A New Gadget

For some weeks now, I've been playing with a new acquisition--an iPad. My phone is a Nokia, a nice one to be sure, but I only use it as a phone. I bought the iPad at the Rashid Mall in Khobar.

I mainly got the iPad so I could do my French lessons more comfortably (and thus more regularly) anywhere in my tiny house that my fancy took me. The modems that we get from Aramco give each of us a wireless network at home. I had to wait more than three months for that precious ADSL connection and the modem, and I pay USD 40 each month for the service, but it is worth every cent (not to mention the 24-hour tech support that Aramco provides for free--and it really is 24-hour service because I called late on a Friday and was sorted out in no time).

So I loaded up the iPad with French language lessons, a French-English dictionary, a French verb reference and quiz app, France24 news (all of the articles and the videos are in French) ... why stop there?

I have some cool GPS software for France, Michelin real-time traffic updates for France, global weather and maps, currency converter, and a world clock. I even found a copy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in French. (I got the English version too. Even though I have read it more than a half dozen times, the story never fails to delight and the language sparkle.)

My iPad is the WiFi + 3G version so I got a microSIM from Mobiliy, the Saudi telecom company I use for my cell service, to test that out as well. (Slow but it works to check email. Forget video.)

Games? I have one solitaire app. That's it. Computer games bore me. To me, this expensive toy isn't a toy at all but a useful thing that will help me achieve some specific goals.

In fact, I'm cooling my heels in a hotel room in Frankfurt (literally as I have the window open) waiting for DSL to arrive, doing French lessons, checking news and email, and writing this quick blog update. Useful activities all, far more productive than games.

I know I returned to the US twice this year but something really struck me this morning when I arrived at the Frankfurt airport: eye contact. People make eye contact with each other. Or rather, I mean men and women make eye contact with men and women. That just isn't done in KSA. For starters, women are never looked at directly even by other women. We aren't supposed to exist so I have become accustomed to being looked through, not at. It was a weird moment of disorientation to glance up and meet someone's eyes and they respond with a smile or a greeting.

Woohoo! I'm not in Saudi Arabia now!