1996 was the best year of my late-early youth. I was seventeen, I had just returned to Riyadh from spending a spring month in Istanbul with my family. Prior to that month, I was in Dubai for a week with father and two of my brothers, India for nineteen days with my older brother, Egypt for five days with mother, and London for a weekend with a friend. As soon as I returned home after that, I learned I was on my way to America, alone.