Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, part three

After our interview with Prince Alwaleed, we headed out of the Kingdom Centre for lunch. Our cameraman Brian, Canadian through and through, was hanging out for a steak and a beer. The beer wasn’t going to happen, but we managed to find a steak house – inventively called The Steak House. We ate in the family section of the restaurant, where men and women can eat together, otherwise I’d have been all on my lonesome in the women’s section. 

Later that afternoon we filmed in some of the large suites inside the Four Seasons. All of them were bigger than the entire four-storey walk up I lived in in Toronto. This is where the famous and wealthy stayed, and I wondered what I would’ve heard if those walls could talk. They were stylish, classic, and pristine – a little too staid for my liking, but I wouldn’t complain about staying there, all the same – so long as I didn’t have to pay.

The next morning we watched the amazing chefs work their magic at the poolside Grill Restaurant, and then headed into the kitchens to see the construction of the Kingdom Tower confections that were waiting in my room on arrival. 

Later, I faced my fear of heights head on, on the 99th floor Skybridge, right at the top of the Kingdom Tower. As long as you look straight ahead, it's fine....

But if you look down....

When the wind blows, the city is engulfed in a haze of sand – lucky for us we had a pretty clear day.

That day my views on Saudi women began to change. By this time I’d become quite used to the abaya and hijab, and still being the same person underneath, I'd realized that perhaps wearing the clothes didn’t mean sacrificing your identity, your character, or your femininity. Brian was leaning on the angled glass, looking down to the ground nearly a kilometer below, when three Saudi women started heckling him in Arabic. We heard them giggling first, then calling out, and then one sidled over to him and asked in English “Are you single?”

I just about swallowed my tongue. Covered she was, demure she was not! 

My preconceptions changed even more when we visited the Kingdom Mall, in the Kingdom Tower Centre. Here, husbands and wives shopped together, aside from on the ladies-only floor (Ladies Kingdom.) Most of the women were wearing the niqab, so all but their eyes were covered - eyes that were adorned with dramatic, and exquisite, makeup. Expensive shoes, some with incredibly high heels, peeked from the bottom of their embellished abayas. They clutched Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Chanel handbags, which carried their Versace or Dolce and Gabanna sunglasses. The husbands of these women dutifully carried armfuls of shopping bags. It seemed their private relationships weren’t as foreign to me as I’d expected – and it was a nice surprise.

I was itching to get out into the city to see more of Riyadh, and over the next days, that's exactly what we did.