Before I left for the holidays (To Dubai) I let transportation at the office know that the letter of permission necessary to take my car out of Saudi into Bahrain was expiring on January 1st.  I did this about 3 weeks before it was to expire.  So I get back from my adventure in Dubai and go to work on Sunday.  During the day I find they have not renewed my police permission to leave the Kingdom with my car!!  Not only that but they renew car insurance on the first of every year as well.  So they give me the paperwork necessary to renew the permission and I ignorantly head for the police station on the Causeway.  I finally find the station and go in, hand them my paperwork and stand there…..and stand there……and stand there….. (you get the picture!)  I’m the only one there so the cops decide this is a good time to have personal conversation, in Arabic of course.  They are laughing, smoking and generally having a good time while I stand there…..waiting!  The one with my paperwork finally enters my number into the “system” then reads something and hands my paperwork back through the window and says, “no insurance”.  Now I KNOW there is insurance as I have a “stamped” letter in my hand saying that I do!!  Evidently a piece of paper is no longer worth anything!  I kept trying to find out what I could do but all I got was Arabic and, no, I don’t speak Arabic…..yet!  I ended up calling one of the Saudi’s that I work with and asked him to talk to the cop and find out what I could do.  After an animated, one-sided, conversation the cop hands my phone back to me and walks away!  I asked Sultan what he said and basically my insurance wasn’t coming up in the system so I can’t leave Saudi!  In other words, I can’t go home!  By this time it’s getting close to 9pm, I’m tired, hungry, frustrated and have to go back to Khobar for the night!  I was fortunate in that I had not yet turned in my key for my old apartment so I headed there to see if it was still empty.  It was!  So I spent the night in my empty apartment.  At least I had a bed and shower the next morning.  Same cloths for the second day but whatever.  Transportation hasn’t yet been able to “fix” my insurance issue so for now I’m driving a loaner car.  It is nice to be home again!

We’ll see what has happened with my car and insurance tomorrow when I go back to work this week.  Wish me luck!