Well my good friends in Saudi did just so happen to be from the US. XD We lived apart from the locals there, in camps (that's the way they wanted it - the locals). But it was pretty nice because it was a small place where everyone was in the same situation, with a little shop, and restaurant, and sports areas and such. Little slice of enclosed paradise. At the gates they ran metal detectors under all cars that came in (ours too), since even though nothing ever happened while I was there the mood between some of them locals and us outsiders wasn't so great... something about those religious conflicts. :) We actually lived there during 9/11. Tension was kinda high at that time, but I've heard it got a lot worse after we left. No idea how it is now.
Haha yeah that would have been fun! Wouldn't have dared take any of them back then though, but if we did... it was all sand you know. :P Just flat sand stretched out as far as you could see beyond the walls (which was another cool thing but kinda derails that awesome hill-sliding possibility). We have snow mattresses over here (Sweden) during the winter though, and they do pick up some crazy speeds! :D Fortunately I have a nephew so we can do those kinds of things! Woo!
Mmm me too. :) I'd like to see a bear some time too, now that we're back home and all (dad's retired so we're no longer bouncing around as much). Not too up close though.
Cyberdevil
You've been around! :) I like collecting things too. Rocks. Shells. Polished bits of wood. Like being out in nature. I love the desert too, though haven't ever explored them so much. Just been fascinated by the texture, and warmth, and the endlessness of it all. Hmmm I remember quite a few small adventures growing up, hopping between countries (my dad worked at Ericsson, so that was the both big benefit and bane of the job - never staying one place more than a couple years).
One time I went jumping between small islands of gravel and trash in a shallower part of what people used to call the 'shit river' close to our home in Escazu, Costa Rica. It was basically a really dirty-looking river that - if people didn't tell me things that weren't true at the time, was basically made up entirely of sewage water, and led down to a cleaning facility where all that water was filtered before it went on to the ocean. There were fences on both sides wherever you went, but of course they weren't all whole and unpassable.
I don't remember any smell, so maybe it wasn't true at all, but a lot of people threw their trash over the fences so it definitely looked the part. The surrounding landscape was mountainous so the water was raging, it was wide yet enclosed in shrubbery and loose earth, with steep and trashy edges, and it was all pretty exciting to traverse until I jumped onto a patch of land that wasn't as steady as I'd thought and started sucking down my foot like quick sand. I managed to jump back, retraced my steps, and that was the end of that particular adventure.
In Saudi me and my good (but probably not very positively-influencing) friends climbed through an unlocked window into a motel, into a room just packed with stacks of dusty mattresses, where we crept around as if in tunnels through the storage - the hazy sunlight falling in through the dusty air. We didn't dare stay there too long, but that might just have been the most adventurous venture we were on... and it was a cozy room too. An unexpected find within the camp within which we lived there.
Other times we climbed outside a fence at the top of a stairwell onto the roof of a three-story building, climbed into the pool area after opening hours and went swimming with our clothes on, went out on a wild chase after what we thought was a stolen bike that I'd just parked on the wrong side of the house and forgotten about... another friend, who happened to be a Scout, tried to patch up a wound from a dog bite with a banana leaf, that I'd attained while trying to pet a stray dog. Fortunately his mom realized something was up when he asked her... not sure what it was now, if they had band-aid's or if banana leafs really did have a blood-stopping effect, either of those. XD At the time all of this might not have been as fun but looking back...
I remember walking through new cities, or places, and taking in the sights and sounds and strange bits of new cultures that both scared and intrigued, like passing over a high river and stopping to look at a bed of alligators below, or like crossing the street to get around a drunk in a country where you don't know the language; don't want to confront anyone because you don't know what to say or how they'll react. Or a bit more mundane: following random slivers of water into the woods, paddling around the lake, seeing gigantic old trees plummeting down into the depths under the surface... so many small moments. Man. Memories are nice to have! Feels like this post woke up some slumbering mementos. :) Want to start doing some spontaneous things; taking in some new impressions again.
FransHansenson
Dude fuck yes! I've never been to Saudi, but it sounds like the kids out there crave adventure as the one out here in the USA. You know what would've been cool?! If you guys took those mattresses (you'd have to be sure you wouldn't use them again) and slide down a wet hill / small mountain with them. It's sounds like it'd be fun if the mattress was small enough. Or you could use giant, plastic, storage lids for it.
Man, now I want to go to the woods and have woodland adventures. And see an alligator. (I've never seen one in real life.)