Saturday April 7, 2007 Riyadh

Riyadh is the capital city of Saudi Arabia; it is away from the coast and so has been much warmer—closer to 100 degrees. Because of the intense afternoon heat, things quiet down so our daytime pace has been a bit slower. The nights have been very long. Evening lectures and activities have been planned followed by very late night suppers.
On Saturday morning we visited a public high school for girls. They attend school daily from 7:30-12:30 and they wear uniforms. We were able to tour the school, visit some classes, and meet with faculty, administrators and some students for an explanation of the program and a Q & A time.

The tallest building in Saudi Arabia is the Four Seasons Hotel which has an unusual structure with an observation deck on top. We took an inter-galactic type elevator ride to the 77th floor. It took 25 seconds to get to that height. Because of the design of the building, we had to move to a different elevator to get to the observation deck which in on the 99th floor and is 300m above sea level.












A visit to King Abd-Al Aziz Public Library then off to dinner at the Globe which is at the top of Al Faisaliah Hotel, the hotel in which we are staying.