no more sunday funday!

it's sunday night. now for any life out there actually reading this, that means time to wind down, wrap up the weekend and gear up for another "fun-filled" week at work.

the only good thing about a sunday night is that i can revel in the fact that all my western friends are gearing up for monday and i've already done it! haha....don't tell me you're surprised by my "hint" of evil. don't worry, i'm fully aware that when saturday night rolls around for everyone and you're all out being rockstars, i'm having my "sunday." the shift to islamic schedule. the adjustment eludes me. but it's kind of nice. don't tell my boss, but i still have some trouble processing sunday as a work day so monday is really the full-on start and by the time you get over that, you have "hump" day and then you're almost in the home stretch and the glorious weekend is back upon us!

and on that note.....sunday 1030pm, i'm heading out to watch this thunderstorm all my local peeps are talking about. i've seen rain or heard thunder twice in 3 1/2 years of living here!

'night!

In case there's still life out there...

figured, what the hell, might as well update a little.

so it's almost 4th of July. a day i've come to cherish, given that i don't necessarily have the same freedoms i used to. well...freedoms yes, but let's just say, i'm trying to "take it down a notch" to keep myself out of jail. you should be pleased about that mom!

anyhow, so...since the new year...well, career-wise, things have changed. i am now "director" as my pseudo-boss called me, of the mediavest buying team. who knew? i asked if that comes with a payrise and got a firm "don't think so." but from what i can gather, that basically means i manage a few monkeys (and i really do mean monkeys...you'd be amazed the shit they can't string together!!) and have now become best buds with the smg group cfo and finance director. not bad folks to be chummy with but as such, i've unofficially designated myself mediavest finance director as well. nobody seems to have any trouble with that title so i think i'll keep it. so that's it on the work-front really. oh, except that the team i work on just won a bronze lion at cannes! woo-freakin-hoo! quite pleased as it's the biggest media award globally!

ok. so now, i think that's really it from the work-front.

the usual travel update? well....let's see. met my mom and 94-yr-old great-aunt in china for 12 days of sightseeing and meeting some family. great-aunt was going back to china for her "little sister's" 90th birthday party! very interesting trip to see "the homeland" - not quite what i expected but interesting nonetheless. we started in beijing so did the great wall, national palace, tiananmen square, summer palace garden/park, birds nest stadium (olympics), shopping markets, etc. then headed off to shanghai. not as many landmarks in shanghai, but bustling city for sure. headed to hangzhou, my great-aunt's childhood home, and then to suzhou, a very japanese-looking chinese city (in my opinion anyway). squeezed in an extra destination and spent a day in wuxi which is where my dad was born. met my grandma's last living sibling, #11 is the only one left). that was actually really nice. all my grandparents are deceased so it was kind of surreal to meet someone connected to the family from that generation! he seemed genuinely happy to meet his big sister's grandchild as well! also met some of my dad's cousins.

that's the national palace grounds, the great wall, mom and i with some olympic mascots, some kid with a funny haircut and my great-uncle and his wife leaving the family burial grounds.

it was a lot harder getting around china than i thought. even though my mom speaks mandarin, for some reason, it seemed even she had a hard time communicating. and when i went off exploring on my own...man, the broken chinese that came out of my mouth? who knows?

other than that, my one lasting impression of china: it's crowded. no kidding. one billion people? it's bound to be.

so that was april.

in may, the first of our american crew defected back to america (well, technically, they went to doha, qatar for a month first) so a few of us girls took a little weekend holiday to doha. doha's pretty boring. not much to tell. the most exciting thing there is the islamic museum, designed by i m pei which is actually quite impressive.

here's the extent of doha. spent a day at a resort, lounging by the pool. after that exhausting few hours, us girls lazing in bed with our afternoon treats, and then the islamic museum

still enjoying life in dubai, but definitely having the necessary mini-breaks. went to istanbul a few weeks back. met up with the boys i met travelling in nz four years ago!

istanbul is a beautiful city. the people, in my opinion, leave a bit to be desired but still a great city. got to see europe and asia in one weekend! and it only cost 65 cents to cross continents (by ferry).

the tiny panoramic is the view from our hotel. bottom is blue bosque through a window at aya sofia, rish, me and sicknote hanging at our favorite place, the dervish cafe which looks out to basically the pic on the right which is the blue mosque.

so, that's me in a nutshell i guess. mostly just travel updates. will try to be better about the next post. heading to prague in a couple weeks so will have more pics to share!

Anyone out there?

Just checking if anyone still checks for posts. please comment if you are. otherwise, i will officially give up on this thing! :)

thanks!

Happy 2009!

Happy 2009 to anyone and everyone out there!

Ed - this is for you, since I think you may be the only living soul out there who reads this! So, here's my 2008 recap - i'll try to keep it short (it probably won't be sweet), but hopefully, enlightening/interesting/entertaining. Dunno...hopefully, you'll get something out of it!

Well, since May, I've had a decent year!

June/July:

Went camping in Jebel Shams, Oman with a few friends - supposedly the "Grand Canyon" of the Middle East or something like that. A 4-hr drive to Oman, turned into about 10 hrs, but nonetheless, we arrived at our campsite and had a great time! You can't really see behind us and the fog didn't allow for much good photography, but three steps back behind the "guardrail" is about a 2000m drop into a bottomless abyss!)

In case you're interested, that's Kwame, me, Thoby, Greg and Mike. And in case you can't really tell, I'm the short one! :)

After Oman, I left for Greece to meet up with my sister and brother-in-law for his good friend George's wedding. Spent a day in Athens and then almost a week on the lovely little island of Kythira. Basically spent the week at George's villa, Muscata chatting in the courtyard, driving around the winding little roads of the island at one beautiful place after another, eating the freshest seafood at Kiro's Tavern, eating more along the shoreline of Capsali, sunbathing, swimming, yada yada yada. Pretty much the most picturesque holiday you can imagine!

Acropolis, duh.

Me and my sis at Capsali precisely 10 minutes after my arrival

Kythira

The Happy Couple

Just your average night at Muscata

As you can see, terrific holiday. The pictures say it all. The only photo missing is that of the really cute baker in the village! Ha ha.

After Greece, my sister returned with me to Dubai for a short visit.

Then, headed off to Muscat for the weekend with some friends.

Kickin back at the Shangri La

Overlook on the drive from the hotel

Pre-dinner drinks at the Chedi, fancy hotel

Us at the Grand Mosque in Muscat, notice how the girls have to be covered head to toe while men, well, obviously, doesn't matter

After Muscat, the Prophet Ascended or something so we got another day off of work. My friend Thoby and I decided to go to Kish Island, Iran for the weekend. Big mistake. Not mistake really, but rather shock, I suppose? As you can see, Kish, Iran is another place where women must be covered. Upon arrival at the Kish airport, I was instructed that my shirt, just your average long-sleeve, waist-length shirt, was too short and to put on an airport-issue smock which would cover my rear end. Fortunately, the airport check-in guy in Dubai told me about the hair-covering so I bought a scarf in the airport. My too-short pants were getting me death-glares from other women all weekend. Mind you, it was about 120 degrees F so not entirely pleasant under sleeves and scarves and long pants, etc. Notice again, Thoby's in shorts and a short-sleeve shirt - no problem. When we arrived, being that our mission was a cheap weekend getaway (and no, we're not dating) we tried to check into the hotel and get one room (progressive Westerners that we are).

Thoby: yes, we'd like a room
Innkeeper: one room?
Thoby: yes
Innkeeper: you married?
Thoby: yes, of course (as I adjust my rings to the "correct" finger) Innkeeper: you have papers then? Thoby: no, why would we carry our marriage papers with us? Innkeeper: no papers, then two rooms. police come, big trouble
Thoby: so you're telling me without papers, I can't sleep in a room with my wife?
Innkeeper: no papers, then two rooms. police come, big trouble
Thoby: fine. two rooms.

the next day, we go back to the airport to check out what there is to do (after doing all we could come up with - mind you, in this what I might refer to as "less-than-free" place, I was not about to separate from Thoby at any time which eliminated the possibility of beaches as there are only separate men's and women's beaches). We meet this lovely Kuwaiti woman at the information desk and tell her about our hotel woes. She says, "no, go to Arun Hotel, ask for my friend Naser, tell him you want to know about tours of island, he'll arrange room." After she makes a call, all in Arabic (for all we knew, she could've been reporting us to police or something) we've got notes in hand and head off to our next home.

Here's our conversation there:

Thoby: Yes, is Naser here?

Naser: Yes?

Thoby: Fatma at airport called you about a room for us?

Naser: ah, yes.

Thoby: so it's ok to stay in one room, no papers?

Naser: no problem

Thoby: great.

Naser: you want single or double bed?

(Thoby and I exchange uncomfortable glance. Is this a trick? Reminder: we are not dating.)

Thoby: Singles are fine

Naser: singles? no double? double ok?

Thoby: No, singles are fine. My wife is very conservative.

and away we go to our room. we must've confused them dearly. oh well. mission accomplished. much better room in a much better hotel and cheaper 'cuz we could share! after all that, really, all there was to do was smoke shisha and wander around to all the knock-off malls. Kish is a dry island so no drinking. Before this trip, I'd only hung out with Thoby a few times. After 2 full days of conversation, I think I can safely say, we survived and came out the other side. Have a great friend who I now know is good craic on an adventure!

Thoby at a toy store in Iran

Hangin out in some earthquake ruins

At the old aquaduct/caves

In August, I was home briefly for my old roommate Sarah's wedding - went to Scituate, Mass for a few days, then back to Chicago to the old stomping grounds and down south to my sister's to visit the fam too!

The Sabers in their wedding gift!

The Sabers' wedding

Old Roomies just chillin out before the wedding!

So that was the summer. In October, I went to Beirut for a weekend with my friend Wael. Interesting place. Still not sure why the Lebanese love it soo much, like, literally think it's the greatest place on earth love it? But it was cool. The trip was far too quick to form a real opinion but it was fun. Can't find my pics though.

What else? Oh, October, the month that I officially became and old lady. Turned 30. Less painful than I thought but man, 30 really sounds old!

Aside from that, just hangin out really. Our German housemate, Achim got married over the summer and his wife came for a visit in November.

Went on a little jaunt with Jeremy and Alysia to Atlantis - here are some of our goofy photos! This is the place that, in the midst of global economic crisis, springs for a $20m USD opening party! Fireworks, which we watched from the roof of our villa, were supposedly 8x bigger than Beijing. Madness. Sheer madness.

At the end of November, I went to Spain - Barcelona and Seville - for 10 days. Was meant to also go to Bucharest, Romania at the end of that, but got "mugged" in Barcelona on our last night. Spain's an amazingly beautiful place and would post pictures, but my camera was in my wallet that was stolen, so until I can download photos from my friend who was travelling with me, I think these are the last of my photos!

December in the middle east is great 'cuz you don't really work much. National Day is December 2. It's our only "fixed" holiday. All others, as mentioned in earlier posts, are determined by the moon. Eid, another Islamic holiday, happened to fall on Dec 8-10, while I was supposed to be in Bucharest. And then you have Christmas, then Islamic New Year was on Dec 28, then Gregorian New Years Day (which I know is technically not December anymore, but you get my meaning).

And alas, we've arrived at January 5, 2009. How the hell did that happen?

Daytrip to Oman

Wow I've been really slack about this blogging thing. April has flown by.

Let's see, so the last post was Alysia's birthday which was end of March. Since then, we did a daytrip to Musandam. Pictures describe it better so here ya go!

The photo above is Christine, Nick, Osama, our captain, Crissy, Ginger (Rob), Mila, me and Meredith. Christine is Nick's sister who was in town visiting. Meredith is Crissy's friend from the states who was visiting. The rest of the crew is basically who I hang out with every day!

Nick enjoying a jellyfish we fished out of the sea. Mila and I tried it too - we agreed, it's not as good as the jellyfish we normally eat! ;-)

Chillin on the boat (don't know why I'm the only one with a beer in hand but....)

Sunset in Musandam

Musandam's a pocket of Oman in the UAE. Really pretty scenery and good for getting away from the "hustle and bustle" of Dubai. We hired a boat for the day for some swimming, snorkeling, fishing.

In typical Dubai fashion, it was a bit of a process to get there. We were meant to meet at the villa at 10am to caravan out to Musandam. At 930, I get a wakeup call from Crissy. Just before 10, she and Meredith arrive. Nick calls and is en route at about 1015. Osama's also driving but we can't get ahold of him. He's fast asleep (we had a bbq at his place the night before and didn't wrap up the evening til sunrise) so we had to wait for him to stir. Finally hit the road, collect everyone around 11am. We're supposed to be at the boat at noon. The drive is supposedly an hour and a half. Takes a bit longer when you only get directions one at a time. Crissy was the navigator and basically we start with "head to Emirates Road." Easy enough. About 45 minutes later, she calls the guy we arranged the trip with for directions to the port. He susses out our location and tells us to take the next exit, go right around the roundabout and when we see the cement factory to call him for the next set of directions. We get to the roundabout and it's blocked. Not to mention at this point, Osama realizes he's got about 15km left on his tank and we're 20km from the next petrol station. Anyway, we finally are able to fill up and get back to directions to Musandam. We continue with this calling-for-directions-every-3-minutes process until we finally get to the port. We're about 2 hrs late but oh well. Turned out to be a beautiful day in the sunny Middle East and a great time.

So fun, we're doing it again tomorrow.

Meet the Fockers (or my villamates)!

Finally, I've got the "family" picture. Mom - this is for you so you can finally see who I live with!

Photo's were on our rooftop where we had Alysia's 30th birthday party. Fun night.

It's slightly inaccurate but that's ok. It's the closest thing I have to a "family portrait!" Standing is Stuart, me, Chuma and Jeremy. Sitting is Monica and Alysia.

Stuart and Chuma are the Brits. Jeremy and Alysia are the Aussies. Monica's Canadian - she doesn't actually live here anymore. She vacated my room, hence my living here so I guess I have her to thank! Stuart's actually since moved out. Mike, a jovial Irish dude has moved in and the photo's also missing Achim, the German.

Anyhow, so there's a little glimpse into my life in Dubai!

Walk like an Egyptian

That phrase has a whole new meaning to it after being in Cairo for three days. It's absolutely chaos in the city. Traffic everywhere and absolutely no method to that madness. There are actually police around to help tourists cross the street. Seems like a simple task, but I tried to do it alone and actually got hit by a car (don't worry mom - nothing major, the side mirror just hit my shoulder and they were only driving about 5mph so...)!

Anyhow, three days in Cairo. First of all, let me explain, this was actually a "work trip." One of our suppliers, ART (a Pan-Arab station based in Egypt) launched a new station so they invited what turned out to be about 25 of us from Dubai, Riyadh and Jeddah to come for the launch. Originally scheduled for 8-10 March, I found out about the trip on 1 Mar. On the 6th of Mar I still had no details about my flight, my hotel, itinerary, etc. When I e-mailed for info, I got the reply "trip has been changed to 11-14 Mar. Will send details tomorrow. Those came 9 Mar. Have I mentioned that advanced planning is not really a forte of the region?

I had no idea if we were going to be busy the whole trip or if this was really just a reason to go travel so I didn't really do any research for my journey. Luckily, as it turns out, 95% of the trip was free time and everyone was keen to sightsee and explore so turned out to be a really fun, interesting trip.

Upon arrival in Cairo, our "host" from ART prompty goes to duty-free to purchase his allotment of whiskey and vodka. At this point, I'm starting to realize this trip is purely pleasure....no business will be done....and I'm diggin' it. Back home, we're not really allowed to accept trips from suppliers, here it's encouraged so hopefully there will be more to come!

Anyhow, we're shuttled to our hotel, the Semiramis Intercon, which as an indication of the poverty of Cairo, is a 5-star Cairo hotel, but by any other standards, maybe a 3 star? Sounds horribly snobby but hey...I live in Dubai now. ;-)

Have obligatory welcome dinner at this restaurant on a boat on the Nile. Then head back with the guys to the casino in our hotel. (and yes, only guys because of the 30 or so total people on the trip, only 4 girls) As Dubai has not yet legalized gambling, there are no casinos (I don't think Sheikh Mo has quite grasped how profitable the gaming business could be! but I digress). Cairo casinos don't hold a candle to Vegas but it's fun nonetheless.

Wednesday, a group of us headed out of Cairo to the Giza Pyramids. We leave the hotel to arrange taxis. Now, I've been told a cab should cost about 50LE (Egyptian Pounds) which is about $10USD. That covers a taxi to drive you approx 30 minutes to the pyramids, the cab driver waiting for you to have your look around - 30 minutes, 3 hrs, 5 hrs.. doesn't matter... covered - and the drive back to downtown. I've also been forewarned that Egyptians will rip us off. They'll rip off other non-Egyptian Arabs (I was with all Lebanese), they'll rip off Westerners. If they know you have money, they will try to take you for everything you have. Don't get me wrong, Cairo is poor so everything is dirt cheap but it's just the principal. I'd rather give money to a beggar than to someone who knowingly is just trying to take my money and rip me off because he can. We end up getting the taxis for 150LE - a mere 3x what it should've cost us.

The cityscape of Cairo is really interesting, relative to Dubai especially. Coming from a place that has virtually no history, I was in awe of Egypt. However, there seems to be little plan for advancing the country into the 21st century. Amazing architecture, but everything was really dirty. The cars on the road are all at least 20-30 years old. I took a bunch of black and white photos of Cairo and you'd think they were literally 50 yr old photos (and i'm not bragging about my photography skills here!)

Back to the cab to Giza. This cute little old man drove us to the Pyramids but he kept on pointing back at me and smiling and saying something I didn't understand in Arabic and laughing. No one in the cab felt the need to translate for me other than to say "he likes you." I can only imagine what else what being said but....

We get to the Pyramids and pay for our tickets. Arabs, 2LE. Non-Arabs, 50LE. Sweet. We first refuse the guided tour which was offered for 40LE each. 10 minutes into our walk, we have a guide and are now paying 80LE each. But at least we got to see the Pyramids by horseback. Pretty cool. It's pretty bizarre and surreal to see a guide riding camel while dialing his mobile. I've never actually seen Lawrence of Arabia but our ride is pretty much what I envision the movie to be (minus the mobile of course).

At the end of the ride, we gallop into "town" which is in essence, a tourist trap. We're told about the "essence of lotus" oil, Cleopatra and Nephretite fragrances and then, again, after initially refusing, we're all suckered into buying bottles of perfume. (we found out the next day, what we got was not the best stuff and we paid about double what we should have) Then to the papyrus shop next door. Same deal. Given the explanation of how papyrus is made and then suckered into buying my zodiac sign with my name in heiroglyphics for 80LE (that, i was told should've been 10LE).

After the pyramids, a group of us went to an authentic Egyptian restaurant, had loads of food and shisha. Egyptian shisha is much stronger than Dubai shisha, but quite tasty! Tried pigeon, rabbit, and a handful of other things that I'm not really sure of but food was also really nice. At this point, I'm wondering how I'm having so much fun. Most of the people I'm with are speaking in Arabic which I don't understand. But that's when I realize, I'm starting to pick up little (very little) bits and pieces. This makes me happy. I'm finally assimilating.

Wednesday night was the launch of the new station so we all go to the Four Seasons for the event. This part of the trip, I could've done without. Reception from 9p-11p (with no alcohol) and then a presentation with really over-the-top Arab women and a pseudo-famous Lebanese singer. I only say "pseudo" because he seemed more than happy to sing for what seemed like hours. I assume if he was actually famous, he'd've been khalass after a couple tunes (that means finished!). The whole presentation was in Arabic, so while I picked up on a couple words here and there, I didn't really understand anything. It finished at 2am. At that point, I'd had about 6 espressos to stay awake so when we returned to the hotel and someone suggested going out, I was totally up for it. Big mistake. Ended up at the Hard Rock in Cairo, dancing with 20 or so Lebanese guys until 4am. Totally surreal. And of course, finished the night in the casino.

Thursday we did another tourist trip - to Khan L Khalili. I think it's the oldest souk in Cairo (but don't quote me on that). Really colorful place, but mostly filled with souvenir trinkets and junk. I started to figure out why they're so poor. Most of the stuff for sale was just junk. Literally.

In the afternoon, I took a walk around our hotel area. That's when the "hit-and-run" occurred. (I like being melodramatic sometimes!!) I saw what I think is the only building in Cairo built in the last decade. The Opera House. Really cool area actually. Within the compound, there's a modern art gallery, and music library, the opera house, sculpture gardens and it seemed to be the only place in Cairo that A.) was clean and B.) wasn't poverty-stricken.

Walked around this park which I now think is a rendezvous point for Muslim couples. After looking back at my pictures, I think I was the only solo person in the entire park.

In the evening, went back to Khan L Khalili with a different group. Went to a popular shisha cafe in the middle of Khan L Khalili. While we were smoking, I think at least 6 little kids tried to sell us some junk - from kleenex to bobble-head dolls, shoes to henna. It's pretty sad to how they exploit the children. One of the guys gave a little girl 5LE (remember, that's about $1) and she absolutely fell in love with him. Hung around hugging and kissing him! It was actually really cute but sad still.

Friday was our last day and by this time, I think we were all ready to get back to Dubai (the Saudis left Thursday). Spent the morning at the Egyptian Museum. My official last rip-off. Again, 2LE for Arabs, 50 for me to enter. Then we went to the special mummy exhibit. That was 10LE for the guys and 100LE for me. Totally worth it in a really bizarre sense. The mummies were INSANE. Literally looking at bodies preserved for thousands of years. Some still had hair and fingernails. I could only stomach about 10 minutes in the exhibit before I literally was going to vomit but it was incredible nonetheless. I wonder how in a city that's so chaotic and poor and in a museum with hordes of artifacts that are just stacked on top of one another and labelled with a sharpie marker, that they somehow managed to keep the mummies intact.

Anyhow...so that's ALL my commentary on Egypt. Wow that was long. I'll understand if no one ever visits this blog again. As with my photos, I don't self-edit.