Krispy Kreme hits the Middle East

Tonight the city sleeps in a sweet glazed comatose.  Tonight I went to Krispy Kreme in Saudi Arabia for the first time.  There are two branches located in malls in the capital city.  The first one in the Middle East was in Kuwait, and now Saudi Arabia has jumped on the doughnut board.  I snapped a photo because I had to prove it to you, but most people don’t take kindly to public photos so it was taken quickly, and from a distance.   The place was swarming with black abayas and white thobes pointing to doughnut selections.  The abaya is the veils the women wear, and thobes, are the outfit that the men wear.  So there you have it, America in its purest, sweetest and least harmful format, other than raising cholesterol levels, has hit the Middle East. They could use a few of these in Baghdad; it might just ease the tensions.  

Melkam Addis Amet, or to those unfamiliar with Aramaic, the original language of the Semitic people, Happy New Year.  The Coptic Christians, as well as the Jewish, whose New Year begins at sundown today, will bring in a new year. New beginnings have also begun for Muslims with the onset of the holy month of Ramadan today, when it is said the Quran was revealed to the prophet Mohammed.  Divided in conflict but similar in beliefs, tonight approximately 14.6 million Jews and 1.5 billion Muslims observe their holidays in spiritual continuity.  The more I learn, I see that we share so much more in common than not.  Ironically, the more I travel, the more I fall in love with humankind, our history and our traditions, but the less I can relate to one religion.  I have to wonder, just like Aramaic links languages in the Middle East linguistically, was there ever one faith that managed to do the same?  

A cat and a cow falling head over heals for eachother - who can be the judge of true love?  My cat has watched been watching this too by the way. 

Saudi kids, and the young men in particular, seem to be bored enough to put their lives at stake by “surfing” on the roads as you will see in this video.They are wearing leather slip on sandals, which have a flat leather bottom, so they can slide down the rode.The interesting thing is they clearly planned to make this video, as they are being followed and recorded by someone in a nearby car.Then they created this video, added music, and seem to be enjoying the fame and popularity aspect of all of this.Have the media, and the shared media like You Tube taken over their lives?  

Youth in Saudi Arabia don’t have movie theaters to go to, since they are illegal in the country, and single young men are not even admitted into shopping malls, so I often wonder how they manage to entertain themselves.Unfortunately, this type of thrill seeking seems to be one of the ways, and I have seem more and more dangerous, and sometimes humiliating videos being circulated on Bluetooth phone devices, and more recently on You Tube.

One Camel's Song and Dance is Not the Same as Anothers'.

Camels dance too; seriously, I have been to the desert on several occasions now and every time there is a new camel dance to witness.  What I mean is we drive so far into the desert that all you see are people herding sheep and camel farms.  The first time I saw a camel dancing was when he heard hip hop coming from our rolled down windows, and he or she, I guess was transfixed and swaying in harmony.  The next time, it was a beautiful white fluffy haired camel, and yes some are much more beautiful than others.  We drove right up to him with the windows and sun roof down on the Landcruiser, and Andre Bocelli was belting out a beautiful Italian line that I cant understand yet I appreciate, and this white camel was bouncing up and down, swaying back and forth.  It was clear he was enjoying the music, and that it took him to the opera in his mind.  This last time we came upon a group of camels, Snoop dog was playing on the radio, and I happened to catch it on my camera phone.  This is my evidence that camels like song and dance.  The sound quality isnt very good, if it was you would see that he was even dancing to the beat.