Come-a Come-a Down Doobie, Doobie, Dubai!

After completing a week here – well, a work week…sorta – time to report in and say that all is well. This city is all that it is cracked up to be. Modern, modern, modern…at least as compared to last year’s visits to Baku, Angola and Trinidad. It’s sorta like going to New York except knowing you’re sitting in the middle of a desert…and Iran is right over >>there. And in the other direction is camel racing which you can catch here on the hotel tv. Complete with little bitty fake jockeys. The World Championship Tennis Tournament is here this week and next too if one tires of following basketball games on the internet.

As can be seen from the photos above there are tall buildings with lots of glass and glitter, and that really seems to represent the city itself…though all I’ve seen so far is this one road…Sheikh Zayed Road (the late former president of the UAE). My hotel, the Crowne Plaza, is 10 buildings down from the building we’re working in, Al Moosha Tower II. Along here distances are not measured in city blocks or miles (er, kilometers), but how many buildings away you are. The first day we caught a cab to the office – wasn’t sure how far away we were and had all my “junk” that I haul to audits. The fare was $1.60, but gladly gave the guy his minimum $10 since I had just burned him on a decent fare. (Don’t tell Carol.) Ten buildings is about a 5-minute walk.

Office building has only 17 stories; hotel has 23. At the office we are on 13, except that is unlucky so the our floor is called 12B. And there are only 3 elevators. And people give a crap about polite and who “was there first” to cue up to board the elevators. It is literally dog eat dog. I’ve adapted nicely, thank you.

The work week here is Sunday thru Thursday. Since I left DFW on Sunday night – got to celebrate Valentine’s Day and weekend with my Valentine – I didn’t get to my hotel until 2 a.m. on Tuesday (Dubai is 10 hours ahead of Texas). The flight was over an hour late – headwinds as you announced, or was it because you left an hour late? – but the hotel driver had boogied so it took longer to decide he/she wasn’t there to pick me up and then took a cab. Despite not sleeping much on the flights over – DFW to London to Dubai – could not sleep, but since I had already missed two days of the work week, reported to the office bright and early Tuesday.

This is a Muslim country. Thus, lots of women dressed in Nun type wardrobes, complete with head scarves (not the burkas that cover the face); men dressed in starched white nightgowns wearing great little white hats with black headbands on them. Not sure what percentage I would place on this – maybe 10-15% of the women; 25% of the men. There are lots of Indians (dots), Indonesians and Pakistanis, Iranians, etc. and those people wear their native garments. But, then you have lots of businessmen wearing suits and ties, or at least slacks, jackets and dress shirts, which I chose to accept this week though I deteriorated to jeans and golf shirt today. Afterall it was Casual Thursday.

Friday is the Holy Day, which explains the work week. It’s going to be awfully weird going to work on Sunday.

Our audit contact is a little Muslim lady – complete with penguin outfit, no make-up, no jewelry, doesn’t drink and doesn’t like to eat – and is…Scottish. You read this right. She’s from Edinburgh and has worked offshore for a lot of her career. Surely she wore coveralls and steel-tip boots. As it turns out there’s lot of Brits here in addition to the above mentioned ex-pats. Dubai must be a melting pot – doesn’t have a Statue of Liberty, just lots of tall buildings. Since I deemed today to be “Casual Thursday” I wondered if she would show up in a denim abaya. No. Just black as usual. Obviously I’m just spoofing around, and this is not serious.

The entertainment seems to be centered around the hotels. The only place that liquor is sold is in the restaurants located in hotels. My hotel has 8 or 9 restaurants. While there are cafes/restaurants located elsewhere, all the nice ones are in hotels. And they are the only ones that can sell liquor. There are no liquor stores. No grocery stores selling beer or wine. Have I made this point clear? There will be no drinking outside of a hotel. This may explain why all my meals have been in the hotel this week – except for lunches while working.

The hotel has a typical European type restaurant that is open for breakfast serving a full buffet. Took only two days to realize I can’t eat that every morning – nevermind that it cost $35 US. One of the selling features to me for the Crowne Plaza was the Wagamama – and we ate there on Tuesday (the first) night. It was just as good as ever. All my meals have been good so far…which is a bad sign as far as meeting any weight reduction goals. Ate at an Iranian restaurant for lunch yesterday – one of the best meals so far – just don’t tell George Bush. Junior or Senior. Have also had Italian. Looking forward to Thai and whatever else I can get my hands on. After nixing the breakfast buffet, had a Subway turkey on wheat for breakfast with a diet coke and salt/vinegar chips (Not one of the hotel restaurants but two doors down - past the TGI Fridays.) Phyllis will be pleased.

Looking forward to the weekend. My colleague and I have reservations for a bus tour of the city. Actually a Big Bus tour as it is called. Double-decker and open on top. There are two routes to be taken – one of the inner city around Dubai Creek which includes lots of Souks (shops with specific themes, i.e., the Spice Souk, the Gold Souk, etc.), mosques and other sights and the other route I’m excited about goes along the beach and will see all the man-made islands – the Palm Island – the World Island – etc. You may have heard, the tallest building the world – 160 stories – opened in January and closed in February after there was an electrical problem. Yikes. At any rate I’ll see that tomorrow though I can see it at a distance from my hotel – it’s actually behind the buildings in the photo above and is not visible. Supposedly it has re-opened. If so, I will enter an elevator with great care.

By the way, the tour is one of these where you can get off at all these different stops and get back on whenever you want. Sounds great, and I’m really looking forward to it.

The major news story of the week was the Dubai police issuing warrants for the 11/12 UK residents who supposedly assassinated the Hamas leader in a local hotel (not the Crowne Plaza). Quite interesting. And of course it was stolen identity complete with fake passports. And I thought my stolen credit card number in Trinidad was bad. Just imagine being one of the poor schmucks who gets up in the morning, turns on the tv and sees his picture as someone who has a murder warrant outstanding. Yikes – again. But, it is all the talk of local news as well as that of the BBC.
Only other unusual thing that has happened was in the very beginning … at DFW airport.

Got there early and hit the American Airlines lounge for a free drink. Of course. Why wait until you get on the plane to start drinking on your 18-hour journey? At any rate, I set my stuff down, go to the bar and come back to my chair and there in the next chair was a lady I worked with at Arco (Kristin and Laura, I know! EVERYONE worked at Arco at one time or another.) And, coincidentally she’s still in our Fantasy Football League. It was Kim A. She now works for Cap Gemini (She actually got input from KLJF, via me, before she went to work there.), and was on her way to Oslo – on my flight…seated one row in front of me. So, she switched seats and, thus, unexpectedly, I had a traveling Chatty Kathy for the flight to London. She did, however, recommend the Michael Jackson movie. She watched that while I watched Grand Torino (great movie!) and couple of episodes of Curb.
That is all for now. I’ll report back after the Big Bus tour. And if I said anything disparaging about anyone, please don’t tell them. Pax.

P.S.: Took forever to post this. The Google page was all in Arabic. Had to guess on on what to do. Here's hoping this works...Yiiiiiiiiiyaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh...GO Mavs. Go Horns.