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Most fun I have had in a long long time

March 8, 2009

Last Wednesday we went to a goodbye dinner party for Adrianna at her favorite restaurant, Special Ostadi (not to be confused with Ostadi Special, which is right next door). It is located in Bur Dubai (across the Creek from where we live). It didn’t take very long to drive there, but took a lot longer to find parking.

The restaurant is a “hole-in-the-wall” with real character. There are a wide variety of clocks, old cell phones, and baseball caps hanging on the wall. (The clocks don’t necessarily tell the correct time.) It was crowded and busy. We hadn’t even stepped in the door and joined our party when the waiter/owner saw Paul and said “Holly man!” Not sure if he was calling him “holy man” or “Harley man,” but once again, it’s the beard. When another of our friends arrived, an attractive young lady, the only open chairs were hard to get to and the waiter offered to carry her over everyone’s head to a chair. She was a little creeped out by that. It was late and I couldn’t eat much if I wanted to sleep, so I just had the 3 dirham soup ($0.80) and nibbled on the cucumber appetizers. After the meal comes unlimited free tea. He gave me quite a time about getting free tea when I hadn’t paid for food. (He didn’t know we are big tippers 😉 I nibbled on some of the meat others had and it was really yummy, so we will have to go back when I can manage a full meal. Additional friends kept showing up and it was a very fun evening. The teasing escalated when our Syrian/Russian friends (Rami & Sami) showed up. The waiter brought a plate to one of them, told him it was a special salad, when in reality it was the peelings from the appetizer vegetables. He brought out two small plates of dates. One had two dates — this was for four of us — the other plate was heaping with dates — it was for Adrianna only.

It was one of those evenings when your stomach muscles hurt the next day because of all the laughing.

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Closer than they appear

March 8, 2009

“Objects in the the mirror may be closer than they appear.” Actually, I’d like to know what the literal translation of this is. I bet it isn’t exactly that.

There’s a PSA campaign currently. The sides of buses are painted bright yellow with sayings like “Changing lanes suddenly can be confusing.” or “Speeding is not thrilling when it goes out of control.” We saw a bus driver being confused by someone changing lanes suddenly just last night. Seems to me that speeding is at its most thrilling when it goes out of control.

They should be drilling into people’s head that children should be belted in. We are frequently seeing children roaming around the inside of moving vehicles and/or sitting in the driver’s lap. Considering the cultural emphasis on family, it is strange that the importance of child seat belt safety hasn’t occurred to them.

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Jackhammer video

March 7, 2009

Here’s a little taste of the jack hammering going on outside our window. This was recorded a couple of weeks ago, but it is still going on even as I write. They do, however take a break at night, so it is not as bad as it could be.

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Random thoughts

March 6, 2009

We’ve coined a new phrase — road neener neener. Paul doesn’t have road rage. He has road neener neener. If he can keep someone from cutting in front of him or pass someone who is driving ridiculously and leave them in his dust, he takes great joy in this. It’s what keeps us sane while driving in Dubai.

Totally embarassing moment: Paul called to tell me he was there to pick me up and I walked out to the place he usually waits to pick me up. I saw a little white car in that same spot. Walked up to it. Opened the door and almost got in when I realized that the driver was a strange woman? So, I say “Oh, sorry, wrong car. … Where’s my husband?” and I look around to find our car. She says “I don’t know, but I can give you a ride home.” Luckily, I saw that he had pulled into a parking spot a short distance away, excused myself and proceeded to get in the right car. No more operating on autopilot for me!

Miss Kitty came to visit me at the library while I was working the late shift Tuesday night. She came to the front door and meowed. I heard her through the double doored lobby. So, I went out picked her up and petted her a bit. Not enough to satisfy her, but I was working alone, so couldn’t be away for very long. She is starting to shed voluminously. The weather is warming up again. I suppose it won’t be long before she is hairless again.

“A grouchy Sudanese telling an American living abroad in an Arab country to go see an Indian Chiropractor. Only in Dxb.” – our friend Muhammed Ali (yes, that is his name.) This pretty much sums up Dubai (Dxb is the airport code – you can probably see why I find PDX and DXB confusing.) Dubai is the ultimate in multicultural and our growing group of friends and acquaintences is definitely multiethnic – Indian, Singaporean, Burmese, Russian/Syrian, Sudanese, Eqyptian/Swiss, Swedish, North Carolingian, South African, etc. They are incredibly funny, intelligent people I love to hang out with.

At our favorite restaurant one night, we had a new waiter. He asked Paul where he was from (it’s the beard again). The waiter then struck up a conversation, in his best Globish version of English, asking us how we thought Obama was doing in his first month. He then proceeded to tell us that it is American politics/foreign policies that people hate, not Americans and that the Americans he has met are all nice people. He really wanted us to understand that there is no animosity toward American people. Interestingly enough, this came up in another conversation with someone else a few weeks later. So, I wonder. Can American’s say the same?

Car washing/cleaning is rampant here. There are no fund raising car washes here because that would require a business license (also there are very strick rules regarding charities and fund raising here). However, you can get your car cleaned in nearly any parking lot. There is a man who cleans the cars in our apartment building parking lot. We pay Dhs 100 ($27) per month. He goes over the body with a duster, wipes the windshield and washes with water and rag only when there is something the duster can’t handle (like when Paul drove through the Sharjah industrial area after it had rained). This is done several times a week. Paul tried putting tips of 5 or 10 dirhams under the windshield wiper, but the guy just deducts that from the monthly fee. Festival City mall seems to have a troup of car washers hanging around in the parking lot just waiting to wash your car while you are doing your shopping. Kind of amazing. We saw someone washing a car in an open parking lot during a sandstorm. Might as well have been spitting into the wind.

We love Dubai. … Have we said that already?

Posted in animals, cats, Dubai, Dubai traffic, multiculturalism, socialization | 2 Comments »

What I’m talking about!

March 2, 2009

This is part of our trip to Fujairah. We had to negotiate several roundabouts (they love roundabouts here). We took the wrong road at one point and had to double back which is why you will see the mosque twice.

Watch carefully at the end of the video you will see a typical example of the dangerous driving that goes on here. In fact, this was the second time this had happened that day. A SUV pulls up behind us, flashes his lights. When we don’t get immediately out of his way, he pulls around us and continues to weave through traffic.

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Driving in Dubai

February 20, 2009

We’ve been attempting to video the driving experience for you. However, we’ve determined that we must have a magic camera, because traffic is uncharacteristically easy when I have the camera on. It is when I don’t have the camera on that the most amazing things happen. So, these are three fairly mild (and maybe downright boring) versions of our drive to work.

Pulling out of the garage and the first three-four blocks are the most challenging. Not only does Daddybird have very limited visibility of oncoming traffic (due to SUVs parked along the street, but if we don’t time it just right, there are wandering crowds of construction workers due to the shift change that happens right about 7:30 am. One morning Daddybird nearly ran over a woman who was on our left and she thought it would be a good idea to walk in front of a car that whose driver was looking to the right for oncoming traffic. So, now my job is to be on pedestrian watch. It is amazing how little responsibility for their own safety pedestrians take.

Things to watch for in these videos: Pedestrians walking in the street when there is a perfectly good sidewalk on the other side of those parked cars. Cars double parked or stopping to let someone out, blocking traffic. The waltz that is the intersection where three streams of traffic come together. In one video the oncoming car flashes his lights to let us know we can go. Uncharacteristically polite! There are also bicyclists to avoid.

This third video is fairly boring until about half way through when a truck pulls in front of us without much warning and directly after that a car blocks traffic trying to change lanes. The kicker is that he doesn’t just want to move over one lane, but he wants all the way over in order to make a left turn.

The rules of the road here include:
1. Don’t move over just one lane. Move from the far right to the far left or visa versa. Cross as many lanes as possible in as little distance as possible.
2. Don’t get into the back of the line when you can move up to the front and force others to let you in.
3. If you want to change lanes, do not slow down and pull in behind the car in that lane. Speed up and pull in front of them.
4. Brakes are a strange and unnecessary feature on your vehicle.
5. After clearing a speed bump you should accelerate at top speed until you hit the next one, especially in parking lots.

There is a great blog post by someone else that documents Dubai traffic complete with pictures to prove the points. http://dubaithoughts.blogspot.com/2009/01/dubai-driving-tips.html

Posted in Dubai traffic, video | 2 Comments »

A brief note…

February 15, 2009

A brief explanation for those of you reading this blog who live in or around the U.A.E. — This blog isn’t meant for you. The purpose of this blog is for us to keep in touch with our family and friends back home who are unlikely to ever set foot in the U.A.E. That is why there are so many pictures and why we explain things in detail as if we are talking to people who don’t experience these things on a daily basis.

You will find that there is a definite positive tone to our blog because we really DO love it here. We came here by choice and have not regretted it for a minute. So, yes, six months was something important to us and we thought it might be important to the people we left behind who have been missing us for six months.

If you don’t like Dubai, you won’t like our blog either.

Posted in Dubai, socialization | 3 Comments »

Jackhammers

February 14, 2009

We’ve been listening to constant jack hammering for a few days now. This is not just your average jack hammering. So, today we looked over the balcony to see what we could see.
There are two industrial sized jack hammers, one of which is directly below our apartment. No wonder they are SO loud.

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Global Village

February 14, 2009

We finally got out to Global Village to see what it was all about. It is part carnival and part international souk. There are pavilions for several countries. We went through about half of them – India, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Europe (Turkey), Egypt, Philippines, and Palestine. We hope to go back to see the other pavilions before it closes.

We bought a jar of honey in the Yemen pavilion. The man asked Paul if he is Muslim. We said “no, only bearded.” Paul may need to get a t-shirt with that on it.

Here is a short video of the hand operated merry-go-round in the India pavilion. I don’t know what the charge was (probably only a dirham or two), but these kids actually got two rides.

We bought these beautiful, handmade Tunisian serving dishes. The flower shaped one is a dip set with a center bowl and six bowls surrounding that all on a plate – eight pieces.

The seller spoke very good English (spoke English well — apparently I don’t) and we had a good chat with him. He asked where we were from. He had been to California once for an eight day fair and sold all his wares in the first four days. Now, of course, he can’t get a visa to go to the States to sell his merchandise.
CONTEST: Guess what we paid for this set of dishes. I’ll even make it multiple choice.
A. $105.00 B. $78.00 C. $254.00 D. $45.00 (Bonus question: What would they sell for in the States?)

Posted in dishes and coffee cups, Global Village, merry-go-round, video | 3 Comments »

Update on the Metro

January 27, 2009

Back on October 30th, I posted pictures of the metro construction down our street. I thought it was time for an update. The following pictures alternate between October 30th and the present day. Unfortunately, they are not exact comparisons because I didn’t take the pictures from the same position and perspective, but I hope you can make heads or tails out of them.
Above October, below January

Above October, below January

Above October, below January
There is still a ways to go. The whole thing will be painted a lovely — you guessed it — sand color (or cement color). Also they will still need to put on the tracks and railings and whatever else goes on top of these sections.
Above the view from our balcony September, below January. There is some progress – the gaping holes are smaller. They continue to jackhammer and bang and clang. This line of the train isn’t scheduled to open until March 2010, so we have a while to go.