Dog River in Dubai...

For those of you that know my Saturday lifestyle in HR, you'll be happy to know that last night I found the Dubain version of Dog River, the local coffee shop. Linds and I would wake up nearly every Saturday morning, daily during the summer, head to Dog River, drink our coffee, talk to everyone that wandered in and eventually leave when we got hungry for lunch. Hours and hours of endless entertainment, internet surfing and parallel conversations. I think the most common comment was "it's so nice, we should do something outside" which somehow led to wine tasting... the black and white party, etc.

Anyways, yesterday after work, I asked a friend of mine to take me to the Dubai Central Post Office to pick up a pkg from my sister, I was so excited to get it! I actually made a birthday list for the first time in maybe 20 years and Kristin sent it all to me, Luna Bars and Conditioner, I know, exciting! I can't even explain how happy I was to get a few things from home. So, after we did that, we decided to go down to the Marina, which I have been to one other time, but it was during Ramadan, and just seemed like another row of restaurants, coffee shops etc. It was also about 8 zillion degrees the last time I was there, so I was irritated in general. Well, last night I actually felt like I found my favorite place in Dubai. It was just like Dog River, well, like I said the Dubain version of Dog River. You just have to exchange the palm trees for fir trees, buildings for mountains, sea for river, yachts for kayaks but, you get the idea. First we had dinner at this little Japanese place then we went and had coffee at Starbucks (Starbucks is the only place that always has soy milk) and sat by this fountain and watched people and talked for hours. I really never wanted to leave. It almost reminded me of the fountain in college where I used to go "study".

So, it's taking forever, but I am finally finding things about Dubai that I really like. The weather is finally cooling down and I'm also one step closer to getting my Resident Visa, which means nothing to me except, then I'll be able to get a car. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to do daily, little life tasks when you don't have a car! I mean, when's the last time you've tried to steal a grocery cart only to be caught at the exit and asked to return it... I think it took us 20 minutes to walk home, less than 1/2 a mile, and I'm not exaggerating. We were carrying a blender.... The other ridiculously annoying thing about Dubai is that we have no internet at home, the companies are supposedly fighting over who gets to supply internet to our building and it will all be settled in about two weeks. Right. Same story since mid-August and no progress has been made.

I'm also becoming a bit more confrontational in this town. A few weeks ago I had this small leak in my bathroom. The water was just dripping down, so I asked our building manager to have someone take a look at it. Three days later I had an AWFUL day at work, and by awful I mean worse than usual, they are all really, really, really bad. So I walk in ask if it's fixed yet, just like I had been doing every day, and he says yes. I grab my keys, say thank you and go up to my apartment. I walk in and hear this sound, so I go to the bathroom and there is literally water pouring out from the bathroom and into my bedroom. I just stared at it for a second and then went out to the other room and called a friend of mine and told him he had to come up right that second. He comes up and he just looked at me, he knew I'd had a horrible day at work, and then I just walked him back to the bathroom. He immediately asked if they were coming up to fix it, of course I hadn't bothered to tell them yet.... Instead, I let the water run all over while I opened my last bottle of wine and poured myself a glass. Even though it was Ramadan, I had my glass in hand and instead of being nice at all, I went down there screaming like a crazy person and he says he'll send up someone to fix it. The security guard shows up, apparently he is also the plumber, with some guy, they look at it, move the ceiling tiles around and then turn off the water. They leave my apartment an absolute mess with water everywhere, mud from their shoes etc. I go back down and am again, screaming at the building manager that he needs to have someone come and mop up the water, clean my floors and oh, I don't know, get my water turned back on? He says no, the cleaners have left, you'll need to do that yourself ma'am. I think I said something along the lines of "I don't care if you are personally mopping up my floors with your own clothes, I expect that somebody is up there to clean this up right now." Then I stormed off. Again, the security guard is apparently also the cleaner, he showed up and miraculously found a mop, bucket and was able to clean it all up. My friend's comment was only, uh, for tonight, you're on suicide watch. Within days.... I had my water back. Nice. I hope when I get home I am able to remember that you can actually ask for things to get done and they do, as opposed to this constant bantering that seems to be normal here, acutally, not only normal, but expected....

Ahhhh, the joys of living abroad.