Just have to share

So I'm coming out of seclusion to share this bit of pricelessness;

My department at work is going to Chili's for a department "end of the year lunch" kind of thing, so the lady organizing it brings take out menus to work for us to choose what we want, she can send the order in early save time, etc.

I walk by the front desk and there's a group of my three most Indian of Indian colleagues, all crowded around a single menu and scruffling their eyebrows to and fro as if trying to decipher heiroglyphics.

"Vat is thees?" One says.
"Sal-Mon?" The other sounds out.
"Google it!" The third suggests.

They proceed like this all afternoon, poring over the mysterious items listed on the Chili's menu, finally deciding on cajun chicken sandwiches (for the hot peppers) and virgin margharitas. :)

Going into seclusion for awhile.

Lack of motivation.

Food Food Food Pause Recovery Food

In what has turned out to be a somewhat surprising holiday, I have been doing nothing but eating and drinking and nursing early-morning headaches for three days straight. Also enjoying lots of good company and meeting new people.

Went to a Canadian couple's home for Christmas dinner and had a bona-fide de-licious home made turkey and gravy. Mmmm.... went to another friend's house for Christmas lunch and we had Indian food and watched some super tear-jerker 3-hour Hindi movie featuring hunka hunka Aamir Khan. It was a really good movie, but I still can't get into all the singing and dancing in Hindi movies. It's just so weird how they randomly break into large-cast musical ensembles in the middle of like a dialogue.

Went for Christmas-leftovers dinner last night where a whole new leg of lamb was roasted so I'm not sure how THAT was supposed to work.

Have two more social engagements this week (NYE is one) and then I'm starting arabic class twice a week in the evenings. Just finished enrolling... I'm pleased to have discovered on their placement test that I've self-studied my way to the 5th level of study (although I think there are about 10 levels above that.) Work is paying for most of it through professional development fund so that's also a huge perk. But now I'm going to have homework and stuff... eek...

A little cheer

There's sure nothing in the world more cheerful than making people smile. :) My mom & best friend decided to open their Christmas presents early and turned out to be quite pleased. Victory!

It's getting a little bit chilly in Dubai but not bad. Went shopping and tried on lots of dresses that are waaaaay above my budget, in anticipation of this wedding in January. Of course, they all looked fantastic. I was hoping they'd look frumpy and then I wouldn't want them anymore.

Christmas in Dubai, Take 2

Second Christmas in Dubai is shaping up to be fairly uneventful. Christmas Eve I have been invited to dinner at my best friend's house (best Dubai friend that is; to my best friend in Portland; don't worry, you're still #1 on my speed dial...) ... so that should be fun. However, her new boyfriend has monopolized her Christmas day, insisting that they go to Christmas lunch together.... **alone** ooh la la. Not that I can blame him, I'd surely want to do the same thing.



So my Christmas Day so far involves sleeping as long as humanly possible and then making myself a bowl of spaghetti-O's. If it seems like I'm reveling in loneliness and depression, it could be because I'm taking a page out of Charlie Brown:




"This is my depressed stance. When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand. The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better. If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this. "

On the bright side, I've been invited to a wedding in January, so I can at least have a good excuse to buy myself a new dress. Because nothing cures the blues like shopping...

Salazmeyer flies solo awhile

Many of you know by now that half of us are in Nepal in pursuit of greater knowledge of the Universe.

The other half of us are in Dubai for the holidays, fairly broke, and more recently, sick like the dickens. It ain't pretty. This year, my good friends are either madly in love with someone new (ie; preoccupied), or are away, or are going to very expensive brunches for xmas. So I will probably spend Christmas just calling home and cleaning house. I volunteered to work xmas weekend to let the other people go spend time with their loved ones.

This past weekend it rained heavily - for like 12 hours straight - and caused a lot of crazy flooding and traffic nightmares. People were stuck for 4-5 hours on the freeways around town. Some nice pics here.

I am now on a mission of self-improvement; read more, study arabic more, exercise more, eat better, spend more time with my friends, call home more often. It is a mere 6 months until summer break again.

Thailand cont'd

Thailand was entirely awesome. In the interest of time, I won't go into excessive detail. My two excellent travelling companions and I did manage to fly to the island of Ko Tao (pictured above) after a bit of a hairy spot: one of us (I shant specify who) forgot to bring along the credit card used to purchase the plane tickets to the island in the midst of all that late-to-catch-a-plane rush, meaning we nearly couldn't board the plane. It being my birthday though, a little birthday luck must have kicked in, because our counter lady for Bangkok Air let us make a printout of the credit card statement and use that to check in instead. So we made it. I spent my birthday laying on a beach from paradise and drinking mai tais.

The next day we decided to venture to the other more remote side of the island, and after negotiating some pretty steep hills in a hired truck, made it to a picturesque private cove with a small beach and an awesome garden/bar/restaraunt. I went snorkelling for the first time ever and saw a reef shark.

After 2 days there, we went to Ko Phangan island by ferry, early in the day, to pick up some neon paint and fluorescent bead necklaces for the Dec 2, 2009 full moon party on Hat Rin beach. This, folks, is an event. An all-night crazy dance party on the beach stretching probably a kilometer and a half up and down the sand, absolutely chock full of spoled suburban co-eds delighting in the wild expenditure of their parents' money. There were also a few cool people.

Basically though, my partners in crime and I wandered up and down the beach all night drinking out of buckets (bucket vendors spring up in massive rows along the beach and throughout the town for this event, all the bucket vendors have named their business something vulgar and profane, and they all mix a bottle of alcohol with 2 mixers into a plastic bucket with ice which is distributed with several straws to carry around and share amongst friends.)

We danced, we tired at 3:00am, wandered back, got a cheeseburger on the way and called it a night. The next morning I got up at 8:00am to go open up my safety deposit box and could still hear the party going down on the beach.

All in all an excellent trip. I love Thailand - everything was so clean, and all the people were so friendly. Except for one tuk tuk driver, who Stanley got into a fairly fierce debate with over his knowledge of the location of the real Samboon Seafood.

Stanley: "You know where it is!!! You know!! You know!!!"
Driver: "I no know! I no know!"
Stanley: "You do!! You are a liar!! You know where it is!! You take us to the wrong place because you get commission!! I saw you, you know that man!!!"
Driver: "I see you later! I see you later! I no know that man! You crazy!"
Stanley: "WHATEVER"

Welcome to Thailand

We are currently in Bangkok, Thailand. The story of getting here requires a brief mention of Thanksgiving.

Had a stellar Thanksgiving in Dubai - went to Palm Grill at the Radisson for real bona-fide turkey dinner which was definitely a step up from hot turkey plate at Harry's Bar last year (although Harry's definitely did us right for 65 dirhams.) Our dinner Thursday was a cut above for sure, although we were fairly lonely in there; I don't think there's a huge population of Americans in Dubai eating out for Thanksgiving.

Anyway, after staying up late and drinking a lot of fantastic grenache at the palm grill, we went to bed quite late under the assumption that our flight to Bangkok the next morning was leaving at 8:30. Turns out, that was an incorrect assumption. Long story short, alarm goes off at five, we take our sweet time getting up since we're a bit winded from the previous evening. We still have to pack our bags, and as I'm sleepily throwing things in my bag, I decide at 5:35 to check the exact time of our flight (was it 8:25? 8:35?) and notice that the flight actually departs at 6:55. 6:55? Hmm ok do the math.... that's 80 minutes from now. Shite.

So, we throw as much stuff into the bag as we can in the 90 seconds it takes to call a cab and get the taxi there, and manage to forget: a) a camera b) all of Dan's toiletries c) shampoo d) the credit card required to check in to our Sunday flight to Ko Tao.

We got to the airport as checkin was closing and managed to at least check in to our flight, only to be swiftly corralled into a long slow line for passport control. After waiting but a moment, a nice Emirati man came over and asked if I was Alicia and would I please follow him? He led us to the front of the line and directed me to a particular passport control officer who turned out to be none other than: ding ding ding, a student of mine. She apparently spotted me in the crowd and decided to spontaneously grant me a little favorable treatment, which I was more than happy to accept at that point. I am now an important person; I have wasta; I know someone in passport control.

After arriving in Bangkok though, we got it all sorted. I learned a long time back that you don't actually need luggage to travel and the airline helped us with a workaround so we will indeed be travelling to Ko Tao tomorrow. All is well. More later.

What's New in Lishaland?

My mother draws my attention to the fact that nothing's been posted since halloween. I'd like to say that this is because I'm leading a fast-paced, action-packed life, and that I have no time to do such things as update blogs, but this would just be false and misleading.

The truth is, I've been up to not much. The main news is about work: I managed to secure a large grant for a work project, which is going to keep me very busy but also keep me on a good professional career path for the time being.

Cousin Michael also came to visit, which was a lot of fun - the boys went for a spin at Aquaventure while I was at work:

We also decided to celebrate my birthday early, since this year it falls during Eid al-Adha and National Day (a week or more of national holidays which will send everybody skittering off out of town), so went out on the 5th to Chi at the Lodge, where we sat in VIP and drank a lot and danced our tooshies off until 3am. It's interesting in this town, that at 3am, they actually turn the music off and turn the lights on, even though the whole floor is still packed with people who seem like they could easily go until 6. I think in the States they usually just stop serving drinks at closing time, and let people dance themselves into a more coherent state for a little while. Am I wrong?

Lastly but not leastly, we are planning a little week-long getaway to Thailand for the above mentioned holidays, which fall from Nov 27-Dec 4. Not sure of all the details yet, but I'm sure it will be fun! More to come.

Halloween in Dubai

...an interesting experience. We went to a halloween party at someone's house in Arabian Ranches, which is like a suburb/development full of nice villas in a planned cul-de-sac style community.

Dan dressed up as zombie Michael Jackson, and he did a really good job with it. I was MJ's "spiritual advisor".

All in all, it was a good story, with a beginning, middle and an end.

Beginning: Candy, drinks, and some dancing. Alicia doesn't drink, as she is driving.

Middle: Everyone jumps in the swimming pool

End: Alicia barely manages to drag Dan back into the flat conscious, after explaining her life story to the police in the parking lot outside.

Beirut et cetera

So I went to Beirut for the weekend and had a great time. Took very few pictures. Was busy. Found the place a strange mix of new & old; found myself standing in front of the shelled Holiday Inn in the middle of downtown and trying to understand why, some time ago, people were firing rockets at this building, but now they are not, and I am standing quite safely on the corner viewing the evidence. What makes the difference between then and now?

Things you must do in every country: visit the casino, and visit the McDonald's. I shall report:

A) McDonald's. Menu the same as in UAE - McArabia burger menu speciality. Nice view of corniche/sea. Mmmm.

B) Casino. Large, busy - gambling occurs in Lebanese Pounds, and the exchange rate allows me to sit down with my 100,000 worth of chips and casually toss out 10, 20, or 30,000 on a bet. Sheeet, I'll even double-down and make it 60,000. Let's live dangerously! (Total USD hanging in the balance: $66.)

Unfortunately fell a bit ill before coming home, spent two days feeling under the weather. But didn't catch the swines, so that's good.

Headed to Beirut This Weekend

After living in Dubai for a year and a half, it started to bother me that I haven't seen any other cities/countries in the region. So after receiving a random e-mail promoting a super discount airfare to Beirut, I decided to go ahead and book myself a weekend.

I'm leaving Thursday afternoon from work - all by myself! - and am looking forward to checking out the city and doing some reading/relaxing/shopping/et cetera.

I also went ahead and signed up for salsa lessons, in an effort to get myself out of the house more often. I'm curious how it will go. :) There is a Cuban guy here in Dubai who gives lessons out of the Community Center.

Other than that, life is normal - except that everybody at work seems to be coming down with swine flu, which an extraordinary pain in the rear. I do not want to get sick!! I do not want to get sick!! I do not!!

Eid in Fujairah

Last year we didn't do anything for our Eid holidays, and wanted to avoid doing the same thing this year over a mere lack of planning. So, we mapped it out, drove 2.5 hours east, and spent the Eid weekend here, at the Meridien, in Fujairah, lounging by the pool and celebrating the end of ramadan with plenty of good food and drinks. We somehow managed to get a screaming deal on our room overlooking the Indian Ocean, and we brought our own liquor, so it wasn't even that expensive all in all.

Good service at this place as well. Shortly after we arrived and checked in, Stanley realized he had left the iPod in the car, which had been valeted, so he called down to guest service to see if they could retrieve it. Why yes, of course sir. We'll bring it right up sir. And, apon delivery of the iPod; we're very sorry you forgot your iPod in the car, sir. It won't happen again, sir.

We played a little squash, had a great meal in a Thai restaurant, spent waaaaay too much time lounging around drinking, and came back feeling nice and relaxed. Any of y'all who visit us in Dubai will probably spend at least a night or two here.... I'm already looking for excuses to go back. :)

Back to School

I've been talking for awhile now about taking some classes offered by my esteemed employer. In theory it always seems like a good idea, not unlike Communism, but in practice when I actually have to do something, it seemed a little daunting. With my contract, my employer allows me to take one class per semester for free, with the ugly little caveat that if I leave the company less than 2 years after I finish the last class I took, then I have to pay them back. Plus I was probably going to have to do homework, and write essays, and who needs that hassle? And so I hesitated.

I finally pulled the trigger about a week before the semester started. I sent a request to HR to approve me for the employee scholarship. The required signatories were on leave. Then they got back and they were busy. Two days into the semester, 6 days after the MBA program stopped accepting applicants I got the signature. But the admissions people know me and wanted to help so the next day I submitted my application, complete with my hastily completed "statement of career goals" and "letters of recommendation" from my bosses. All that was left was the approval of the dean for the School of Business, but on that very day it was announced that he had been fired/resigned/moved on to other opportunities, so we had to submit to a notoriously unsympathetic individual for review. We waited 3 more days. He said no.

But it wasn't over. My boss, in her wonderfulness, was incredulous when I told her this. She sent him an email requesting that he reconsider. We waited another day. He replied, "Two weeks into the semester it would be inappropriate." Another wonderful person from admissions took him the schedule...

"See? He'd only be missing one class! The second class is today!"

He approved. I registered. I'm a student again. It's weird. It's exciting. I'm not sure if I'll be here long enough to finish or if I'll like it. But I'm currently studying for my MBA. And doesn't it sound kind of cool to say that?

Eid al-Fitr

It turns out I've got a week's holiday coming up for Eid al Fitr (Sept 18-26) so I'm trying to determine what I'm going to do with myself.

I've been sick, work has been busy. I've been distracted. This weekend I accidentally blew off a friend's holiday dinner and I feel terrible about it. I'm trying to figure out how to make it up to her, but this sort of this is very unusual for me. I'm not quite sure what to do.

We went to see "The Hangover" Thurs night, which was hi-larious. I haven't laughed out loud at a movie in a long time.

Coming home at 2 every day for Ramadan sure makes blogging easier

... I feel like I should take up a new hobby, except that in a couple of weeks Ramadan will be over and I won't have time for said hobby anymore.

Completion of the Dubai Metro has been delayed. Sigh. I'll have to wait a little longer to be able to take the train.

It's excessively humid. All cool surfaces are coated in water immediately upon stepping outside. But it's not that hot out, which is nice. Now wait - now that I've said it's not that hot, I'm going to go check the temperature.

...checking....

100.4 fahrenheit! Really, not bad. Balmy, even.

I feel like I'm living in hotel salazmeyer

3 times a week I come home and all the dishes have been washed and put away, the laundry ironed and hung in the closet, the garbages emptied, the bed made. Mysteriously, nothing ever gets dirty. No dust settles, no crumbs accumulate on the floor, the bathroom and kitchen fixtures remain shiny and reflective. I keep reminding myself that life isn't going to be like this forever. When I'm missing my family and friends though, it sure makes things easier.

In addition to the cleaning service, we've keep adding to the robustness of our "room service". We tried ordering delivery from a new place yesterday, "The Sham Rose". We got some shawarma sandwiches that Dan thought were fantastic (I'm not a huge fan of shawarma sandwiches) and the best delivery tabbouleh I've had. So, I think we'll definitely do that again.

Last night went out for the first time to Habtoor Grand Hotel for our friend's birthday party and found a sweet, reasonably priced pub. The main problem with all of this is that going out to this pub to drink costs an 80-dirham ( $22 ) taxi ride each way. Kind of pricey. This is why we need to move closer to "town".

The search for an apartment in a better neighborhood is on....

Ramadan Kareem Pt 2

We're in full swing of Ramadan now and the students are back in school and everything is pretty much peachy. This Friday we're going to a friend's house to celebrate Onam with the 2nd annual totally awesome Kerala-banana leaf feast, and tomorrow night going out to Habtoor Grand for a birthday party with some other friends. It's all just so.... *normal*. What can I say that's even interesting?

Since our car exploded, we've rented a new one, tentatively dubbed "The Purple Turtle," as it is a deep plum colored Daihatsu in the shape of a turtle with all sorts of nifty college-kid style gadgets inside, like an auxiliary jack for an mp3 player. I'm sure it's eco-friendly, as well. After our outrageous summer and a fairly expensive celebratory return-to-Dubai, we're kinda broke, so I'm not sure if we'll be buying another car right away or renting for another month. Turns out, if you want a cheap used car ($2-5k), you can't really get a loan, so you have to save up. Which I guess is harder if you're renting at the same time. C'est la vie.

Out and about Dubai

On the eve of Ramadan, we went down to the neighborhood around Burj Dubai (the really tall

tower) to hang out and have a few drinks and enjoy the weather (ha.)

Below you can see the bottom third of the burj, along with the world's largest dancing fountains, and Dan looking cute on the patio outside the Address hotel. We had some calamari at this place Calabar, and I have to say, it was some of the most perfectly prepared calamari I've ever had.

Things are Movin' and Shakin'

Our washing machine broke, so Dan called someone to fix it at about 7pm. Unbelievably, the man from the wash-fixing company arrived at 8:30 to pick up our washing machine and drive it away and fix it. Less than 24 hours later, he is delivering it back and hooking it up, this evening. That's faster than it takes to send my laundry across the street to wash. It's bizarre.

Our air conditioning in the car also broke, so Dan took it to the dealership for an estimate. Strangely, an estimate alone costs $100, which I think is pretty much a stupid robbery. Then, the cost to fix it is like, significantly more than the car cost. My theory is that the whole thing can be fixed with 20 dirhams worth of a/c refresher at the gas station. If not, we'll get a new car. :)

Also, we have a new maid coming today, who I must train. This whole thing is very strange. But I'll do my best. She will come over three times a week and do our laundry and ironing and clean our house. We asked her what she wanted for a salary. Name your salary, and we will negotiate on hours from there, I was thinking. Seems she wants $122 a month.... I had to stop myself from telling her that's ridiculous and that she should be asking for more. This kind of thing is dangerous... you could REALLY get used to never doing your own laundry again.