" My husband has accepted a position in Riyadh, and will be leaving in about 3 weeks. I will follow sometime in Oct. to ""check out"" the compounds as well as the Diplomatic Quarter. We have 3 children ages 12(girl), 10(Girl) and an 8 yr. old boy. We plan to all be there by the first of the year. I''ve been corresponding with a few expats over the past couple of weeks which has been very helpful. But I still have some concerns and questions. Does anyone have any feedback on the Diplomatic Quarter? We''ve been told that the homes are much larger than what we will find on the compounds and for less money. Will travel out of Saudi for vacation purposes be a difficult task? Home furnishings, can most be had at reasonable prices, or should we bring as much as we can with us. i.e. sheets, pillows, kitchen odds and ends.... How do most children adjust? I understand that there are quite a bit of after school activities etc. Can they bring their GameBoys and Sony Playstation? Are we able to get satellite TV? Will we be able to communicate with people at home via e-mail. Or is it pretty much censored? I appreciate all the help and info I''ve gotten so far from everyone. Thank you. Cara McGrehan "

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" email is easy, lots of isp''s in Riyadh. No censoring on the email but www sites are censored, they just don''t allow access to site they think are pornographic. Recently they stopped access to Yahoo clubs because some of the clubs had objectionable photo sites. Main Yahoo is still available and Yahoo mail. Most companies have houses for you in a particular compound, not necessarily in the DQuarter. DQ has lots of large houses but so do many other area''s of town. My company has 4800 sq.ft houses in a compound with 400 houses in it, very nice area with lots of facilities in the compound ie tennis, pools, satellite tv, restaurant, store, gym, bowling alley, and there are rooms in the rec center where people teach classes ie stained glass, dance etc. I unfortunately live in a trailer 90 miles out of town but stay some weekends in the Riyadh compound. Most companies supply all furniture and bedding, towels etc.Bring the gameboys etc, the tv''s are usually multisystem and they will work on them, there are lots of games available for the units in shops here. Traveling out is no problem, companies get entry/exit visa''s for you whenever you want to go out. Also from Riyadh it is only a couple hours drive to Baharain for a weekend and a beer, nice hotels there on the beach and good restaurants. Riyadh has lots of good restaurants of every variety, McDonalds, Fuddruckers, Burger King, tons of Chinese(some good buffets for about $10 all you can eat), Filipino etc. Even a couple Mexican restaurants in town and a few very good Turkish which a lot of westerners like. Coffee shops, French restaurants, internet cafe''s. Riyahd has a few area''s with furniture stores, a few hundred of them including most American furniture brands and a lot of locally made to order furniture. Clothes are easy to find or have made for reasonable prices. Most kids adapt, find friends on the compounds and the compounds are safe for them to wander around. Mark "

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