Lately, nothing major has happened, but I still wanted to keep everybody updated with our daily life ;-)
I'm 30 weeks pregnant now, and I'll be flying to Germany in only 25 days - crazy!!!
Well, there is something 'a little bit' major that happened last week: We found out where the State Department is sending us after our time in Jeddah.
We will be living in Baku, Azerbaijan from 2016 to 2017.
Anthon and I are thrilled about our assignment. Of course, Baku is not like Germany or the US, but our bid list was kind of crappy this time with these 5 options: Baku (Azerbaijan), Pristina (Kosovo) (which were our 2 top choices), Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Dakar (Senegal) and Shenyang (China).
We have heard many good things about Baku, including a 10-minute walk from home to the consulate which makes it possible for Anthon to come home for lunch and play with our baby (or me to bring lunch over and eat together), many beautiful green parks to walk around which will also be nice for when we have a baby/toddler, plenty of fun things to do and see in the city, decent climate, great restaurants, great pay for Anthon, and a good variety of groceries which is important to us food lovers. And, a roundtrip ticket to Munich is only about $400-500, which is pretty affordable.
As you can tell, we're pretty excited about our new assignment! Start booking your flights to come and visit us ;-)
Besides waiting patiently on our next assignment, we've been busy preparing everything for our baby boy who is coming very soon - in plus/minus 10 weeks!!!
Last week, we pretty much purchased everything from Amazon that we would need during the first months: over 60 items, which added up to a total of about $2,400.
Not as bad as I had expected for the fact that we bought everything new. That's still cheaper than our Apple products or my camera :-)
Also, Anthon turned 27 years! Yep, only 27 years. Most people think he's older :-)
I made a cake and we had a couple of friends over for a movie night, which was fun. We had originally planned on eating out that night, but Anthon couldn't wait to eat sushi, so we already went out 2 days before his birthday :-D
Our families and friends often ask us what life is like in Jeddah. Well, I would say that about 80% of our life is very similar to what our life in the US would be like.
Anthon drives to work in the morning, works there for about 8-10 hours, drives home, we eat dinner, then we just relax, and go to bed. Pretty much what most of you do during the week.
The only difference is maybe that Anthon works a lot with staff that is not from the US. Most of his staff is from Yemen, Bangladesh, India and the Philippines. Since the Jeddah consulate is not in the US, Anthon has to deal quite a bit with cultural differences and restrictions typical for this region, which make his work very interesting.
Since I got pregnant soon after I came to Jeddah, and it would have taken about 2-3 months to get a security clearance in order to work at the consulate, and we had already planned several vacations, we decided that I'll just stay at home and be a homemaker until the baby gets here... well, after that, too, of course.
So, right now, I'm a typical housewife.... or somewhat typical. I guess there is a lot of variation in what people consider a "typical housewife".
I get up with Anthon every morning, prepare a good breakfast, pack Anthon's lunch, kiss him good-bye, clean up the kitchen, get ready for the day, stay busy with cleaning the house, preparing meal plans and shopping lists, answering e-mails, preparing my weekly Sunday school lessons, and cooking dinner. Since Anthon is the hardworking breadwinner in our house, I try to be as diligent as possible while he's at work. I would find it unfair towards him if I just stayed at home, watched TV and did nothing while he's working.
Many women here in the expat community have maids that do almost everything for them, so that they can meet up with other women during the day and have a cup of coffee, or go shopping in the malls and souks. But that's not me... I'm too German :-) I always make a to-do list for every day. If I'm running out of to-dos, I'm working on some longer term projects, like our 5-year anniversary book.
With our baby coming in 2.5 months, I've also been busy looking for baby and nursery stuff. Once the baby is here, I'm sure that I'll stay busy without writing a daily to-do list, though :-D
While other guys would prefer having a second income, Anthon prefers having a stay-at-home-wife. This was a little surprising to me since Anthon loves finances, saving more money to become financially independent by age 50 (= the state of having sufficient personal wealth to live, without having to work actively for basic necessities) and all that kind of financial stuff.
However, Anthon tells me quite often that he LOVES coming home from work to a wife that is not stressed out and complains about work, coming home to a clean house, dinner ready on the table, ironed clothes, not having to worry about laundry and other household stuff,... and I enjoy being at home. For me, it is fulfilling to take care of my husband and make him happy, and to take care of our home.
But Anthon is not a macho at all (luckily!). If I need his help, he jumps up and helps me. We've just decided to do it this way - he goes to work and makes the big bucks, while I stay at home and do everything to support him in his job, and make his life easier, and save some money by smart householding (not sure if this is a word, but in my opinion it should be one) :-)
While our daily life is very similar to what our life would be like in the US, our weekends look a little bit different. We especially feel that we live in a different country when we go outside of our compound.
Before we go out, we always check when the next prayer time starts. Stores close during the 5 prayer times a day for about 30-45 minutes. If you happen to be at the grocery store when the prayer starts, you are not able to check out and/or exit the store. Your frozen items have to either be brought back to the freezer and picked up again later, or you just let it thaw in your cart if you're too lazy :-)
Restaurants won't let you in during prayer time either, but most places will let you exit during prayer time, which is nice.
As you might have noticed in our pictures, I'm always wearing a black outfit. No, I've not joined the gothic scene. That's a long dark dress that every woman has to wear in public, called the abaya. Some Western women absolutely hate it, but I wouldn't say that I hate it. I would just prefer only wearing 1 layer of clothing in this very hot and very humid climate. Especially when I see Anthon only wearing a short sleeve shirt and shorts. Kind of unfair, but I guess I have to accept the rules of the country.
As a woman, I am also not allowed to drive here. You know, it could curl up my ovaries, push my pelvis upwards and make me infertile... or I could show my willingness to be raped, in case the car breaks down at the side of the road (someone please make sense out of these arguments why women can't drive!?!?).
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24323934
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2948592/Saudi-Arabian-historian-says-American-foreign-women-drive-rape-no-big-deal-them.html
Luckily, our consulate provides motor pool services, so that I can go to the hospital, consulate, go shopping if I wanted to, etc. Honestly, in this crazy Jeddah traffic, I prefer to not drive here. It seems like the only rule is that there is no rule :-)
Usually, I always fall asleep when Anthon is driving... I'm like a baby. I just get tired with the white noise in the background and the car rocking me to sleep. But here in Jeddah, I cannot fall asleep in the car no matter how tired I am. Since people drive like crazy here, Anthon has to constantly switch lanes, step on his brakes, honk at people who randomly change lanes without looking and almost bumping into our car,....
My blood pressure probably always goes up a little bit when we're out and about. I just can't stay calm enough to fall asleep while we're on the road :-)
Something that is also a little bit different is our kind of entertainment here. In the US, we loved going to concerts, theater plays, go bowling, eating out,...
Here, we don't really do any of that much. Saudi Arabia doesn't really have typical theaters with classical concerts and plays. If they have something like that and I'm just unaware of it, I'm sure that it would be for men only, or it would be in Arabic which we both don't speak.
Mixing genders is not liked here, which is the reason why there are family sections and single sections for men at each restaurant. Many fast food restaurants like McDonald's and Papa John's even have separate entrances - one for families, and one for men. Some places that sell Middle Eastern fast food even don't allow women in them, so I usually just stay in the car while Anthon orders the food.
We don't really eat out that much here, though. We definitely ate out a lot more when we were in the US. Restaurants can be quite pricey (or at least cost more than we are willing to pay for American, Italian, Asian food), and I pretty much never crave Middle Eastern food, which is mostly a little bit to a lot cheaper than other cuisines.
Since Middle Eastern food is some of the most affordable food here, you would think that we mostly eat out at Middle Eastern restaurants. The problem is that I never crave Middle Eastern food. There are only 3 cuisines that I never crave (at least 3 of the many cuisines that I have tried so far)- Mexican (sorry!), Indian and Middle Eastern. I don't know what it is about these foods that I just never crave them. I don't mind eating them and I like them when I happen to eat them, but they never really sound good to me and I just never crave them. So, that's another reason why we don't go out to eat that often. The foods that we like and crave are just a little bit too pricey for us to go out often. So, I usually just make those at home.
However, when we do go out by ourselves, we mostly get Korean food. I cook very internationally, but it takes a lot of time to prepare Korean food with all of its side dishes, so I prefer eating out when we're craving Korean food.
Two weeks ago, I felt a little bit experimental and cooked Bulgogi with 6 different Paanchi (side dishes). Anthon is excited that he no longer has to pay for Korean food. One less reason to eat out and spend money :-)
When we do go out to eat to other restaurants then usually with friends, which brings me back to the topic of entertainment.
Since the things that we like doing in the US/Germany don't really exist here and we don't share a love for many Saudis' favorite hobby, which is shopping, we hang out a lot with other people from the consulate. We have also made some friends here on the compound.
I can't remember the last time we had a weekend without a potluck, birthday party, some event at the consulate, or us hosting dinner. That's the kind of entertainment you do here the most, and our weekends are always filled with these kinds of get-togethers.
Luckily, the consulate has plenty of nice young people in their late 20s like us, who we really enjoy hanging out with. The good thing is that most of them came to Jeddah only a couple of months before us or came after we arrived, so we'll have them here for the majority of our time.
They don't happen too often, but sometimes expats put together little events that we like to go to to feel normal again - no separated gender sections, no abaya needed, and PDA is allowed :-)
A couple of months ago, one of the international schools performed the Wizard of Oz at their school, which was awesome. The other day, the British consulate hosted their yearly X-Pat factor talent show, which was a lot of fun, too. We wish there were more of these kinds of events, but... you can't have it all, right?
If we find some time between all these get-togethers and events, Anthon and I like hanging out on the couch and watching shows that we can watch for free on Amazon instant or Youtube.
We also like baking and cooking together. I love having a husband, who loves to cook, who enjoys good food, and who really appreciates homemade food. This has challenged me to make almost everything from scratch - normal noodles, Spätzle, Schupfnudeln, German potato and bread dumplings, bread, rolls, pretzels, ice-cream, homemade broth and soup,...
Living abroad and not being able to buy baking mixes and all kinds of other stuff really makes you a better homemaker, I feel :-)
So yeah, that's a little insight into our daily life here in Jeddah.
Let me know if you have any questions about life here and I'll answer them in my next blog post ;-)
I'm 30 weeks pregnant now, and I'll be flying to Germany in only 25 days - crazy!!!
Well, there is something 'a little bit' major that happened last week: We found out where the State Department is sending us after our time in Jeddah.
We will be living in Baku, Azerbaijan from 2016 to 2017.
Anthon and I are thrilled about our assignment. Of course, Baku is not like Germany or the US, but our bid list was kind of crappy this time with these 5 options: Baku (Azerbaijan), Pristina (Kosovo) (which were our 2 top choices), Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Dakar (Senegal) and Shenyang (China).
We have heard many good things about Baku, including a 10-minute walk from home to the consulate which makes it possible for Anthon to come home for lunch and play with our baby (or me to bring lunch over and eat together), many beautiful green parks to walk around which will also be nice for when we have a baby/toddler, plenty of fun things to do and see in the city, decent climate, great restaurants, great pay for Anthon, and a good variety of groceries which is important to us food lovers. And, a roundtrip ticket to Munich is only about $400-500, which is pretty affordable.
As you can tell, we're pretty excited about our new assignment! Start booking your flights to come and visit us ;-)
Besides waiting patiently on our next assignment, we've been busy preparing everything for our baby boy who is coming very soon - in plus/minus 10 weeks!!!
Last week, we pretty much purchased everything from Amazon that we would need during the first months: over 60 items, which added up to a total of about $2,400.
Not as bad as I had expected for the fact that we bought everything new. That's still cheaper than our Apple products or my camera :-)
Also, Anthon turned 27 years! Yep, only 27 years. Most people think he's older :-)
I made a cake and we had a couple of friends over for a movie night, which was fun. We had originally planned on eating out that night, but Anthon couldn't wait to eat sushi, so we already went out 2 days before his birthday :-D
Our families and friends often ask us what life is like in Jeddah. Well, I would say that about 80% of our life is very similar to what our life in the US would be like.
Anthon drives to work in the morning, works there for about 8-10 hours, drives home, we eat dinner, then we just relax, and go to bed. Pretty much what most of you do during the week.
The only difference is maybe that Anthon works a lot with staff that is not from the US. Most of his staff is from Yemen, Bangladesh, India and the Philippines. Since the Jeddah consulate is not in the US, Anthon has to deal quite a bit with cultural differences and restrictions typical for this region, which make his work very interesting.
Since I got pregnant soon after I came to Jeddah, and it would have taken about 2-3 months to get a security clearance in order to work at the consulate, and we had already planned several vacations, we decided that I'll just stay at home and be a homemaker until the baby gets here... well, after that, too, of course.
So, right now, I'm a typical housewife.... or somewhat typical. I guess there is a lot of variation in what people consider a "typical housewife".
I get up with Anthon every morning, prepare a good breakfast, pack Anthon's lunch, kiss him good-bye, clean up the kitchen, get ready for the day, stay busy with cleaning the house, preparing meal plans and shopping lists, answering e-mails, preparing my weekly Sunday school lessons, and cooking dinner. Since Anthon is the hardworking breadwinner in our house, I try to be as diligent as possible while he's at work. I would find it unfair towards him if I just stayed at home, watched TV and did nothing while he's working.
Many women here in the expat community have maids that do almost everything for them, so that they can meet up with other women during the day and have a cup of coffee, or go shopping in the malls and souks. But that's not me... I'm too German :-) I always make a to-do list for every day. If I'm running out of to-dos, I'm working on some longer term projects, like our 5-year anniversary book.
With our baby coming in 2.5 months, I've also been busy looking for baby and nursery stuff. Once the baby is here, I'm sure that I'll stay busy without writing a daily to-do list, though :-D
While other guys would prefer having a second income, Anthon prefers having a stay-at-home-wife. This was a little surprising to me since Anthon loves finances, saving more money to become financially independent by age 50 (= the state of having sufficient personal wealth to live, without having to work actively for basic necessities) and all that kind of financial stuff.
However, Anthon tells me quite often that he LOVES coming home from work to a wife that is not stressed out and complains about work, coming home to a clean house, dinner ready on the table, ironed clothes, not having to worry about laundry and other household stuff,... and I enjoy being at home. For me, it is fulfilling to take care of my husband and make him happy, and to take care of our home.
But Anthon is not a macho at all (luckily!). If I need his help, he jumps up and helps me. We've just decided to do it this way - he goes to work and makes the big bucks, while I stay at home and do everything to support him in his job, and make his life easier, and save some money by smart householding (not sure if this is a word, but in my opinion it should be one) :-)
While our daily life is very similar to what our life would be like in the US, our weekends look a little bit different. We especially feel that we live in a different country when we go outside of our compound.
Before we go out, we always check when the next prayer time starts. Stores close during the 5 prayer times a day for about 30-45 minutes. If you happen to be at the grocery store when the prayer starts, you are not able to check out and/or exit the store. Your frozen items have to either be brought back to the freezer and picked up again later, or you just let it thaw in your cart if you're too lazy :-)
Restaurants won't let you in during prayer time either, but most places will let you exit during prayer time, which is nice.
As you might have noticed in our pictures, I'm always wearing a black outfit. No, I've not joined the gothic scene. That's a long dark dress that every woman has to wear in public, called the abaya. Some Western women absolutely hate it, but I wouldn't say that I hate it. I would just prefer only wearing 1 layer of clothing in this very hot and very humid climate. Especially when I see Anthon only wearing a short sleeve shirt and shorts. Kind of unfair, but I guess I have to accept the rules of the country.
As a woman, I am also not allowed to drive here. You know, it could curl up my ovaries, push my pelvis upwards and make me infertile... or I could show my willingness to be raped, in case the car breaks down at the side of the road (someone please make sense out of these arguments why women can't drive!?!?).
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24323934
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2948592/Saudi-Arabian-historian-says-American-foreign-women-drive-rape-no-big-deal-them.html
Luckily, our consulate provides motor pool services, so that I can go to the hospital, consulate, go shopping if I wanted to, etc. Honestly, in this crazy Jeddah traffic, I prefer to not drive here. It seems like the only rule is that there is no rule :-)
Usually, I always fall asleep when Anthon is driving... I'm like a baby. I just get tired with the white noise in the background and the car rocking me to sleep. But here in Jeddah, I cannot fall asleep in the car no matter how tired I am. Since people drive like crazy here, Anthon has to constantly switch lanes, step on his brakes, honk at people who randomly change lanes without looking and almost bumping into our car,....
My blood pressure probably always goes up a little bit when we're out and about. I just can't stay calm enough to fall asleep while we're on the road :-)
Something that is also a little bit different is our kind of entertainment here. In the US, we loved going to concerts, theater plays, go bowling, eating out,...
Here, we don't really do any of that much. Saudi Arabia doesn't really have typical theaters with classical concerts and plays. If they have something like that and I'm just unaware of it, I'm sure that it would be for men only, or it would be in Arabic which we both don't speak.
Mixing genders is not liked here, which is the reason why there are family sections and single sections for men at each restaurant. Many fast food restaurants like McDonald's and Papa John's even have separate entrances - one for families, and one for men. Some places that sell Middle Eastern fast food even don't allow women in them, so I usually just stay in the car while Anthon orders the food.
We don't really eat out that much here, though. We definitely ate out a lot more when we were in the US. Restaurants can be quite pricey (or at least cost more than we are willing to pay for American, Italian, Asian food), and I pretty much never crave Middle Eastern food, which is mostly a little bit to a lot cheaper than other cuisines.
Since Middle Eastern food is some of the most affordable food here, you would think that we mostly eat out at Middle Eastern restaurants. The problem is that I never crave Middle Eastern food. There are only 3 cuisines that I never crave (at least 3 of the many cuisines that I have tried so far)- Mexican (sorry!), Indian and Middle Eastern. I don't know what it is about these foods that I just never crave them. I don't mind eating them and I like them when I happen to eat them, but they never really sound good to me and I just never crave them. So, that's another reason why we don't go out to eat that often. The foods that we like and crave are just a little bit too pricey for us to go out often. So, I usually just make those at home.
However, when we do go out by ourselves, we mostly get Korean food. I cook very internationally, but it takes a lot of time to prepare Korean food with all of its side dishes, so I prefer eating out when we're craving Korean food.
Two weeks ago, I felt a little bit experimental and cooked Bulgogi with 6 different Paanchi (side dishes). Anthon is excited that he no longer has to pay for Korean food. One less reason to eat out and spend money :-)
When we do go out to eat to other restaurants then usually with friends, which brings me back to the topic of entertainment.
Since the things that we like doing in the US/Germany don't really exist here and we don't share a love for many Saudis' favorite hobby, which is shopping, we hang out a lot with other people from the consulate. We have also made some friends here on the compound.
I can't remember the last time we had a weekend without a potluck, birthday party, some event at the consulate, or us hosting dinner. That's the kind of entertainment you do here the most, and our weekends are always filled with these kinds of get-togethers.
Luckily, the consulate has plenty of nice young people in their late 20s like us, who we really enjoy hanging out with. The good thing is that most of them came to Jeddah only a couple of months before us or came after we arrived, so we'll have them here for the majority of our time.
Eating Yemeni food with friends at the Corniche
Branch Pool Party on our compound
Cooking Middle Eastern food with friends
Enjoying some American food
Hosting friends for a Raclette dinner
Dinner at a friend's house
National Day celebration at the Consulate a couple of weeks ago. It's just too miserably hot and humid in July to celebrate it then :-)
National Day at the Consulate
Date night at the Jeddah festival
They don't happen too often, but sometimes expats put together little events that we like to go to to feel normal again - no separated gender sections, no abaya needed, and PDA is allowed :-)
A couple of months ago, one of the international schools performed the Wizard of Oz at their school, which was awesome. The other day, the British consulate hosted their yearly X-Pat factor talent show, which was a lot of fun, too. We wish there were more of these kinds of events, but... you can't have it all, right?
Wizard of Oz performance
If we find some time between all these get-togethers and events, Anthon and I like hanging out on the couch and watching shows that we can watch for free on Amazon instant or Youtube.
We also like baking and cooking together. I love having a husband, who loves to cook, who enjoys good food, and who really appreciates homemade food. This has challenged me to make almost everything from scratch - normal noodles, Spätzle, Schupfnudeln, German potato and bread dumplings, bread, rolls, pretzels, ice-cream, homemade broth and soup,...
Living abroad and not being able to buy baking mixes and all kinds of other stuff really makes you a better homemaker, I feel :-)
So yeah, that's a little insight into our daily life here in Jeddah.
Let me know if you have any questions about life here and I'll answer them in my next blog post ;-)
We need some baby updates!
ReplyDelete