Chapter EIGHT
Living in the Kingdom A Woman s Point of View
My wife, Sandy, lived with me in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 1986 to 1990, when she returned to St. Louis to take care of her invalid father and her mother and to resume the mothering of our three grown children. What follows are her first impressions of Saudi Arabia and descriptions of some of our travels during that time.
June 30, 1986.
Sitting in the St. Louis airport waiting to board my flight to London on the beginning of my new adventure, I was outwardly calm but inwardly a little anxious. I had forgotten to leave my Frequent Flyer stickers out to take with me, so I made a mental note to contact TWA once we got settled in the Kingdom to make sure the mileage for this trip was added to my frequent flyer miles.
Then Les sat down in a wet chair, leaving the entire back of his pants wet. I thought it was funny but I don t think Les was quite so amused I boarded the plane with the aid of a cane since I had undergone arthroscopic knee surgery ten days earlier. I had been leaving the kids apartment to begin our family vacation and then on to my introduction to Saudi life, when my foot slipped off a step in front of their apartment and I twisted my knee. While out in Mission Del Rey, California, our first stop, I ended up having arthroscopic surgery on my knee because I couldn t walk This new adventure gave me a somewhat mixed sense of relief because I had finally cut the umbilical cord. I hoped that the kids (two sons, ages 23 and 19, and a daughter, 17) would be able to adjust and stand on their own two feet. Although I believed they could, no mother ever wants to cut the cord completely.
July 8, 1986.
On my fourth day in Riyadh, I decided to put pen to paper recounting the trip and capturing my first impressions of Saudi Arabia. I had to admit I was impressed.
After we returned from our California vacation, we deposited the kids at their apartment (the two younger were attending college, while our older son was out on his own). Not even knee surgery was going to keep me down. We flew to London via TWA from St. Louis. I was wearing my sandals, and by the time we arrived in London, my feet were swollen. The right foot was two or three times the size of my left one and my ankle was the size on my upper arm. My foot looked like a popover.
When you travel overseas, you have to wait in long lines to go through customs in almost every country. Landing in London, one of the British Airways staff noticed that I was walking with a cane and moved us to the front of the line. Note: Always take your cane when travel