As my time here in Saudi is coming to an end I’m sorting thru my things and deciding what stays behind and what gets packed and sent home. I’ve come across ticket stubs and souvenirs from the many trips I had the privilege of taking over the last 2 years. I’ve made a conscious effort to save every ticket stub as a keepsake so here’s what I found while I was sorting thru them. In the last 2 years I’ve flown 19 different airlines: Aegean Air, Alaska Air, Air Asia, Air Canada, American Airlines, British Air, Emirates, Etihad, FinnAir, Flydubai, FlyNas, Lufthansa, Royal Air Morocco, Royal Jordanian, SAS, Saudia, Sri Lankan Air, Turkish Airlines, and Qatar Air. I visited 25 countries, 18 of them new for me including: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Kuwait, Malaysia, Maldives, Morocco, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Qatar, and the UAE. A couple of them like Germany and the UAE I visited a few times. I took 72 different flights. For someone who is terrified of travel that’s A LOT of flights. Or more admittedly a lot of medicated flights since those of you who know me well know how much I dread flying.
So even though Saudi was not always the easiest country to live in it afforded so many experiences I wouldn’t likely have otherwise had. And my 2 years here have made me very comfortable with traveling solo, something I had only previously done twice. In fact I’ve grown very fond of my solo trips, and I love how empowered and independent I feel when traveling on my own. That might be the biggest lesson and blessing that I take from my time here in Saudi. I’ve got an upcoming blog post about the many things I will miss about living here- and very likely a lengthy blog post about the things I won’t miss. But for now it’s back to packing….