Ziad Reslan is a Blakes articling student currently spending some time at the firm’s office in Bahrain. He’ll blog periodically about what it means for an articling student to live and practise law in the Gulf.

“It has been eight years since I left my native home of Lebanon to pursue postsecondary education in Canada. An undergrad and law degree later, the last place I expected to end up was back in the Arab world for my articles, but that is exactly where I now find myself. It all started with Blakes offering me a rotation in their newly opened office in Bahrain, an opportunity I jumped at without hesitation.

My schedule has been set so that I spend four working days in the Bahrain office and one day in the Khobar, Saudi Arabia office. On my second day working in the Gulf, I made my first ever journey to Saudi Arabia via the Bahrain-Saudi causeway. This breathtaking 25-kilometre causeway connects the tiny island of Bahrain with the Arabian Peninsula. As you cross over into Saudi Arabia, you enter the Eastern Province that contains the adjoining cities of Khobar, Dammam and Dhahran. The Saudi Aramco compound, a mini-city that houses personnel of the world’s largest oil company, is located in Dhahran. The compound (pictured) could very well be any suburb in North America, complete with large houses, green spaces and even jungle gyms.  Surrounding the compound, and as I quickly learned throughout Saudi Arabia, you can find virtually every single American fast food store you can imagine — with a couple of Second Cups for good measure.

While in Saudi Arabia, I was invited to my very first business development event: a ghaba — a late night meal that is a staple during the fasting month of Ramadan — at the house of a client. Getting to the house of this client meant driving 30 minutes into the desert. The incredible size of the client’s property meant that there were not one, but two roundabouts within its perimeter. After passing the second roundabout, we reached the client’s enormous home. Inside, I quickly learned that behind all this glitz and glamour was the best part of the event: Saudi hospitality. The host insisted on personally serving his guests, despite an overabundance of servants. What was supposed to be a light meal turned out to be an enormous sampling of a plethora of dishes from Saudi cuisine. If my dish was ever empty, the host insisted on refilling it to the rim!

If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far during my stay in the Gulf, it’s that I need to toss out any preconceived notions I had of the area and its people. This is shaping up to be a learning experience like no other — but more on that in the next update.”