The plane home. Last stop of the tour done and dusted. I'm looking forward to getting back and no mistake. Mostly this is a nice feeling. I have a trip to Dubai this month to look forward to, birthday celebrations on my return and a whole summer of what I hope will be a much more successful new chapter to tenting.
In addition to that though, there's something about the middle east that makes me miss normality a lot. I mean, I'm by no means the world's best-travelled person but even Brazil (which is the other least-European place I've visited) didn't have the same effect. I don't think that this was because I was out there travelling rather than working either, it's that the Arab nations have a certain inefficiency to them that makes even the most normal things seem impossible. Little things like a complete lack of adequate public transport meaning every journey involves a fight with a scammy cab driver or getting on a train involves moving seats because the person booking the seats didn't have the forsight to put all the females or families together like in a restaurant. In case you didn't know, this is one of the the Muslim rules that exist not only as a preference, but as the law of the land. It extends to dress and behaviour to the point that you can be arrested for the many ways of being un-islamic. Which is odd considering that, for example, when EVERY SHOP in a busy mall has to close 3 times a day for prayer time (which is of course normally between shows when hungry performers kinda want the food court to be open...) most of the locals are sat on benches playing with ipads just waiting for them to open again. You really do get the feeling that the vast majority of the population is crying out to be allowed to do something more fun than hang around in a plastic mall all day.
Anyway, mini-rant over...
The last stop was in a town called Dharan which we got to by train. That was a laugh actually, something a bit different from yet another flight. The place itself was pretty uninteresting really, as was Dammam, the nearest city. In Jeddah and, to a lesser extent, Riyadh, we managed to scratch around and find something to do in the time off, not so here. We did travel for an hour to a private artificial beach which was pretty but underwhelming. It was muddy in the water and we kept getting told off for being noisy when it was apparently fine for groups of Arab lads to make loads of noise. We did show willing and get a cab up to Dammam one day but we found that most of the stuff on the map that was interesting had been knocked down. Apparently this was the place where oil was first found in the 30s and it got very rich very quick. Of course, the oil trade has slowed a lot since then and the place is a bit of a ghost town. A bit like an apocolyptic Brighton. The standard mall is there but its older and smaller, obviously one of the first examples of the adoption of that as a lifestyle choice by the country.
The best thing by far that happened was my Birthday. I'd turned 30 on the Monday and, although I'd mentioned it to a few people over the past couple of weeks, I wasn't gonna make a big deal out of it. I knew that there were celebrations to look forward to when I got home and when you don't know a bunch of people that well, it's unfair really to expect them to make a big fuss out of something like that. I was genuinely surprised then when, thinking that I was being taken to do a meet and greet in the Mall, I got there to find the cast waiting in a restaurant. There had been a lot of clever mis-direction during the day and I was very touched by the effort. Awesome. Thanks again to anyone reading who was involved, you know who you are and what part you played.
The show itself went well again, it stayed in my memory and (apart from one monumentally stupid fuck up on the last day) I remembered everything and got it done. As I said before, it's been a real eye opener in terms of skillset so whether I end up doing more skins work remains to be seen but it's been an amazing experience and I still think it's healthy that I keep pushing myself and putting myself to the bottom of the pile sometimes with new things. The guys on this job are younger, better trained and more experienced than me and situations like this keep me humble and grounded. Plus I can learn from them and get a picture of different ways that the industry works in a broader sense. It's extremely varied when it comes down to it and the best way to stay in it and make a living for me is to have range in what I can do and understand. Contacts are, obviously, good too.
So yeah, that's about it. This week is catching up with phonecalls and other associated admin whilst preparing for Dubai in a couple of weeks. I went to a party in Cardiff that saw me stroll through the door at 2pm Sunday so the dry spell is well and truly broken. I'd like to say that I've taken a bit of time to chill out but the admin mountain is calling rather loudly. No change there then ;)
Here are the customary selection of pictures. As usual, head over to FB for the full album.
Ax
This was in the train station. Made me chuckle.
This actually WAS the train station. Eat your heart out, Southeastern.
My Birthday cake. This is the only picture I have from the meal. What a wanker.
The hotel was nice...
This was how I spent my day off
