A long, long time ago, insults had class, which, if you think about it, was a good thing ;-)

What do the top American officials know about the different sects of Islam?

Took some photos during my trip to Jeddah, and decided to share some of them with you. Enjoy.

In my last post I said “hopefully more from Jeddah,” but unfortunately there was not any. The place I was staying in did not has DSL and working on dial-up has become unbearable to me a long time ago. Most of the places I visited had WiFi but while there I preferred to talk with the great people I met instead of playing with my laptop. I’m writing this from the comfort of my house in Ahsa, and let me just say that I really enjoyed these six days I spent in Jeddah.

But first of all, I want to thank my uncle and his lovely wife for their generosity and hospitality. My uncle has welcomed me in his house, and his wife has overwhelmed me with her kindness that I truly felt I was home, and enjoyed all the delicious meals that I was craving over the past month or so. I know I was such a burden, but they were really good to me, and I really appreciate that. I also want to thank my Jeddawi buddy Mohammed Abu Al-Faraj, who was nice enough to show me around the city, and even invite me to have breakfast at his house.

Since it is Ramadhan, there was not much to do during the day, but I managed to enjoy a shopping spree on my third day, and a walk by Hamra Courniche with my little cousins a few days later. On the contrary, most of the nights were eventful: I had the pleasure to meet some Jeddawi bloggers; many of those I have been following for a long time, and meeting them in reality was such a joy.

Jeddah is probably not as polished and huge as Riyadh, but it is such a beautiful city, a description that does not exactly apply to our capital. It is much more relaxed and much more friendly, and it welcomes its visitors very warmly and passionately. There is so much to say about this trip, not just about what I have done or seen, but more about what I have discovered about myself, and about the people I met and the time we spent together. Again, hopefully more details would come later in future posts.

I’m coming to Jeddah (woohoo!), staying for a few days to relax and meet some people. Getting a ticket in this time was really difficult, especially that I did not consider this trip until last week. Can you believe there was not a single empty seat on any of our national carrier’s planes for the next two weeks? Anyhow, it was worth trying, and I was lucky to get a ticket. Any recommendations for places I should go, or stuff I should do while I’m there are highly appreciated, and hopefully more from Jeddah later.

Deutsche Presse Agentur says Blogging in the Middle East is a tough choice. Correction: Saudi bloggers strike lasted 72 hours, not 27 days.

Nongeek has a very good list on how average users can contribute to open source projects without coding. Many of the best programs out there now are open source, and your contribution might be important for their development.