Leaving the Oasis

"Where's Waldo?"

Tonight is bitter sweet.


On one hand I move into my permanent place in the Greens tomorrow. I am very excited about finally getting settled in my new place and (yes, dad) finally unpacking my suitcases. On the other hand, tonight I will leave that which is familiar again. The Oasis Court has been my home for the past month and I will really miss it.


I will miss seeing Ahmed at the desk every morning and his cheerful lobby announcement of "Hello, boss!".


I will miss my morning cab ride with Abdul who was always very reluctant to interupt my morning read of the paper to announce the state of the morning traffic or a new restaurant that had just arrived. He was always so curious about the U.S. and would ask about life overseas.


I will miss the nightly swimming crowd. They all had Nike swimcaps and (really) tight swimming trunks, but as Lance Armstrong's book so elequently put it, "It is Not About the Bike." Keep practicing fella's!


I will miss the laundry guy, who I am convinced still does not know the meaning of "lightly starched".


I will miss the smell of curry when I walk out the front door (trust me, that one took some getting used to at 8:00 in the morning!).


This has been a great place to start my new adventure. It is a very humble place where life seems simple and everyone knows your name (maybe because I stick out like a sore thumb!). The people are all very welcoming and kind and I have come to realize that, despite all of the artificial structures being built and the glitz and glam that defines one part of Dubai, there is another part that is very much stuck in the past.


It is a past of inviting weary travelers into one's home for a meal, helping out your fellow man and promoting good will. It is in this very confusing time that Dubai (not unlike all of us) is still being defined. It is a teenager that is stuck between childhood and becoming an adult. It is still trying to find its identity and, just like a teenager some things that are akward and others that are very grown up and mature. Just like a teenager, it is trying to impress the rest of the world with its independence but at the end of the night it gets tucked in by mom and dad. Just like a teenager, it is not sure which way to go next and...


...just like a teenager, we experience many emotions from all ends of the spectrum everyday, but we look to the future with our heads high, ready for the next adventure...

Back from Turkey

First of all, I want to say "Happy Prophet Day" to everyone. Not surprisingly, we do not get Easter off, but we did get today off because it is the Prophet's birthday. Not to worry about Easter though because even though I have to work, one of the ladies in the office is having an "Orphans Easter Celebration" at her place so we are all going over there for Easter after work.

So, you might ask what I did on my day off...well I will tell you that I will no longer have an excuse for bad photography because I bought a digital camera! Good times. I also bought a new piece of luggage. It is a carry on with 4 wheels. Let me tell you that when you are in a region where people have no concept of "me space" (see grocery store story in previous post) it pays off to have a bag with 4 wheels that is not constantly getting stepped on or kicked. I learned this the hard way on my trip to Istanbul.

Istanbul? Yep. It was amazing. I will put some pictures on the bottom of this post from the place where we ate breakfast each morning. Whomever can e-mail me back with the proper name of the body of water in these pictures will get a beer from me when I get home.

Talk about a country with a sense of pride! Holy cow. I cannot imagine trying to drive in that place without knowing Turkish because all of the street signs are in Turkish. I saw a really great car billboard, but I had no clue what kind of car it was because I couldn't read the sign! And speaking of driving, the traffic is horrible! These taxi drivers drive down a street that is probably no wider than my living room at 40 miles an hour with cars on both sides! And the hills! It is like San Francisco. I am not sure how they get their little Euro cars up and down them when it snows! Anyway, back to the pride topic. One of the first things that the client said to me when she was explaining the company was that, "We don't like foreigners." Wow! She did not mean it in a bad way at all, but that tells you how much they love their country. I cannot wait to go back when I have some more time to explore. I plan on staying over a weekend and seeing some of the sites. It is amazing to think about the history behind that country and imagine how these structures are still standing. It was absolutely a great trip. The food was great too.

Here are some of the pictures. I did not have video on my Blackberry, so these are a piecemeal panoramic view from the top of our hotel...

Also, another great part about traveling in and out of Dubai...duty free! You know what that means?!

Answer:

I hope that you are all well! Thinkin' about you.

Trapped at the Airport

So here I sit. My first flight to Istanbul and I am stuck in the airport. My flight is 4 hours delayed and then the actual flight is 4.5 hours long.

I am with my boss, so we have had a great chance to catch up and chat. Oh yeah...we are also hanging out in the Emirates lounge (a.k.a. all of the champagne and food that we can eat and drink!). Don't feel too bad for me (see picture below)

I just got my "e-card" today. The e-card is a credit card like piece of plastic that you swipe to get in and out of customs. It saves tons of time and lets you get through customs without any human interaction! Gotta' love technology. Anyway, I am going to go. More soon!

I found a place!!!

Great news! I have a place to stay!! It is a one bedroom with a study (a.k.a. when you all come to visit, you have a place to stay!). It is in a good location (don't worry mom, it is close to a grocery store) and has a great pool and a gym that I can use anytime. And, if my calculations are right, it is right off of the path that the cycling club uses on their group rides. I will keep you posted on that. Sorry that I do not have any picutres of the place, but when I went to look someone was still living there. Right before I sign the lease (and after the woman moves out) I will have one more inspection to do. I will definitely take some pictures and post them for you to see.

Interesting little tid bit for B.J., today in the elevator on the way back to my apartment from the pool, they were playing "Little Drummer Boy"! I just smiled and laughed inside.

Also, Kipp, I had an arabic version of Red Robin for dinner tonight. It was a "burger" (a beef? patty that was about a millimeter thick) with lettuce, tomato, cheese and an egg! It was not nearly as good as Red Robin and definitely did not come with all you can eat fries. It did come with curry chips though. They were delicious!

So one of my co-workers in Chicago just sent me an e-mail. He is from Turkey and has been in the states for several years. He said that when he moved to the states he was told that he would go through stages of adjustment. First is the excitement phase when you learn new things and are over whelmed with everything around you. Next is the homesick phase when you start to miss the things that you had back home. After that is the frustration phase when you really start to take notice of the differences in cultures and way of life. Finally, is the normalization phase when you continue to learn more and start to feel at home.

I think that these words of advice are probably right on. I spent some time thinking about these phases and where I think I am. As with everything, I would imagine that there are many overlaps and redundancies in the phases, however I think that I have a little bit of all of them!

I still find myself learning something new everyday (today I learned that, in this region, you cannot choose your benefit plans at work).

I also find myself on the verge of tears whenever I hear the right song on Itunes or re-read the cards that my parents very sneakily placed in my luggage!

On top of that, if someone invades my personal space one more time, I think that I might just snap! Needless to say, the concept of "personal bubble" is non-existent over here. The other day, I was in the grocery store and this guy came up behind me and started touching my back with his folded arms full of fruit. I would move forward, he would move forward, I would move forward, he would move forward. I thought that I could turn this into a little game and stepped to the right. He stepped forward. Now we were almost even in the line. I thought, "Oh, hell no! Not a chance that I am going to let this guy in front of me because I am afraid of his fruit!," so I stepped back. Now he was practically wearing my clothes! Just one of those things, I guess.

I am not convinced that I am in the last phase yet. I still think that I have much to learn and I don't quite feel at home yet. I am sure that once I stop living out of my suitcases, I will feel better (I know Dad, I should have un-packed when I got here).

Anyway, when are you all coming to visit?! Let me know, I now have a study where you can stay! Miss you.

Yin and Yang

So as I spend more time here, I am coming to realize that there are great dichotomies that are able to co-exist and flurish from each other. Let me explain what I mean. For example, I am sure that you all have heard about the 7 star hotel or the islands that they are making in the sea. These are great accomplisments that are extremely costly to create. On the other hand, you do not hear about the workers that are being paid the equivalent of pennies per day to construct these and other tourist attractions.

Another (not so sad) example of this yin and yang are my adventures over the past two days. Last night I went to a little, modest, Sweedish furniture store called IKEA. Obviously, there is some Western influence in play here.

It turns out that IKEA is HUGE here. That place was so busy that it was kind of hard to get around. I imagine that I will probably have an IKEA showroom for a living room once I get a place to live because it is a very cost effective option. After the visit to IKEA, we went and ate some dinner and then went to a mall. When I talk about their malls, I am not talking about American Eagle. They have all of the brands that are on Michigan Avenue plus some that I have not ever heard of (that is how I know that they must be designer!)

The other side of the equation is evident in my adventure that I took this afternoon. I went to a place called Deira. This area is the old city center that is right around the mouth of the creek. The area is filled with different souks (markets). This is where the gold souk, spice souk, and textile souk are located (see more pictures below). The really cool part about the souk (besides the gold...Mom, bring some extra cash when you come!) was the way that you get there. So there are these little water taxis called dhows that go up and down the creek from one side to the other. So you get on the boat with about 20 other people and the driver pulls away from the dock. He then comes around and collects the 1 dirham fare that it costs for the ride. That is the equivalent of 30 cents! Darin, it reminded me a lot of the water taxis in Baltimore, only much cheaper. When the boat pulls out, don't be surprised if you run into another boat or the dock as that seems to be par for the course. Those boats must be made of really good wood, because they are constantly running them into things. Luckily, they do not go very fast so everything is safe. Good times!

Once across the creek, you are met with stands that sell fresh juice and snacks. I got a fresh mango juice that was really good. Then I started to wander the streets of the souks. These are open air markets that sell everything that a tourist could want. The spice souk was probably my favorite. The spices just sit in brown sacks for people to smell and purchase. The smell was amazing. The smell of some of the shop owners was not so amazing however. After wandering around the souks and being asked if I wanted to buy a good replica of a Rolex about 1,000 times (B.J., remember the "Rolex" that I brought you back from Kuwait? Same scenario.), it was time to return to the other side. I boarded another dhow and made it across safely. Then I took a walk along the creek. It was a beautiful day and lots of fun.

I hope that you are all doing well. Thinking about you!

Lost in Translation

I FOUND IT!!!! (See previous post about the grocery store) It is a good thing that the airline gave me a dopp kit with all of the essentials in it on the way over here. If you ever get the chance to fly Emirates Airlines, take it!

So I spent the day at a client site today because we just issued a survey to help assess their HR function. It was a very interesting day. The survey was in English and was intended for use in the U.S. Call me ignorant (I suppose that is part of why I am doing this whole thing), but I was really surprised at some of the questions that I got. One guy approached me (very politely) and said, "We are not Shakespeare." Meaning that the language that we were using was not easy to understand. This guy had a Ph. D, so I doubt that he was the cause of the problem here. Bottom line, I guess this just serves as an eye opening experience. I am happy to report that my company is coming out with a survey very soon that is in Arabic, so that is promising.

Another funny story. This one was from last night, and I wish that I had the picture to go with it, but I didn't think of it until it was too late. So I went to a "burger joint" last night (one of my missions is to not eat at the same place twice). This place was an open air kind of place that I would almost equate to a permanent street vendor. For my dinner, I got a chicken tikka burger with fries and a fresh squeezed pineapple juice. It was really good and quite spicy. So as I am turning to leave, I see a picture that they have on the wall with all of their food on it. I immediately focused my attention to the picture of the sub sandwich with a white meat, lettuce, tomato, mayo and mustard. Underneath, in giant letters, read the following:

"Turkish Breast Sandwich"

HAHAHAHAHA!!!! I almost lost it right there. I don't know if it was something in the pineapple juice or if I was just tickled for whatever reason, but I thought that was really funny.

My first day at work...

...was great! We had a great meeting with our team and I learned a lot about their working styles and the vision for this year. Very exciting stuff. I think that this adventure is going to be a great learning opportunity. I have attached a picture from the office window (it is kind of fuzzy because I took it with my Blackberry and the window is very dirty!). The main road is called Shaikh Zayed Road. That road is kind of like the strip in Vegas! That is where everything is located. The two big buildings are called Emirates Towers. That is where (get this) "His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai"'s office is located (imagine his business cards and name plate on the outside of the door!). That is kind of being across the street from the White House. You can also see the concrete "track" that will make up part of the new "MetroRail" system. I thought that I had left the "El" in Chicago! I hope that you are all doing well. More soon...

I'm here!!!

So after a long time spent worrying about how I was going to actually get to Dubai (due to delays coming out of Chicago), I finally made. Granted, I had to stay in a really shady hotel in New York and lug all of my worldly possessions across the entire JFK airport, but I made it. I was flying Emirates Airlines and the service could not have been better once I got on the plane. It was a new Boeing 777 Dreamliner. One of the newest airplanes in service right now. Good times.

As expected, it was really hard to leave. I think that after all of the hoopla about leaving and what a great idea this would be, there was definitely a realization that the "implementation phase" would be the hard part. Actually getting on the plane and leaving was really tough.

I have stayed really busy since I have gotten here. Went to the beach, hung out by the pool, grocery shopping (I couldn't find deodorant anywhere!). My company also had a great party when I arrived. We went out on a catamaran and sailed out by the Palm Islands and had a barbecue. It was a lot of fun. The people in the office are really nice and have all been in my situation, so it is nice to have them to lean on when I need to.

I hope that you are all doing well. The attached pictures are on the beach and the view from my balcony (taken with my Blackberry, so not great quality). I hope that you enjoy them! Write back!