Holiday mood and newfound freedoms

Before I finally go on my (well-deserved, I think) vacation to my home country today - here is a short sign of life from Saudi.
Felix is already in Germany, he left last Friday, I'm following him now (because the Eid holidays, or the feast of sacrifice, begin and I officially have time off).
After my return in a week, I will be alone in Saudi as Felix has a position as a research diver for the Mesocosm project of Geomar in Gran Canaria until the end of the year, and after that he will probably (still keeping our fingers crossed because no contract has been signed yet) start his PhD position at the University of Bremen (but actually on Giglio).

Another reason to keep the time here in Saudi as short as possible. But since I will also defend my proposal at the beginning of September and the doctoral thesis is going quite well, I am confident that I will finish by the end of 2020.
Fortunately, I have also gained a little more freedom just in time before Felix's departure. Last week, I finally got my Saudi driver's license!

Since the end of June, women here in Saudi Arabia are finally allowed to drive a car! Unfortunately, I couldn't simply transfer my European driver's license, but I had to drive through the entire country to Yanbu, which is about 300 km away, to take the practical exam again. It only took about 2 minutes to drive a course on a traffic training ground, but with the whole journey there and back, the whole action took a whole day.
However, the next day I was able to use my driver's license when Felix and I had an appointment at the consulate in Jeddah. Felix's passport had to be renewed and we finally officially registered here.

Driving in Saudi actually made me a lot less nervous than driving a manual transmission car for a longer distance again,.. the last time was probably during my voluntary year in Haz and that was almost 10 years ago.. But everything went well and we arrived back safely.

Fortunately, our bird is doing really well again, he has even started flying again! He's not completely sure yet, but he's getting better every day and practicing diligently.

There's not much else to report at the moment. Last weekend, I went on another diving liveaboard trip (unfortunately without Felix because he was already gone). This time we went further north to Yanbu. It's always a bit cumbersome for two days of diving - but these weekend trips are always quite nice and necessary - you have to see something other than your desk and such a trip is very convenient as a short vacation.

That's all I have to tell you for now. Keep your fingers crossed that I have a good journey tonight and arrive safely, and above all that my luggage also arrives in Germany (it's currently Hajj and I'm afraid that there will be even more chaos at Jeddah airport than usual).
Until next time, best regards!