Up-Selling: Always Be Closing

Dubai, it seems, is pushing us dangerously close to the ledge we've always known was out there for us, but that we trusted we'd never completely go over:  The We Don't Cook Anymore Ledge.   Don't get me wrong:  We still grill up some chicken from time to time, and we still make spaghetti every now and then, but these events seem to be getting fewer and farther between.  The problem is the plentiful, cheap and delicious delivery options, combined with our reluctance to shop for groceries.  So here we are.  Flirting with the abyss we thought was reserved only for pampered urbanites and the culinarily challenged.  Every night we sit around and decide if we want to order Chinese, Arabic, Indian, Pakistani, or if the mood is right, American.  And then it comes to us and we eat it, shaking off a slight sense of shame that it's now been two weeks since we turned on the stove.  

One evening this week we were going through this routine and were disappointed to learn the Gyro Man was out of gyros.  We cast about for an acceptable alternative, but none of our usual options sounded like the perfect thing.  It was then that I remembered the sign on our street for Hardee's restaurant.  I googled Hardee's Dubai, found that they deliver, perused their menu, and gave them a call.  There was something unique about their call-center:

"Assallam-ulaikum, Hello, how can I serve you!"

"I'd like to order some food for delivery..."

"Excellent, sir. Would you like to try our dee-lishious Western Burger? It comes with barbecue sauce and fried onion rings! It is quite dee-lishious, sir!" '

"OK...that sounds good.  I'll have one."

"Medium or Large, sir?"

"Medium."

"Excellent Choice Sir!"
"OK, I'll also have a chicken burger."

"Would you like a large chocolate cookie!  They're delicious!" 

"Sold."

I was fascinated by a couple of things about this exchange:  The first was that Hardee's had successfully spent their advertising budget:  On signage, on the website, and on the friendly gentleman who answered the phone.  I also was slightly disoriented by the TGIFriday's-esque salespitch I got from the call-center operator.  Does he get a bonus if he sells more cookies and Western Burgers?  If so, how much must it be to justify his extreme cheerfulness?  The whole thing felt extremely western-capitalist-customer-service, in a way that many of our interactions do not, but it also felt new, like this guy had not yet had his soul crushed by weight of thousands of the exact same call.  Here's hoping my cookie purchase was the one that put him over the top.  

Speaking of up-selling, we drove out to the beach last night after finding out by phone that a beautiful private beach at the Umm Al Quwain Beach Hotel allows non-guests to use their facilities for a mere 50 Dirhams (13.00 USD) each.  We headed out early, eagerly anticipating a day of sipping beers in the sun.  When we arrived though we found that either a private party, a decision by the Sheikh, or a whim of the manager had made today "Hotel Guests Only".  Downcast, we drove around Umm Al Quwain, making a liquor store stop and splurging on a bottle of Johnny Black, calling the two other hotels in the area and deciding that their beaches were insufficiently beach-y, before finally convincing ourselves it was a special occasion, calling back to the people who turned us away, bargaining them down to a price we could almost justify, and telling them "OKAY!  WE'LL TAKE A ROOM FOR THE NIGHT!  ARE YOU HAPPY?!"  We were.  It was a fantastic day at the beach and it made it a beautiful weekend.  Money well spent.  

The Wedding

It was a long and arduous process preparing for the wedding:



Ok so, the wedding was a lot of fun. There were things I liked about it, things I didn't like about it, and things I thought were interesting. In critical thinking class, we like to "PMI" a statement, which stands for "Plus, Minus, and Interesting."
The statement is:

"I should do my wedding in the style of a traditional Emirati Wedding."

First, the plus:
All my (lady) friends get to eat a ton of great food and dress up like it's 1999 and dance to some sweet arabic beats. Also, there's no boring ceremony. We get straight to the partying.

The minus:
I, the bride, don't really get to participate in the party. I have to waddle in, weighed down by my tremendous voluminous ornamental dress, after all the dinner is finished, and slowly... SLOWLY... CAREFULLY... make my way up the aisle to the large baroque couch on the large baroque stage, where I will perch and not move (I couldn't if I wanted to, what with the dress) while all the partygoers come greet me and congratulate me and take photographs of me.

The interesting:
The groom arrives at about 1 in the morning, when the party is winding down, escorted by his male brethren, and the bride must be fully covered in a big white cloak with just the sparkly fringe of her grievous burden peeking out the bottom. while they come in and walk him up there and snap a few pictures. After all the male brethren leave and the groom remains, she is uncloaked. I guess it's because they aren't supposed to see her? I didn't quite get the purpose. I will have to ask the bride later exactly what that was all about.

I could expound on the interesting all day. That wedding must have cost at least $40,000, and that was only the ladies' half! I have no idea what the groom was doing during this party; I believe he was having his own party, which I imagine must certainly have been of comparable or greater scale. We had table service in a ballroom fit to hold 300, and there was a staff of probably 40 running around bringing us strawberry juice and little pancakes and salads. There were teams of 2 carrying around giant hefty trays of chocolates, large enough that a single person could not bear the load, to each table to offer the guests. We had a delicious dinner of kebabs, three kinds of rice, heavenly hommous, harees meat (blech), chickens, biryanis, who knows what else, all served with a nice waiter to dish your food onto your china for you. Then desserts, and assorted sweets, and teas, and all manner of nonsense. I was wise to take only tiny samplings of each thing.

There were adorable little children running around in marvelous little dresses, and the gowns, the GOWNS! It was better than a fashion show. And some elder lady in the family threw lots of money in small bills of the stage so the adorable little children could all mob-rush each other in an attempt to grab the loot.

Logistically speaking, there were few errors. I went with my galpal and, despite having no idea where this event was taking place, we managed to get there without a single wrong turn. It went something like this:
Me: "Are we going to right way?"
Her: "Follow the signs."
Me: "I don't see any signs."
Her: "Pull over and ask this guy."
Me, pulled over in crapulator, to Guy in expensive suit, manning security post for a bunch of Ferraris and Hummers: "Excuse me, do you know where the wedding is?"
Guy: "There is no wedding here. Try the next building."
(At the next building, after turning into a random multi-story carpark and reaching level 3)
Me to the valet: "Do you know where the wedding is?"
The valet: "Yes. Park on the 3rd floor. Go down the lift. Turn left on exit. Hall 5."
Cha-ching!

Furthermore, a pen burst in my purse at dinner, nearly causing a conspicuous inky disaster involving my outfit and a variety of fine linens. Luckily, I was able to control the damage and make it to the bathroom like a secret agent without damaging anything or having anybody notice.

The cream on the cake? When we turned in our paid parking token on exit, at 1:30 in the morning, we were told... "free!"

Another minus: being to work at 8:00am the next day.

Raining again

It's raining again here in Dubai. It's starting to feel downright Portland-ish. It's very dark outside -ominous clouds, the whole nine. Kind of nice.

Last night we went out for sushi at this place called "Shogun". It's buried on the second level of Ghurair city near the pool where no one from the street would probably ever find it, save for word of mouth. They serve Japanese, Korean and Thai food, including that crazy Korean BBQ stuff that you cook at your own table. We had a bunch of sushi, and some Korean duck, and some gyozas and unusual salads. Very very good. We're definitely going to go back.

Healty Food Festival (sic)

Today I got an e-mail invite for the "Healty Food Festival" which I totally deleted because I couldn't figure out who it was from and I didn't appreciate the misspelling. Then at 12noon these students I've been helping do research for the last month came RUNNING into the library shouting Miss! Miss! Miss! Why haven't you come to the healthy food festival?!?!

I had to scan my brain to even remember the e-mail and then put 2 and 2 together.

"Oooooohhhhhh," it dawned on me. "That was you guys?!"

...and before I could even close my laptop and grab my coffee off the desk they were hurriedly ushering me out of the library to the classroom where they had this whole huge array of healthy Arabic foods they had prepared or bought to show off what they had learned recently about nutrition.

It was DELICIOUS! I had some spicy pasta stuff, and some rice stuff, and some chicken sauce stuff, and some grape leaves, and some pancakey thingeys with cheese, and some tea with milk. I have never seen most of these foods before and the students assured me that they were all arabic foods. What an insight. Delicious. Did I say delicious?

There were a few other faculty there as well and we all sat and ate and had a nice chat about their recent trips to America and how they cook and whatnot. These students are very pleased because I can pronounce their names correctly and their regular teacher cannot. :) All those hours repeating gutteral sounds alone at home until I got them right are really bearing fruit. I also learned that a guy who teaches at the college, named McDermott, when his name is translated into Arabic, comes out "Makadermoot', which means "incapable of dying". Amusing.

It's a wedding!!

I have been invited to a wedding! A student is getting married next Wednesday. I'm sure it will be quite an experience. I had the following questions and asked someone more experienced for the answers:

Q. What do I wear?
A. Dress to the nines. It's all ladies, so feel free to shake whatcha got.

Q. What do I bring?
A. Nothing

Q. Do I need to bring the invitation to get in?
A. No.

Q. Where do I sit?
A. Someone will show you.

Q. What happens at the wedding?
A. You eat a LOT of food and talk and marvel at all the gowns. The bride doesn't come in until late, and when she does, she walks up the red carpet and perches on the couch and then the everybody lines up to walk past her and congratulate her.

Q. Is there any talking in English?
A. Very little, but people will do their best to engage you.

Q. What about the groom?
A. He comes in WAY later. IF you stay that late, bring a shawl to cover up.

Should be very educational. I'll provide a full interpretation after the event.