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Don't be bad in Saudi Arabia

On my way to a design conference in Jeddah last month the Air Canada ticket lady begged me not to get on the plane, claiming that I would be tossed in a dungeon upon arrival because my skin is pink. She was, of course, retarded. After spending a week in Jeddah, what I found to be most shocking was not the dress code or the peculiar security measures (photographing official buildings is technically espionage punishable by beheading) but more than anything, the place looked and felt almost exactly like a gated suburban community in Arizona, just with less golf and more praying.

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At first I was a little bit intimidated by the machine guns and armored vehicles everywhere, but after a couple days it all seemed like a harmless precaution, and the threat of being gunned down in the street seemed petty in comparison to the intense desert chaffage occurring between my legs.

I was invited to a house party by some ex-pat Lebanese girls. It was good times except there was no alcohol or music so everybody just sat around and smoked cigarettes, ate fried chicken, and drank Pepsi. The host's housing complex had a nightclub in it, which I was told was a common status symbol in Jeddah amongst the wealthy. My host used the nightclub primarily as a dog house.

Jeddah is basically one massive strip-mall, and Saudi hyper-malls make American malls look like dumpsters. One of the places I visited had an ice rink in the middle of the food court. It was 40 degrees Celsius outside and I don’t think anyone in the city had ever seen a pair of skates.

You can score alcohol if you know the right people, but it’s going to cost you around $500 for a bottle, so unless you’re making oil money you’ll end up like I did: smoking sheesha and cigarettes nonstop. I had virgin lungs before I went and now I'm sucking back a pack a day, easy. Also, everywhere I went I encountered weird little cats lurking the streets and begging for scraps.

From what I gather, Chili’s is the top restaurant in the kingdom; every time I walked by one it was packed. Pizza, on the other hand, is a whole different scene. The Little Ceasers down the street from my hotel never seemed to be open - they just kept this “Closed For Prayer” sign up all day long and didn’t bother to turn the lights on.

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Selling TV remotes on the street is a completely viable business model in the kingdom. This guy was #1, he had them all.

This toilet frightened me.

I ran into some African dudes ripping around on ATVs by the beach. They would bust donuts and then race through traffic as fast as they could. Driving in the Kingdom is just like that movie Cannonball Run. Women aren't allowed to drive and all the men pretend they are in an F-1 race, so behavior that would be viewed as insane in the West, like passing on the sidewalk, is perfectly acceptable.

These were just a couple of guys hanging out under a palm tree, holding hands and giggling. They demanded that I photograph them.

This guy was also desperate for a photo and followed me around holding this poor cat until I took one.

Some seriously next level shit and solid advice.