Celebrating Saudi Roots
On February 1, 2022, King Salman ibn AbdulAziz issued a decree that Founding Day will be celebrated every February 22, henceforth. We have been celebrating Saudi National Day since 2007, so what is the difference?
On February 1, 2022, King Salman ibn AbdulAziz issued a decree that Founding Day will be celebrated every February 22, henceforth. We have been celebrating Saudi National Day since 2007, so what is the difference?
I remember well going down to the Dhahran International Airport (DHA) when the Concorde SST visited back in June of 1972. It was a sales call with Concorde and Rolls Royce executives hoping to sell a few planes to Saudi Arabian Airlines. In the end, Saudia declined to place any orders.
Help identify a member of the 1974 Dhahran Summer Student Recreation Advisory Committee.
After a botched spinal operation left her partially paralysed aged forty-five, Bizzie Frost found herself unable to enjoy the active lifestyle she loved in Saudi Arabia. That was remedied six years later when her airline captain husband, Frosty, proposed they buy a Harley-Davidson.
Peter Sanders’ exhibition, “Searching for Light,” recently opened at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) in Dhahran. I was fortunate enough to attend the opening and hear what Sanders, the leading photographer of the Muslim world, had to say about the work in his first retrospective in Saudi Arabia.
No two people have the same opinion about attending Saudi Aramco reunions so it’s hard to put into words what people feel like when they attend. The time that we all spent in Arabia is special and unique, unique to us. If you’ve never attended a reunion, you cannot know the feeling that comes over people as they begin to see friends or just others milling around wearing name tags.
Join the 2024 Aramco Hafla Reunion Facebook page and check out the new auction page!
The ARAMCO Retiree Golf Group has two trips planned for 2024 that include Palm Springs, CA April 15 - 19 and Irving, TX August 30 – September 2, which will be held in conjunction with the ARAMCO Annuitant Reunion at the Omni Hotel in Las Colinas.
Take a look back at the top hits and highlights of 2023 including our favorite photos, stories, celebrations, and more. Thanks to all our readers, contributors, and sponsors for another great year!
I came to Dhahran on February 13, 1949. I was eleven. Each Christmas in the Field at Dhahran was memorable because the Company did so much for us. They strung a cable and mounted a star at the softball field. At the evening celebrations, the Nativity featured real animals - camels, donkeys and sheep...
Salzburg was the scene of our first car malfunction when one of our tyres burst! We stayed the night in a hotel overlooking the castle and took in the city while waiting a replacement. We really only had time to visit the Cathedral and gardens...
In 1978 six socialist republics made up the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. These were Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes had been formed in 1918 after WWI and subsequently became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929.
In Part 1 of this series, Mark Lowey recounts a tour of mainland Portugal in September 2023. Part 2 describes a side trip to São Miguel Island in the Azores, the remote nine-island, Portuguese archipelago 900 miles west of Lisbon in the North Atlantic Ocean.
We had decided to have a holiday! We would spend a couple of days exploring Athens and then take a ferry to one of the islands from Piraeus. We checked into the original Esperia hotel on Stadiou Street where I had stayed a year before and where we were able to garage the car.
The pleasures of the holiday season, as celebrated in Aramco camps throughout the 1960s, are depicted here in photographs from the Arabian Sun & Flare.
Sadly, none of us have particularly strong memories of Syria. Under the rule of the al-Assad family and the Alawite minority since 1970 (and has been ever since), I think our intention was to travel straight through to Turkey, but this plan was thwarted.
My colleague, Heather, and I were supposed to go to a wedding in Hyderabad, India that week in January 2022. However, COVID was still very much on the national consciousness and rumors were flying that if we went to India, we were not going to be able to return to Saudi.
Back in Amman, we decided it was a good opportunity to visit the occupied West Bank and Israel. We organised a tour with a driver and guide. The tour included a taxi from Amman to the Allenby Bridge crossing, first built under Ottoman rule with subsequent rebuilds in 1918, 1927 and 1946 due to earthquakes and terrorism.
The Aramco Retiree Golf Group held its ninth event at Horseshoe Bay (HSB) Resort on Lake LBJ in Marble Falls near Austin, Texas. Golf activities included three rounds of golf at HSB Resort Ram Rock, Slick Rock and Apple Rock golf courses.
From the Jordanian border post at Al-Omari, it took about 2 hours to reach Amman. We had treated ourselves by booking rooms at the newly built Ambassador Hotel, which overlooked the eastern part of the old city, with a breath-taking panoramic view, and more importantly a bar!