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So like everyone who arrives in a new place (especially somewhere as foreign as KSA is to someone who has never left the US) I was extremely nervous. I wanted to post this so people arriving in Riyadh have some idea what to expect.

After a 15.5 hour flight from San Francisco to Dubai and a 7 hour layover, I landed in Dubai. During the flight they handed out immigration forms which contained very basic information (name, passport number, visa number, ect.). Do yourself a favor and fill this out before you arrive. Once off the airplane I walked past a huge indoor fountain and got in the immigration line. Everyone told me to stay as far right as possible, but after reading the signs, the only line for single male first tme arrival was all the way to the left. I arrived at 3 am and the lines were not terrible, but there was a lot maybe 300) African women who were arriving for hajj.

After waiting in line with about 39 people in front of me and not moving for aut 10 minutes, a Saudi military officer with two stars on his shoulder came over and tapped me on my shoulder and told me to come with him. I'll admit I was instantly nervous about what I had done. He led me to an empty line and called over another guy and said something in Arabic. The guy logged into the computer and checked me in - taking figure prints and rewinds scans and I was waved through. After I left he closed down the line again. I heard that westerners sometimes receive preferential treatment, but that was amazing.

I went around and picked up my luggage. This was the part that I feared the most. I had 4 bags with me, with one being a full tower computer in a military style shipping case. Another having two computer monitors and lots of computer cords, and my carry on containing 3 internal hard drives and 4 externals (I am a technology fanatic and could not live without a powerful computer). I thought for sure I would be stopped and have everything checked, because in all honesty it did look a little suspicious. I got a cart and moved my bags to the X-ray area and put them through. Camera around the other side and was waved out! All in all 39 minutes from the time I left the plane till I was officially in the kingdom.

Once out I could not find the person who was supposed to pick me up and was immediated approached by several drivers. I turned them down and kept walking back and forth. After about 20 minutes I decided I needed to call my contact (who actually in unexpectedly traveled to the US the day before) I have an iPhone and use Skype to make calls so I walked around trying to find an Internet connection so I could make a call. One of the drivers that I turned down before saw me again and came over ands offered me a ride. I told him I was calling my ride and he handed me a cell phone. I thanked him and said no, because I was calleding the US but he insisted and dialed the number. After a couple of calls, I was able to track down my guy who was at the wrong terminal. The young Saudi was very nice in helping me track down the driver, I offered him 50 riyals for helping, but he refused several times, but finally took 20.