The Ball Field

Here is the Ball Field or ball park, I forget which is the ‘official’ title – it used to be (strangely enough) a ball field for baseball and stuff but it’ not any more, more of a park area. Here is where the library is, a café, bowling area (which I only saw the other day), restaurants (a tandoori-come-pasta place) and THE CINEMA. I love the cinema. I am so pleased we have one because they ain’t allowed in Saudi outside. Though some people slag it and prefer to go to Bahrain, I love it. It’s a bit like a 1950s theatre but modern, apparently they expanded it quite a bit from howit used to be and the films they show are a lot more up to date. I was surprised what has been on – Slumdog Millionaire, My Blueberry Nights, Revolutionary Road, New Town. So someone somewhere has obviously made the effort to up the ante here and am well chuffed. Plus enry is £1 and popcorn is 50p!! Bargain :).

A pic of the cinema!! (blue building)

Also love the library (yes I’m very sad…) got great paperback selection, all the magazines which is much cheaper than buying new (imports are expensive, about £6 to £8 – with any ‘inappropriate’ pages ripped out, which can be very annoying I have to say…) plus newspapers. The usual library thing. And some good DVDs.

Restaurants are fine, again not everyone’s cup of tea, but good for a nosh if you don’t mind the salt intake and also do a great meze starter of hommous, tabbouleh, motable (like hommous but with aubergine) and stuffed vine leaves. The ace thing is you can order antying off the menu for delivery or pickup, and I mean anything (well apart from jasmine tea I found out). eVen the meze which you get beautifully laid out on a wee foil platter. The only ‘drawback’ is with everything, and I mean everything, you get 3 enormous home made nans – this is just a drawback because you end up with so much food. If you order a ‘special’ nan (eg peanut one, exremetly tasty!) then you still get the 3 standard ones. It’s like they can’t send anything out without them. But as they’re warm and very fine (except if you’re one of the anal people who goes on about carboyhydrates and how bad everything is here). But the area is jolly fine for an evening wander.