Hey guys- loooong food/travel diary below from trip as I had no Internet out there. I'm sure no-one can be ars*d to read it all but I wrote it each day out there so might as well post!
Day 1: 22nd/May (flight day)
EE+ extra Hex's
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B - Nat FF yog, blueberries, banana, splenda
Morning snack - banana
L+D (on flight) - Packed free spag bol, 2 bananas, alpen lights (about 6!! Was sooo hungry), opted for low fat food on flight and had- sandwich (brown bread, not wholemeal, with tomato and 'chickpea pate' LOL? Blates just hummus trying to sound posh), fish with potatoes and carrots and a low fat rice pudding soya desert (will call that HexA)
Sounds like loads but really wasn't, was so famished by 1.30pm when I ate the spag bol as got up at 8 and am used to having lunch a couple of hours after my relatively small breakfasts. Cabin food came around 3pm and sandwich around 7.30pm. Also had a bag of Beef Jerky (1.5 syns)
Drinks - again, tried to keep super hydrated so as not to bloat/constipate like normal as last time I think it was why I successfully lost 3lbs! Had about 8 cups of green tea, 6 cups of water and 2 small diet cokes.
God knows how many syns as the sandwich bread was probably about 10 alone, let alone the 4 extra Alpen light's lol. Was glad that the low fat option didnt have any tempting deserts/crackers etc but it was pretty gross food.
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Just filled in immigration form and it says at the top "WARNING: DEATH FOR DRUG TRAFFICER" :|
Double checked I hadn't left anything dodgy in my purse after that... There is a condom in there, hope they don't stone me for that :S
BIT SCARY!
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Day 2: Thurs 23/May
Passport control was fine, turns out I hadn't accidentally left any drugs in my purse so didn't face imminent death. They took our fingerprints which was weiiiird, but had no problems.
Got in at midnight, NO FREE INTERNET!? Jeeze! Went to bed at 2am and other than taking a while to fall asleep and waking up briefly a couple of times slept until 2PM :O cool.
Wanted to go to a shop to get some fruit and bits; cloaked up in my full abaya and head scarf gear and head out in the 40 degrees heat. Walked for about half an hour (seriously, that was the 'nearest one' said reception!?) via popping into a mall to see if they had any food shops (nope) only to find it was closed for the hour when I got there, as was EVERY store, for prayer. Apparently this happens 4 times a day!
So I sulkily walked back, sweating my balls off and getting weird looks because (I think) my abaya was made for a 5ft6 person and I had about 6 inches of leg showing! I'd decided to be a rebel and wear my PJ's underneath (the highlight of wearing a full body cloak, surely?) so I was this black ninja with 6 inches of bright pink polkadotted PJ's above my feet. LOL. It made me self conscious, anyway, but again- I didn't get hassled for this so Saudi isn't all as nasty as I expected. A man in the mall even gave me his business card, grinning like a goon. Apparently they think foreigners are 'easy'. Lol!
I forgot to say but on arrival to the hotel (I'd stripped to just a t-shirt and knickers below my abaya a the airport because it was 30 bloody degrees and I'd had England wear on before, and, y'know, when in Rome...) as I got out of the taxi I flashed half my damn naked leg to the door guy- he looked ecstatic and was grinning massively as he brought our bags in and kept grinning at me while we checked in. Figured that's as indecent as flashing my tits in the UK! Can't believe I haven't been flogged here yet, all these slip ups, noob. Haha.
Shooting was dull as hell; filming a royal wedding. It was SO tacky though, had this weird ice/crystal theme with huge cave crystal like shards sprouting out of the ground made of mirror and surrounded with cushioned seats. It was weird, and the reflections meant it was hard to get shots without other camera girls in all the time. There were 7 of us! 4 filming, 3 photographing. I felt like I really didn't need to be there, but at the same time two of the company's sort of chair women were photographing so I had to look busy even when I'd covered everything to death and my back was killing me from wielding a 4kg piece of kit around my neck all evening.
The bride was STUNNING though, wow. She looked like a cross between Cheryl Cole and Eva Longeria- SO pretty. And so damn tiny (very jealous!) and her dress was pretty awesome.
Anyway, wrapped at 3am, finally got to eat dinner then went home.
EE+/Green pretty much (didn't go overboard on HexB's though!)
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B- 2pm: Instant Porridge HexB1 (room didnt have a kettle and hotel didn't want to give me one until I said I needed it for my 'medicine' lol?) banana ration was: 1, so saved it and appallingly had no
L- 5pm: Sweet and sour mugshot (free), grilled vegetable cous cous (instant mix- about half- think that's about 1.5 syns), an orange, a banana.
Snacks while filming: alpen light (half HexB2) banana (asked the hotel and they just gave me some- lol? I WALKED ALL THAT WAY FOR NOTHING), apple, a bit more couscous, a couple of naughty sweet canipe nibbles, but maybe about 3 in the 10 hours I was around them, so I feel pretty alright about that!
D- 3.30am :S
It was a buffet so I just sort of piled random stuff on my plate. Didnt go to overboard though and didn't have anything too dodgy :O stuck to fruit for desert, too, despite all the glorious looking puddings! AWWW YEAAAA. Massive resistance high five.
Had mainly rice, sushi, some pasta bake thing and a couple of weird things I didn't have much of. There wasnt much meat but I did have one or two bites of chicken, but I think it was pretty much a green day actually! The sushi was mainly veg. Had a few king prawns too (they were MASSIVE) with some prawny dip, probably a teaspoon. Had a bit of houmus too. MAINLY green; will class the prawns/chicken bite as second half of HexB2! Had a load of pineapple and melon for desert, mmm, AND a kiwi sorbet which was INSIDE a kiwi. I was so enthralled by this. I then went back and got an orange sorbet (INSIDE the orange, with the top back on! So cool hehe) an some other weird spikey fruit one that tasted like mango and lychee :O anwyay, they were tiny, fit less than a scoop in each so, um, yeah, that was my treat for the day
god knows how many syns.
Stole some rice and chicken for tomorrow (the one bite I did have was gooood so threw away my remaining couscous and nabbed some in the container) and a load of really nice and ripe lychees, cherries, orange melon (SO SWEET AND RIPE) and a couple of nectarines. That's tomorrow sorted for Superfree!
Drinks: two green teas, 1L water, one small diet coke from plane. Should have drank more but it just wasn't very available at the event :S
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Not sure what the game plan is for tomorrow but it is 5.30am now (got back at 4.45am) and most of the girls are flying back at 7am! SO glad I didn't opt for that flight :|
Maelynn who I am flying with is being kicked out of her room at 1pm so will be coming into mine (got my own room this time as there was an odd number of us
woo!) so guess she'll be waking me up in 7.5hrs :/ fun.
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Day 3 - 24th/May
Didn't get to sleep until 7am (probably could have taken the 7am flight and just slept on that :S) spent the day sort of lazing about with Maelynn then went for lunch and had some fantastically smooth houmus and the warm chewyy flatbread mmmm. Pretty low key day but was nice to recover a bit.
Managed to bring my rice stash from the wedding on the plane as well as a banana and nectarine- will be good to snack on fruit if I need it but I plan on sleeping if possible! (typing this from flight, about to take off)
EE + flexi, late flight back (midnight Saudi time - 6am UK time)
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B- instant porridge (HexB), lychees, melon, nectarine (all nabbed from the wedding yest- sooo juicy and yum!)
L- Had a few bits of the chicken I had packed (sweet and sour esque, really yum) and some more fruit then headed out for houmus and flat bread with a side salad (which was basically just cucumber and tomato) was probably a whole pot worth of houmus though! And a naan bread sized flat bread, but obviously...flatter. lol
Dinner/Snacks on flight: 2 bananas, two or three alpen lights, nectarine, fruit from the low fat breakfast tray (blood orange and regular orange) and a nibble at the gross chicken they served :S dinner was a sandwich but I just ate the chicken rather than the bread, it was nasty too, really dry. I ate the rest of my rice and a kitkat like thing that came with the dinner (quite small) and had about half a shot of whisky in attempt to help me sleep (didn't!)
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Post flight - About to land. Am knackered, didn't sleep on the flight- maybe half an hour broken up, but was kinda counting on 6hrs sleep :/ dang. Train home is going to suck and the jetlag *gulp*
