Thursday, March 29th, 2012
If there is one thing that Riyadh offers, it's parties where you can get around the whole "no alcohol" rules. Every weekend there are tons of parties going on. Everything from official embassy events to house parties on western compounds to camping in the desert. What all these things have in common is that to get to any of them you have to know someone......or in my case, know someone who knows someone.
This Thursday was much the same story. A group of girls that I work with were planning to head to Sawa (which I'm told is a British Compound but I have yet to visit) for some drinks and fun and what not. However on Tuesday at work I was told we were not in fact going to Sawa but we were going to the Spanish Ambassador's house for a party. Not sure how we scored that invite but turns out we know someone who knows someone so put us all on the list.
This is Lola and Rachel. We all work on C3 and are all on A-Team, which means we have the same weekend off.
We had very few details except that it was happening at the Spanish Embassy at 2200 (10pm) until 0400 and that we just needed to show up at the gate and ask for the consulate because some guy named Pablo had put us on the list. So just after 2200 we arrived at the gates, asked for the consulate and we were taken to the party. There was still some confusion as we followed this strange man to a house inside the Embassy fence but he seemed to know what was going on.
Pre-party drinks in MCV (the complex I live in). This is Rachel, Colleen and Jenn. I'm not posting this picture because of the shots but because of the shampoo bottle in the kitchen. One of the many ways girls smuggle alcohol into the country. Yes it is a little weird to drink shots out of a Garnier Fructis bottle but you do what you have to do sometimes.
Now it is safe to say that the party was not what we expected. You hear party at the Spanish Ambassador's house and you expect an event or something. Turns out the party was at the Spanish Consulate's house and it was a small house party.....with the Spanish consulate...who happened to be the guy who met us at the gate (explains why he knew what was going on). I assure you it was a ton of fun. Not sure I can remember a night when my feet have hurt that much in a while. There was a ton of dancing. One thing I learnt about Spanish people that night.....they love reggaeton. This confused me since reggaeton is Latino (Puerto Rican and Panamanian to be exact) and not Spanish but whatever.
It was a great, great Riyadh night.
Julie
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggaeton
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