“Do You Have Anything To Declare?” 0
Jeff Gauger remembers his time in Saudi Arabia during his early days as a reporter. A nugget:
While there, I stayed in three different hotels, one each in Jeddah, Riyadh and Al Khobar. As here at home, booking a room required guests to fill out a registration card. The cards asked the usual stuff: Name, car tag number, method of payment.
They also asked for a guest’s nationality. And one other thing — religion.
I wrote “Christian,” although doing so made me queasy. I wasn’t ashamed of the faith of my upbringing but providing details to conduct normal business made me uncomfortable.
Read the rest.
