And so: here I am again!
Rather than trying to detail the events of the past two weeks since I touched down at DXB, I will simply say that things are great - crazy, but great. Moving here "long-term" (I use quotes because when do I ever do anything long-term?) is definitely different from the heady no-rules-no-responsibilities intern days of last summer, but with that caveat aside I have no complaints. Work is great, the beach is beautiful, it's good to reconnect with old friends and - as always seems to happen in Dubai - make a random and multicultural assortment of new ones. E and I are signing a lease tomorrow, inshallah (for a flat so beautiful that I cannot talk about it until it's confirmed, for fear of jinxing the blissful utopia in which we will live), K arrives from Sana'a on Wednesday for a weekend visit, and there's talk of a trip to Doha for the "Ascension of the Prophet" holiday in August.
So in short, life is good. For sure, any 8000-mile relocation is bound to be fraught with bewilderment at the incompetence of the people on whom you have to rely to make it all work out - on the phone with a certain US bank today, for instance, I first had to explain what I meant by using my check card abroad ("yes, 'abroad' means 'out of the country'") and then had to spell the UAE's name a dozen times before the woman could figure out what country I was talking about ("that's 'United,' you know, like 'United States'... Arab, that's A-R-A-B..."). This was topped only by a moment over the weekend when - while waiting expectantly to see a flat that was meant to be left unlocked for us, and after repeated cell phone calls to the absent landlord who kept insisting that the locked flat was indeed unlocked and we were just on the wrong floor - M and I suddenly heard E yell into his phone "Yes I am sure we're on the 34th floor! 34! As in: 1! 1-2! 1- 2-3! 1-2-3-4! Is that how your numbers go, too? Then yes, we're on the right floor!" Priceless.
And so with those anecdotes (haha, can you tell the settling-in is getting to me?), I will close and head to bed to count camels ("1! 1-2! 1-2-3! 1-2-3-4!")... more updates soon!
