What was life like before 9/11?

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At least in Riyadh, the place was still fun and roaming with westerners (Canadians, Muricans, Europeans) and the school was actually multicultural instead of various shades of Arabs claiming to be from Manitoba or some random state. Teachers were good and competent. We had a large group of Canadian or French friends. I actually had real friendships with interesting people from the same horizons, and we could do fun stuff like go in the desert without fearing being shot by terrorists. And the Saudi government didn't give a rat's ass about extremists, in fact they funded them and claimed that no terrorist could be Saudi/true Muslim because they were in fact all dirty Egyptians or Yemenis because all Saudis were quite perfect.

On the other hand, I faintly recall (I was in grade 4 then) that the mutawas (CPVPV) were far more active, virulent and acted like assholes even to the whites. Internet and stuff was still tightly controlled, cost a lot and hard to get. Airport security leaving the country was a massive joke (unless you were a woman) as it always was/is; but security upon entering the country was actually quite tough but not because of stuff like bombs but rather to prevent the Crusaders from bringing forbidden movies (Lawrence of Arabia), banned books or *gasp* a film of my baptism with a *gasp* priest. Of course, in the local Saudi context, the transition date is not as much 9/11 but rather 5/12/03.