Lazy Saturday

Today we went to see "Coraline' at the movie theater, which was thankfully free of screeching children and people answering their cell-phones for a mid-movie chat.

I was intrigued to notice all the signs pasted to the inside of the ticket windows informing us that "THE THEATER WILL NOT BREAK THE LAW SO DON'T ASK US TO" with reference to underage moviegoers and censorship and whatnot. 

We came back after the movie and decided to try, for the first time, the upstairs schvitz. (Schvitz = sauna.) It was pretty awesome! I can't believe we've never done it before. They had nice wood and hot rocks and a big spoon and everything. I've never schvitzed before because I always thought it sounded kind of icky, but it was very relaxing.

Right before the schvitz Dan went wandering around the locker room shirtless to find the men's room and bumped into an unsuspecting woman who said "sorry sorry!" and ran out as fast as possible.  Interesting.

Random Saturday Update

I went to the mall by taxi the other day and was dropped off at the "VIP" entrance. They had red carpets and guys decked out in ostentatious gold arabesque suits and white gloves to open the taxi cab door for me. 

This week we've been watching the French open. Due to the time difference, it comes on after work, which is convenient.  While I was at work on Thursday, Obama gave his speech in Cairo. We streamed it on the laptop and hooked it up to the big screen in the meeting room and put it on the big speakers. ("We" being the three Americans in the vicinity.) I think: if that guy can't achieve world peace, then it's really, really gonna come down to Miss America.

We're getting ready to come home to America in a couple of weeks for vacation, and I've never vacationed in Portland before so I think it's going to be fun. 

Other than that, not much news to speak of around here. 

1 Year and 1 Month: Stray Observations

1. I arrived in Dubai on May 1, 2008. Hard to believe it's been that long. 

2. The heat isn't so bad this time around. It's 44C today(111F) and it's not really a huge distraction. I've been eating lunch outside on the patio, sans A/C, and it's actually quite pleasant. 

3. The Arabic is improving. The lady of the house and I can go three or four sentences into our greeting before retreating to English. Trying to stay diligent with the practice, but laziness periodically sets in. People are occasionally impressed with our pronunciation. 

4. It's possible that I now drive like a jerk. There'll be no way to know until I return to the painful traffic-politeness of Portland. 

5. I am now quite a bit more sensitive to portrayals of Arabs and Muslims in the media than I was when I left. Did you know that the U.S. Media often misrepresents Arabs? Did you know that Sayid from ABC's Lost is British and of Indian decent, and would never be mistaken for Iraqi by anyone who had ever met an Iraqi? This is the kind of thing which now drives me crazy. 

6. I don't miss much, (aside from family and friends) but I admit that I miss my neighborhood dive bars. I wasn't really prepared for their absence. 

Out to dinner with Colin Powell

Before I get everybody's hopes up, let's start here: I did not get to personally meet Mr. Powell. I did get to sit near him while we both ate an absolutely fantastic gourmet dinner. 

Unfortunately, I arrived to the soiree (At Mina A'Salam, above) after the time for photo-ops and handshakes, due to being stuck in the parking garage of the Trade Center after the commencement for almost an hour, waiting for every other person in the parking garage to pay their fee and exit before me and my chauffer. The commencement at the trade center was fine, fun to see the graduates and everything. See one walking across the stage while Colin Powell and Sheikh Mohammed hand him a diploma....

...and I was worried about being late to the commencement after getting out of the salon late prior to that. My expert chauffer, however, navigated us to the graduation with deft, class and style in plenty of time. He even insisted I take time to change in the bathroom of the Dubai Mall before departure - so confident was he in his abilities to bend time.  I, of course, needed to be in the salon for 4 hours, in order to look like a movie star in the unlikely event that I should get to meet Mr. Powell. (Exhibit A: beauty-rific Alicia gazing at a biography of Colin Powell.)

So, salon and commencement aside, the real fun began at dinner, even though we arrived late. We were served wine and a terrific salad with like a balsamic & truffle oil dressing with some cheese... it was MELT in your mouth delicious. Then we had some kind of very good lentil soup with fresh lemon juice. Then, Colin Powell had to leave to catch a flight. Which means he missed... the filet! A huge, perfectly medium-rare juicy tender flavorific steak with a little glazed potato and some roast cherry tomatoes. Mmmm. Dessert was a baked cheesecake that I hardly paid attention to while eating, but I think it was good.

We even had complimentary valet parking, which is great because I get a huge kick out of it when the man in his formal hotel wear opens the creaky door of the crapulator for me, so I can step out looking all fancy and then wait while Mr. Man explains how you have to press a button under the steering wheel to start the car. Very classy.

The funny thing about the night was the number of terrible fashion faux-pauxs everywhere - sitting in front of us at commencement was a beautiful woman in a beautiful white backless dress.... with a big fat black 3-hook brassiere strapped across the middle of her back. On the way out? Some woman in a black top and leopard-print skin-tight pleather pants was being accompanied by a gentleman who seemed truly enthralled, and who appeared to be actively ignoring the giant white and hot-pink tag hanging off the back of her shirt which read: "Marks & Spencer / M / $17.99". She must have been in as much of a hurry as I was yesterday.

Interesting times

We're in the home stretch for summer vacations now. It's interesting times over here; I've got my hat in a lot of rings (or something) and it will be interesting to see how it all pans out over the summer. I am -really- into this system where you get to go away for several weeks once a year and get your mind refreshed to come back with a new start. Without it I'm pretty sure everyone would have killed each other by now.

We have this arabic coffee shop/cafe at the foot of our building called Sawalef, and although it's mere steps from our front door, we've never brought ourselves to go in there. Everytime I walk by, it's 100% dudes smoking shisha. I just feel a little out of place. There's a "family corner" on one side, but you can't see in, because it's the family corner, so I can never tell if any chicks actually go inside. I sort of suspect that they might have some really awesome arabic food and coffee there, but after 15 months of living right above it, I still haven't brought myself to go inside. The tentative plan is to take a stab at it before holiday time.

In other news, the nation of UAE has now offered me the first possible use for my Emirates ID card (some of you may remember the saga involved with getting the ID card, a legal mandate). Apparently, if I want to avoid long passport lines at the airport, I can enroll my ID card to function as an "e-gate" fast-track card. In order to avail myself of this functionality, I have to go somewhere, stand in a long line, and pay a fee. In other words, to avoid one long line, I have to sit through another. I think I'll just keep using my passport per the usual for now, thanks.

Lastly but not leastly, I'm invigilating (I think I used to say "proctoring") a college entrance exam for high school girls in Umm Al Quwain this weekend, entitling me to a night at the beach hotel gratis, which I won't really be able to take advantage of, what with the working, but Dan-O most certainly will. Another 12 hours of beach-sitting, I presume, while I stand at the front of the classroom: "Shayla Check! Let's see those ears! No hiding any tiny electronic cheating devices, ladies!" I can't say I'm not looking forward to it.

Oh how I long for a pug...

And not only so that I can dress him up as a pug-tato...

Why do the simplest things have to turn into a moral dilemma

This was our Friday morning this week; white wine, blue cheese, herbed crackers, smoked salmon, walnuts, fresh fruit and jams on the porch. We played chess and I lost badly, but didn't mind since the blue cheese was so good.

Mornings like this I can't help but think about the Pakistani construction workers. How rich we have it, really. Mind you, we drive the crappiest car in Dubai, eat cheaply, don't subscribe to TV, make do with cellphones from 1996, and wear generic label clothing. We have massive student loan debt. But we're still a thousand miles ahead of the construction workers, who work 16 hour days in 100-degree heat for pennies. Sometimes it makes me want to take my cheese back to the store.

I'm having a lot of wealth-guilt this week because Colin Powell is in town and we're going to a dinner with him at the Madinat Jumeirah. My evening-wear collection is limited so I went shopping for a dress, and after trying on several in the $500-$1500 dollar range, I settled on a very beautiful one for $119 and got a little black lacy shrug to go with it for $76.  Still, it took a long time to decide to buy it. The last time I bought an evening gown was over 4 years ago, and off the clearance rack at Meier & Frank. The clincher on purchasing this one was a mental image of myself in a room full of gorgeous women dressed to the nines, smiling and greeting Colin Powell, and me ashamedly sitting in the back hoping no one will notice my frumpy "business casual" day-wear. Should this really be a major concern??? Obviously not.

Anyway I'm looking forward to seeing Colin Powell. Now I'm trying to decide what to say, should I get the chance. Preferably something other than "waaahhhhh!!!" as I fall off my shoes.

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.

Dr. Kalam

Yesterday Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam came to the college to speak. For those of you unfamiliar with the man, he was the president of India until 2o07.

He's a cute little old white-haired guy, and a space scientist. He told us; "A leader takes the failure, and gives away the success." He also told us, "Never say anything is impossible. Science makes the impossible possible. Do you know the honeybee? A very ugly little fellow. If you look at the actual dimensions and the size and the roundness of the honeybee, I would tell you he has no business flying. And yet he flies."

Monsoon

View from the library front doors 10 minutes ago. Must have sound to fully appreciate.

The rain (and hail) in Spain (er, Dubai) stays mainly in the.... all over your windshield

I especially enjoy how everyone feels the need to put on their emergency flashers. :)

Oh the weather outside is stormy...

But the teeeeeemperatuuuuuure's so warm-y. (Pic from Gulf News, 29 March 2009).
It's downright torrential out there. This morning hubby dropped me at the pickup bay, and I had to walk across campus to get to the library as usual, and arrived at the front door soaked like a drowned rat. Then I immediately had to go take a coffee break to warm up again. The whole crew called in sick today (4 people out!) AGAIN, after just a couple of weeks ago when we had 4 people call in on the same day. I worked here an entire year and didn't use a single one of my God-given sick days, so I lost all 15 of them. Maybe I need to get a new strategy.

Lingerie - a salesman's forte?

I was very surprised today to learn that women in Saudi are almost universally required, by default, to make their lingerie purchases from men.  This is a side effect of some other policies aimed at keeping men employed and keeping women out of employment in mixed-gender locations.

Hilarious? Yes. I loved the quote in the article: "even in very open societies like the US, women do not buy lingerie from men." Darn straight! Unless he's very, very, very gay, I really prefer to keep my discussions about intimate-wear and what it can-or-cannot do for me between ladies. Not only that, but what if the guy is cute? Even worse.

Lingerie, speaking of which, is big business here. I've never seen so many small, mid-size, and large, independent and corporate, boutique and -non, underwear stores in one place. Back home, it was like, Victoria's Secret or bust. If you want granny panties, any big-box department store will do. But specialists in lingerie are hard to come by. I remember when Oh Baby opened in Portland a few years back and it was kind of a fantastic novelty that kept coming up in conversation. Over here, I'm willing to bet your average woman spends at least as much on underwear as she does on outerwear. Maybe more. It's a whole 'nother thing.

Imposterization

That last post was actually me, posing as Stanley, for some strange reason. It's FINALLY the weekend and I am so pleased.

My witty crafty pal over at Lipstick & Legalese was recently fawning-Obama, and today I must do the same. He's going to answer my questions on whitehouse.gov tonight. I don't know if the rest of you noticed that whitehouse.gov has been taking questions and votes on questions for the last couple of days, but the potheads sure did. The top-ranked questions in every category have something to do with legalizing marijuana (including categories like "budget", "jobs", "financial stability", etc.) One-track mind, these internet-savvy ganja bums.  I wonder whether Obama will actually address these questions. One way or another, I will be watching and adoring.

We ordered a bunch of Chinese food and we're gonna get stuft silly and watch Lost tonight and stay up late and generally appreciate life. My colleague, who has been very, Very pregnant, for some amount of time that seems way too long, went to the hospital this afternoon to presumably have her baby. So maybe by next week sometime I'll get to snuggle a brand new baby whose cuteness I can appreciate and who I will have no responsibility for! 

Mickey Boo Boo

My South African friend says that "Mickey Blue Eyes" was actually a hilarious movie and she can't understand why it wasn't received well in the States. "Americans have no sense of humor", she asserts.

It's 7:30 in the morning and there is a HUGE thunderstorm going on outside. I guess there was some hail as well. The road out front appears to be partially flooded. I keep waiting for my boss to call and tell me it's unsafe to come to work, but so far no dice. The crappy part is, we went out for dinner last night and left the car at the hotel, so Mr. Man has to take a cab back to his car this morning, and I have to walk to work in the flood.

Speaking of which, Mr. Man valet parked the crapulator at the hotel last night. I'm glad I arrived there early with our friend and didn't have to witness this scene. 

Anyway we went for seafood buffet, which could have gone either way, but it went the FanTAStic way. They had absolutely phenomenal service, wine & spirits included, seared tunas, sushi, prawns, crabs, calamaris, a little station where you could tell the chef to cook you up some prawns in white wine with butter and garlic and things, the whole shish kebab. MAN it was good. Then we took a cab home... and here I sit, the following morning, waiting and waiting and waiting for the weather to.. "let up".

Eventful stuff

I had an interesting improv-vocabulary lesson this week with a group of students recently after one of them misused the word "spank".  Turns out there's an awful lot of ways to describe physical assault on someone.

Speaking of physical assault, my colleague had her purse snatched this week. She was sitting outside of an Iranian restaurant on the sidewalk in a neighborhood called Al Muteena. Al Muteena is a fairly crowded, busy area where lots of laborers wile away the hours on the strip of park running down the middle of the street.

Well, my colleage was sitting there with her hubby eating food, she in one chair, purse in the other, when some guy blazed by at high speed and snatched the purse and took off down the street. Hubby jumped up and took off after him as well, tripping over the guy's sandals on the way, which had apparently become dislodged from his feet during the heist. She jumped up and said, "HEY!", which alerted the somewhat out-of-shape restaurant manager of the problem, and he took of after the guy as well. With three guys now running at high speed down the street, one of them shoeless, the rest of the crowd didn't want to be left out. 10 or 15 or 20 of them took off after the guy as well. After a lot of mobbing and shouting and chasing, the purse was recovered, but the thief (arabic: Harami) escaped, now out one set of perfectly good sandals. Following the tradition of good hospitality, our Iranian restaurant owner apologized profusely and repeatedly to my colleague for the incident, even though he had nothing to do with it and probably nearly caused himself a heart-attack chasing after the culprit. What a dear.