Bye bye Saudi

The last hours have come - (almost) everything packed, desk cleared, flight checked in.
Felix finally had his interview today :-) It went well too ;-)
We also had a short final meeting with our professor. Even though the last few days have been a bit stressful, it seems that everything is going pretty smoothly and successfully in the end.

Today I also tried to find out the status of my application again at the Admissions Office (because actually all documents have been complete for 2 weeks, the English test and interview went very well - and therefore there is actually no reason why the university still hasn't given me an acceptance)... unfortunately they couldn't help me directly. They just said 'everything is there', 'you look good' and they will 'contact me soon'.

But what else has happened in the last week?
Felix worked diligently on his data and summarized a report on his project - but there will be a lot of work to do at home.
It's about the same for me - we discussed the draft of a paper here, examined data, created graphs and started with the statistics. Now we have to write the manuscript at home.
As a last cool task, with Felix's help (who has experience with cold-water corals), I created 3D shots of my shells:

      

                                       3D model of a shell

On Thursday, the 'FLAVORS' festival took place - a big festival for the KAUST community. Not only the people at the university, but also everyone else who lives and works here. For many, it is the highlight of the year because you can participate in a raffle and win a car or flight tickets. Unfortunately, as interns, we were not allowed to participate :-(

Together with our friends Flo and Sabrina at the FLAVORS festival

Instead, we got lots of delicious food (and admired a square doner kebab skewer :)

         

We also had a lot of fun with the children's program. Half of the Sesame Street sings, off-key, loud and in Arabic - you have to experience that ;-) ●

         

                                            Sesame street ;-)

At the weekend, the main focus was on 'packing' and preparing everything for the journey back. But on Saturday we still had one last snorkeling trip - with great weather at a beautiful reef.

In the evening, we also went to the 'King Abdullah Monument' - nothing spectacular, but still on our 'to do' list ;-)

          

                    Felix, Eli and Susann at the King Abdullah Monument

It was really cool that I was able to listen to Claire's trial lecture today. She is part of the university's communications team and is responsible for the KAUST social media channels as a full-time job. As part of the TEDx series, she will give a lecture on 'Communicating scientific topics in the post-factual era' at the beginning of March. She will also briefly talk about my Instagram account 'scientificdiver' :-)
I'm pretty proud of that ;-) Next stop - my own lecture ;-)

                           

All in all, we have a nice ending and hopefully this is not a goodbye forever.

With a laughing and a crying eye, we will leave for home tonight. Our taxi will pick us up at 10:30 p.m., the flight will leave at 2:30 in the night (so it will be a tiring journey again).

But from tomorrow noon we will be back in Kiel, looking forward to a cool beer and a crispy schnitzel :-)
Hopefully see you again soon, all the best
Felix and Susann