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.

An unrelated aside

I'm totally peeved that somebody on Facebook just said "hey everybody, I went to mass and prayed for smaller goverment and lower taxes!" 

Yee-haw! Is it just me, or is it kind of idiotic to ask God to influence politics and make you more profitable? 

This is your number one concern when you attend mass? Listen, it's no secret that I don't think of God as a magical wish-granter in the sky, being pleased or dis-pleased at what's going on down on earth, feeling favorable or unfavorable towards the members of the flock depending on how pious they were this week.  Maybe this commenter feels a similar sense of hilarity at that notion, and his statement is really just profound irony. One can hope. Unfortunately I doubt it. 

Prayer is good for concentrating the mind on what's important, what's spiritual and what's meaningful to the pray-er. Prayer in groups connects people and provides connection and communion, and can spur action and energy to work for good.  What the hell good is going to church and praying if all you're asking for is money and candy and a new car and a bigger TV? We already have mythical self-indulgent wish-granters for that stuff - Santa Claus, magic numbers, the lottery, the Easter bunny. Jesus. I'm not even religious and I feel like I have more respect for the meaning of church than this supply-side Christian.

Tasty!!

Today we went to the foodie festival in Dubai Media City and tried some yummy food. My favorite thing was some kind of red curry duck with pineapples in it so now we're going to have to visit this Thai restaurant for a full meal.  We sampled a ton of other fantastic fare while there, Dan tried some Namibian beer, and Dan & Caretha donned aprons for a little cooking demo. We tried to get into the "Beers of the World" demo but it was all booked up. Alas!

I tell you, it's a whole 'nother world in Media City. Over here in our neighborhood, I feel exposed if I wander around outisde with short sleeves on. I'm always careful to bring a sweater or a pashmina in case I need to cover up, I wear long pants or skirts, and so does everyone else. But over in media city? Might as well call it skank city. Knees and shoulders everywhere, backless tops, miniskirts & short shorts, the whole nines. I momentarily feel as though I am back in America. It's like a cultural oasis over there. I need to re-adjust myself before I go back to the States. This is how my conversations with Dan always go:

Me: "What should I wear?"
Dan: "Wear that blue top."
Me: "But it's sleeveless."
Dan: "So?"

Me: "I don't want to walk around like a complete ho-bag. People will think I'm a hooker."

Dan: "Ummmm....."

I wore short-sleeves today and it took me about 20 minutes to forget about it and focus on the food. A year working in a place where everyone is covered in shayla and abaya really starts to screw with your sense of propriety.

New students, same questions

This year, like last year, all the students want to know where I come from. Again, as last year, they always guess China first. After China, they move on to other Southeast Asian/Australasian countries, like New Zealand, Thailand and Japan. 

I like to stretch this game out for as long as possible, but I can see when they're running out of ideas. After a few Southeast Asian guesses, I let them know they're way on the wrong track, and that the country starts with 'A'.   The next guess is always an emphatic, "AUSTRALIA!!" Alas, no.

After a few minutes of thinking, someone will guess, 'America?" and she wins the lucky (theoretical) golden star. [Side note; I dislike being from "America" because everyone in Canada, Mexico, and Latin America is also from "America", but this is the lingo they use around here, I have no control over it.] 

Anyway, this recent group, after learning I was from America, said something unusual.  They told me I don't look American, so I asked them what Americans look like. Here was their answer:

"Blonde."

"Blue eyes."

"Short hair."

Now, I'm not sure exactly which mainstream American media they've been consuming which led to the short hair idea, but they were very, very interested in what I had to say next.

"You know, most people in American don't have blonde hair."

The look of shock was sumptuous. Wide eyed, as though their entire concept of the Universe had been shaken, they asked me to explain further. What on earth did I mean "most don't have blonde hair?"

You see folks, in any school classroom in America, you will most likely find 7 or 8 little children with blonde hair, and 20 or more with not-blonde hair.  Blue eyes are quite the exception. Most American children have brown hair and brown eyes, some have white skin, some have medium skin like yours, some have black skin. Some Americans look like they are from Africa, some look like they are from China, some look like they are from Norway. 

Ooooohs and aaaaahs all around.

Do you know, ladies, that people in America come from every part of the world? They call it "the great melting pot". It's like a soup with 100 different ingredients.

"Wow, Miss." They say. "Thank you for sharing with us. We didn't know."

I recommended that they visit America sometime. "You would never know just by looking at someone, whether or not they are an American. You could very well be an American if you were to go there; no one would know the difference." 

I am really starting to refine my "Where-are-you-from" guessing-game into a solid social-studies lecture. 

Rampant Taxi Crime Explained

It comes to my attention that not everyone is aware of the rampant taxi crime which exists in Dubai. (I think it's actually getting better.)

Taxis are in short supply already, and when you're wandering around in the 100-degree heat, desperate for some transportation, here are some of the fun things that can happen:

1. Taxi driver refuses to come pick you up when you call, because it requires driving through traffic to get to you.

2. Taxi driver drives by, stops, asks you where you're headed, then refuses to let you in the car because it requires driving through traffic to get to where you're going.

3. Taxi driver lets you in the car, and then upon hearing your destination, refuses to take you directly there because of traffic. You instead travel a 90-mile roundabout to get there which costs 5-times as much. (This isn't a problem for me, just for poor people.)

4. Taxi driver refuses to drop you exactly at your destination, again because of traffic, but offers to let you off 50 or 60 meters from your destination.

5. You call to book a taxi through the call center, and then the taxi driver, instead of picking you up, merely MARKS you as "picked up" in the computer system, presumably to avoid traffic. 

Everytime I take a taxi somewhere without one of these things happening, I consider it a small victory.

UAQ Run

It's Friday today, the first day of the weekend, and our first run out to UAQ in a long time.

This morning we slept in late, sauntered across the neighborhood for a Keralan lunch of sadhya at the Indian restaurant (rice & variety curries on a banana leaf), and then caught a cab back to the Dubai Creek golf club to retrieve our car from where we had left it the night before (no drinking & driving, of course).  Our taxi driver wouldn't let us in the cab before knowing our destination; after he found it suitable and let us in, he notified us that, had we been interested in travelling to Sharjah, he would have declined. Too much traffic in Sharjah, apparently. This irked me, and I briefly considered calling the transit authority to report this dubious mother*&%^#@, for what is a rampant taxi crime frequently reported on in local newspapers, but then decided he's just trying to make a living... I'd let it slide, this time. What gives, really. We've had weird taxi drivers lately - the one who drove us home last night wanted to tell us all about the Philipinos who don't want to walk anywhere and call for 4-dirham cab rights with great frequency. 

Anway we got our car and headed out to Umm al Quwain to hit up the cheap liquor store, made it there and loaded up, after a jumpy start near the Dubai-Sharjah border where at least three separate drivers tried to death-careen directly into us. I often lament the lack of umph in our crappy car horn - you hit it with great fervor, and it just lets out a pathetic little "squeak squeak" that most likely can't even be heard outside the cabin. Oh well.

On the way back from UAQ, we passed through a small herd of three camels wandering down the shoulder and the median of the freeway, causing the cars in front of us to slow down and light up their e-flashers. Camel!! Camel!! I wanted to stop and ride one, but figured they were probably someone else's property. We spent the 20 minutes after that event pondering what kind of horrific damage would occur were you to actually hit a camel in your car at high speed. Our conclusion? Not pretty.

Sushi Anyone?

Yesterday at work an e-mail came around, "sign up for sushi-making class at lunch today, only 15 spots available". Well, of COURSE I couldn't sign up, because 15 students would take priority.

Then at lunch, sitting outside with my colleagues, a concerned-looking, pink-lipstick wearing, abaya-clad student came veering towards our table. 

"You want it miss?" She asked hesitantly, presenting a plate of sushi rolls.  

"You don't want it?" We asked her. She shook her head no. "But you made it?" We asked her. She nodded vigorously. We took the sushi, and then realized that, while all the students probaby enjoy molding fish and seaweed into edible little rice-wasabi packages, most likely not a one of them would want to actually eat their creations. We dug into the sushi with a big smile and a thanks and hoped that another sushi student would wander by, but none did. 

We Are Famous People

We made it into Khaleej Times.  According to their web site, "The highest circulated of the English language newspapers throughout the Gulf."  A proud day.  I don't think I've had my picture in the paper since...well...I can't remember ever having my picture in the paper.