Late last night, I had trouble sleeping. It was the last of my very long Eid vacation and I'm supposed to have gone to bed early. But no, I didn't. Instead, I'm nursing this Eid cough which I thought is already gone. And as if to taunt me, I saw a rerun of Criminal Minds with the opening line: "Elbert Hubbard said no man needs a vacation so much as the person who has just had one."

Ggrrrr....

So what became of my Eid? Except perhaps for that pesto pasta that I planned cooking and much lesser of those movies that I planned watching, I was practically right when I second-guessed what my Eid will be: boring. And unhealthy.

I met two old friends and we stayed up until wee hour in the morning catching up with stories about a lot of personal things; mostly nothing. The next day we woke up early and cooked cholesterol-laden fried fish with inihaw na talong and bagoong.

With another set of friends, we attended an alcohol-free beach party until two in the morning. (When I say alcohol-free, I didn't mean free alcohols; I mean, without a single drop of alcohol. So just imagine how boring the party was). There's a lot of glib talking and cigarettes and card games but practically nothing else which (or no one else who) could have prevented me from going home early.

Wednesday last week, Corniche in Alkhobar was lit with fireworks which I tremendously enjoyed. I was literally jumping with joy like a kid as I admire the beautiful (I think, China-made?) fireworks which lasted for fifteen minutes. A friend muttered: mukha kang tanga! I said: hey, you gotta enjoy these things because they happen only once a year.

Anna's Apple of My Eyes have some wonderful photos of the Corniche fireworks if you want to see them.

So that's what my Eid was. Today is my first day of work and I have a lot of catching up to do. Like a new post for my blog. (Grins sheepishly). Hehe.

Seriously, if I were to believe Morris Fishbein, I think I still need a longer vacation (and better vacation activities) because I'm not yearning yet for work.

More seriously, I've got to stop this. I'm here in Saudi to work, not to waste time. I need to re-channel my current state to a more pro-active tune...(as if I know how!).

I leave you with the following photos of what happened in Alkhobar last Wednesday during the celebration of Saudi Arabia Day. Full news here. I'm glad I stayed home after watching the fireworks display at Corniche.





(These photos were circulated via email. I tried googling who Sultan Al Sharqiah is for credits but was unsuccessful, hence, I linked the photos to the Arab News report).