Everything s going ok !!!!

Hi!!

Let's begin with a trial of answer to the question i'll be asked more than 30 times in the next days : Everything is going all right !!!! From the very beginning of the day, once we were at the station with my mother and Cyril, I had some very deep emotions, having on mind the idea that once again, after Denmark, I was going to leave family and friends. And now that's done.

What should I start with, to tell you my first "day" in Saudi, (let's say "night"). I will say that after quite a tiring journey by plane, I was very happy to walk on this land. Indeed : the plane took off from Paris at almost 12, then we arrived in Roma at 2, then we took off again 1 hour later, spent 4 hours aboard between Roma and Jeddah, then landed for another hour, and finally reached Riyadh at 10:30 (French time). Oh yes, for those who didn't ask me about this, there is one hour of difference between FR time and S.A. time. Now i'm on the same time as in Lithuania, by the way...

I tried to take some pictures during the flight, few of them are "acceptable" but i'm going to publish them anyway. My battery went low quite rapidly, it wasn't even a matter of space on my memory card :(
Well, I'll leave a comment for each picture.. Now that I found a technique to create galleries, It should be easier to publish them : the question is "when will I do it now?".. I hope i'll have time for this soon.

There is a paradoxical difference between FR and S.A. (and a lot of other ones, of course, but it's not a cultural judgement), in the sense that here, it's 1 hour later than in FR... But on the other hand, in S.A. the "weekend" is on Thursdays and Fridays.. as an equivalent for our Saturdays and Sundays.... which means that i'm already on weekend (sorry guys..)!

Another good news is that I met my chief tonight, Roland, with whom I got along quite rapidly. He picked me up at Riyadh airport, and I was lucky to get out rapidly from the Customs, otherwise he would have left without me : in the airport there was no flight announced from Paris, so he was worrying a little bit. The particular thing in Riyadh airport is that they control the content of your luggage (X-rays) even when you leave the airport. As I was a foreign person, I needed to fill in a form with my datas, name, surname, place of birth, date of delivery and expiration (for passport) and on the document it was written : "BEWARE ! DEATH FOR DRUGS TRAFFICKERS". I have no reproach to make to myself about this topic, of course.. But then I started thinking that if someone approached my handluggage during the flight, while I was in the bathroom, he could put something inside that didn't belong to me. So, before having my luggage checked at the Customs, I searched into my handluggage if there was anything "suspect" inside.. You'll probably think i'm silly, and why not paranoïd, but still, those written words on the immigration form were very impressive.

To deal with my chief again, he drove me to the diplomatic neighborhood of the city, where there are 2 amazing checkpoints at the entry. Then, he took me to my "temporary place", a little studio near his apartment. Before my arrival, he had the room cleaned and started the air-cooling system, which is really not a fancy thing here. at 10h30 (S.A. time), the temperature was still above 33°C. He put some bread, jam, mineral water in the fridge, so that I lack nothing at the very beginning, and I'm very thankful to him for this mark of attention. After letting me visit "my" place and drop my luggage and bags, he invited me for a Coca cola at his place, where we talked about our objectives for the running of the Saudian-French cultural center. We talked mainly about the region of the Gulf, the places where we could find some potential students (universities, companies, private schools). A very interesting conversation, all in all..

Now I've come back to my place, it's 1:10AM and i'll go to bed soon. My chief proposed me to use internet today (Friday) so I will save this message and try to publish it on the blog. Thanks for your reading, and feel free to leave some comments, questions or suggestions if you like.

Take care... and see you soon.