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okay welcome back to my channel if it's
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the first time you've seen me welcome to
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youtube i have basically decided to put
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this video together because i've had
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lots of people reach out to me on
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instagram asking me about moving over
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can they move with their girlfriend can
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they move with their boyfriend what is
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it like is there stuff to do so i just
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wanted to basically create a series
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whereby i give you the information
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around what it is like to live here so
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actually today funnily enough it has
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been my two year anniversary
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of living in saudi arabia i came over
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here and when was it 10th of september
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2019 so i've been here throughout
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through the whole of corona didn't leave
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didn't go back to london so so i'd like
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to say i'm i'm settled in i've got my
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own apartment my car my girlfriend too
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so life is very good and i just want to
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share
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with you what it is like out here
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because honestly if you come out here
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for work or even a holiday then you will
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not regret it i don't regret a decision
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i've made coming out here not for a
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second and then just to give you a bit
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more information about me
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i as i said i've been here for two years
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i am a personal trainer here i upped and
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left london
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uh left the nine to five the hustle the
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commute uh and yeah decided to just try
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something new in a new country a totally
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different country and i must say i'm
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loving every minute of it so
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what i'm gonna do in this video is talk
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around
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you know what it is like here questions
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that i get asked a lot in terms of
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where is good to live compounds
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apartments flats and generally what the
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area is like so i hope you find it
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useful so for me i'm quite lucky because
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i live with my girlfriend and it looks
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like ikea has vomited all over our
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apartment as you can see it's quite
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messy
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but this is what it's like on the inside
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we're more of the lucky ones whereby
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we're in a big residential compound i
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mean there's no kids here at the moment
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but they are a nightmare
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and generally
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it's it's a nice place to live and and
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one of the first questions i get asked
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is around compounds basically so in the
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middle east especially saudi compounds
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are areas
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where people expat specifically live
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really
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you know they're not necessarily
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essential anymore particularly in saudi
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so over the last couple years things
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have really opened up here and so you
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know if you're a foreigner or an expat
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you can really live live anywhere but
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the reason why compounds are popular and
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they carry a price tag um is that
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they are places communities sort of
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closed off um secure you get various
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different types you get some which are
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you know 10 20
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apartments or villas
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and then you get some of the others
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which are more of the village type
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compounds whereby
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you know they're up to 200 300
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apartments or villas and those really
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are the ones where it's kind of like a
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sort of five-star holiday resort in a
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way you've got you know you've got kids
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clubs you've got all sorts of gyms and
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pools and facilities restaurants and
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everything but
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you know from my experience here in
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jeddah is that you don't actually need
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to live in a compound um so as i showed
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you earlier my place is is a residential
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complex so it's open to saudis as well
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but it's open you know they still vet
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people who who apply here so that you
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don't get people who are going to cause
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trouble uh and it's generally a nice
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place to live besides all the kids
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so i would suggest depending on
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obviously what you like
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go for compounds which are a bit smaller
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not necessarily the village type
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compound so the smaller compounds
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essentially you know
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it's a smaller community but they tend
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to be much much much more modern so
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similar to what mine is like here you
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know it's white walls feels new um well
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it's kind of new whereas the older
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village types are sort of 20 30 years
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old and they are warm they are raggedy
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they're dark
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and they're not that nice but you know
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there are a couple options whereby you
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can really focus on the sort of
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you know facilities and have an awesome
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gym awesome swimming pool and that kind
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of stuff examples of some of the village
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compounds are shabatly and then also our
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basatine village compound so these are
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huge they're like 200 300
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apartments or villas and as you can see
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from this map which i'm gonna put in
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just here um they're massive they're
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massive so they're nice um they come
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with a price tag and they are very
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children friendly so you know they have
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everything you need in there but now
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that i would say jeddah the community
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everything here is opening up a lot more
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you know you don't necessarily need
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everything at home whereas in previous
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years you did because there was just
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literally nothing to do outside then
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you've also got some of the smaller
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compounds much more modern uh which
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again as you'll put in here if i can
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work this well um like sukina compound
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uh and a couple of the others can't
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remember the names of the top of my head
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but i will include them um these are
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much
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well to be honest much nicer
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putting it frankly uh maybe i'm a bit of
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a snob uh but no you know they're
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they're just finished nicely they're new
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they're modern and you don't necessarily
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have that kind of
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dark wood finishing beige from just you
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know
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people living in it for for years and
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years and years so they're definitely
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worth a look at
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and you know they're in some of the
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areas whereby
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they're more developing so there's going
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to be a lot more coffee shops and
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restaurants and all those sorts of
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places but i think now what i'm going to
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do is i'm going to walk outside for a
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bit and then show you
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kind of what it's like here so i've
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taken you up to the top of my compound
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and this is the view absolutely lovely
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right so
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we have lots of building going on over
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here because jetta is developing and it
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is
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basically one big building site you've
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got a big cityscape over there
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and around here so that might give you a
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bit of an oversight as to what
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is around me jedda's developing there's
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a lot of new malls a lot of new
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restaurants all that kind of stuff
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apartments compounds everything so
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give it a few years and it is going to
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be
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a whole different place
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what was it two minutes outside
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i am very sweaty so this is going to be
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you're going to get a first-hand
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experience as to what jeddah humidity is
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like
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so that there you can see
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my compound in the background well i say
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compound it's more of a apartment
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complex type thing and now i'm just
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going to take you on a trip through the
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local area so you can kind of see what
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the vibe is like for people living here
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and as you can probably see i'm sweating
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profusely already
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because there's not really any pavements
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in this place i mean
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you know this is one of the back end
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roads but
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generally speaking
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nobody walks here because look
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it's way too warm
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and you're gonna get hit by a car
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realistically everything is pretty much
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behind closed doors um i imagine the
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reason for that is
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obviously saudi's come from a very
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restricted past and still is in some
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ways people want to be able to do what
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they want to be able to do in the in the
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privacy of their own home which
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is essentially where compounds came from
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so you know people
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wanted that privacy wanted to be around
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people who were similar to them
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and weren't going to get in trouble for
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doing certain things and behaviors for
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whatever those might be i think one of
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the things that gets people when they
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look at my stories and when i send their
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pictures and everything of where i am is
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obviously it's very very very culturally
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different to somewhere like london and
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so
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that often
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makes people a bit well people are
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afraid of different right
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so they couldn't imagine themselves
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living here they couldn't sort of
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well they think it would be like the
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worst place to know
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but actually
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i love it i love different
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culture everything i think once people
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get over that
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then you know they can actually start
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living and exploring experiencing
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different things not just what they're
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necessarily used to
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[Music]
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so as you might have guessed
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stray cats are everywhere it's
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kind of sad
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but
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i guess they're the uh they're the
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pigeons
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of uh of saudi i mean
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always on the road as roadkill
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it's very sad see it's getting quite
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warm now i mean it's always warm
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uh just sweating even more so you
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probably would have seen
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you know some places which you thought
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looked a bit
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some places which you thought were a bit
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nice like this here is one of the big
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international schools like anywhere you
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get parts of town which are lovely rich
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people you get parts which aren't
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necessarily as nice which unfortunately
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just you know tend to have more poor
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people in them so in terms of
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location and and what to expect when you
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come here is it is very
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you know diverse in some ways there is
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definitely the gap between the rich and
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the poor unfortunately that line is
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is often blurred quite a lot because
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everything happens behind closed doors
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so you know you've got gates gated
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houses gated village gated compounds so
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you know location
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doesn't really necessarily matter all
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that much because you do have um sort of
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security and protection around and
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on top of that actually the crime rate
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here is pretty much zero from what i've
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seen in my two years here i haven't
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heard of anything
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nothing bad in terms of
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of crime but then again that might just
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be the circle that i'm fortunately in
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and we are back home
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no yes the kids are out
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you see this is why no one goes walking
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in jeddah because you just end up like
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this after 10 minutes i hope that has
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been some sort of enlightening if not
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or if you do want to know more actually
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please do
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please do just get in touch um i'll be
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more than happy to help with any
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questions if anything has put you off
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please don't let it as this wasn't
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really an accurate representation of
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what
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life in jeddah is really like it's just
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a bit of me blabbing on about and i
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hope some of it
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is useful and thank you once again for
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watching my videos if you haven't
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already please watch the adventure
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videos on my channel uh there's all
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sorts in there showing you that saudi is
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actually a pretty incredible place lots
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of incredible stuff to do so if you
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haven't already subscribe now and i
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shall see you next round
