I've fiiiiinally gotten around to making my plans for the holidays, and all I can say is three cheers for Christmas + Eid Al Adha + New Year's all rolled into one. I'll be traveling for 18 days and I only have to take 9 of them off work - not bad for a country where 25 December is a normal work day.
The agenda:
-19 to 28 December in Nashville (a 30-hour journey there and a 30-hour journey back - I'm paying for my ticket-purchase procrastination with a bit of globe-circumnavigation and some scintillating layovers in Zurich and Chicago)
-29 December back in Dubai for a friend's Lebanese-Jordanian wedding (which, if it's anything like the Lebanese-Palestinian engagement party I attended this weekend, will be a veritable festival of plastic surgery, Nancy Ajram music, and couture gowns reminiscent of 1980s-era American prom dresses... but also insanely good food and intensely hot dancing)
-30 December to 5 January in Goa (beachy southern Indian province famous for its Portuguese influences and krazy nightlife, for those who don't live right around the corner from the Subcontinent the way I do)
So unfortunately, there will not be as much Seeing of The American Friends as I had hoped when I was planning to pass through New York, but I encourage anyone who has some extra airline miles burning a hole through their account to think about coming to Goa, as we have 2 entire villas (free!) thanks to the generosity of a friend's friend who owns some property there. You know you want to "Go Goa!" (or maybe you don't, if you don't have to listen to that annoying Indian Tourism Board jingle on CNN International every morning).
Aaaaaaanyhoo, time to leave work for Flatmate Schnitzel, which is not as dirty as it sounds but rather, consists of Javs cooking Argentinean-style veal schnitzel and E & me pouring wine and eating it. Adios!
