It's International Women's Day!

This morning I saw groups of women come to a café and shake hands with other groups of women who were already seated before them. What a nice greeting for international women’s day!


Congratulations to all women – mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, and friends!

Person of the Year?

I mentioned Yemen in a recent post and a friend of mine shared with me an article from the Yemeni English daily, Yemen Observer. I have to share a snapshot of this article, "Person of the Year." I think it is a good thing I scanned a copy because it wasn’t posted on the Internet pages of the paper.

Enjoy!

"Titanic" and Old and New

Looking back at the Hollywood figures I’ve mentioned, I remembered something Tweet recently said to me. Tweet believes that the "Titanic" soundtrack will never disappear, especially now that its director has made another hit, "Avatar." I think Tweet is right. I just heard it again at a restaurant.


BIA to waiter: “Please this movie is over ten years old. Surely there is another song you can play!”


Waiter: “Yes, ma’am but this very beautiful.”


Why do old songs never seem to disappear here, but old buildings do?

Just Like Home? Desert, Tribes, and Pickup Trucks

In my travels, I met a Yemeni petroleum engineer who had studied in the U.S. He had lived and studied in Tulsa. I don’t know much about Oklahoma as I haven’t been to that state yet. I did add that I have a friend of a friend whose father moved out there to work at the state university. The ‘father-of-a-friend-of-a-friend’ comment was apparently sufficient encouragement for him to keep talking about Oklahoma.


The Yemeni engineer loved his time in Oklahoma. Finally, I asked him why. His response: “It was just like home.” I hope I didn’t look too surprised and I tried to ask him casually how Oklahoma was just like Yemen, an Arab country that seems to be in the news a lot lately! He responded, “Well both have desert areas, tribes, pick-up trucks, and guns.” He felt the only difference was that Yemeni pickup trucks didn’t have gun racks. Uh, ok?!

View of the desert sea shore from the pick-up