Four Things

So in light of my total lack of recent updates, some bullet points!

The Home Front: Flatmate Javs is moving out on the 28th and taking his place will be New Flatmate D, a very cute, earnest, double Ivy League-educated mutual friend of E & I who worked in microfinance in Vietnam before selling out to do banking in Dubai, competes in triathlons, and - most dreamily! - is AMERICAN. He'll be a fun 3rd flatmate, and now that we're 100% Amrikan chez nous, you can rest assured that we'll host the best July 4th party east of London.

The World, and Our Place in It: With the influx of newcomers/guests in town lately, I have been privy to a host of really interesting brain-picking sessions as of late. This past weekend, for instance, we had three American friends staying with us - one who works for an NGO in Darfur, one who had just come from a pan-Arab political conference in Qatar, and one who is moving to Dubai after living in Saudi for a year as part of her consulting firm's "pilot project" of staffing female consultants in the Kingdom. Needless to say, this prompted some intense conversations over late-night cocktails and champagne brunch, and I learned a lot (or at least, heard a lot of informed opinions): what's happening in CAR and DRC is way worse than anything that's going on in Sudan right now; Save Darfur is funded primarily by a group of ultraconservative Jewish lobbyists who are playing up the crisis in an attempt to wrest control of most of Sudan (including, yeah, those really resource-rich parts) from the Arab/Muslim government of northern Sudan; Doha, Qatar is the most boring city in the GCC; Clinton's former WTO rep is a lousy speaker who needs to be talked through a .PPT for six hours before he can present it; Western women working in Saudi are required by law to wear abaya, but not the veil; and finally - if authorities at the public beheadings in Riyadh ever see a Westerner in the audience for an execution, they will bring them up to the absolute front row of the spectacle in full view of the person being executed, because the worst possible thing for a Muslim is to see a nonbeliever at the time of their death. I suppose that is the literal enactment of "adding insult to injury." Wow.

The Past: My daytrip to Kuwait with D two weekends ago was really surprisingly fun. As much as I had negative preconceptions of Kuwaitis - overprivileged 13 year-olds crashing their parents' Lamborghinis with impunity because the have money and oil to burn - every Kuwaiti I met during my time there was friendly, unassuming, and far more down-to-earth than your average Emirati. Who knows how much you can really judge based on 12 hours, but our afternoon out in the desert chilling with friendly, middle-class, non-English-speaking locals (pics on Facebook obvi) was really testament to the fact that Arab hospitality is not, you know, a cliche or a stereotype. It's a real value and a true priority and as a stranger you are treated like (better than?) family - and coming from a Western/American upbringing, that fact is so striking and so cool. I could definitely have stayed for more than just the day (there was lots of nerdy Gulf War history stuff that I wanted to see, but we ran out of time), so my recommendation? Add it to your list. (Oh and I got a pair of USD $500+ Diane von Furstenburg dresses on sale for less than one-fifth of their retail price. Respect.)

The Future: Tomorrow I fly to Damascus at 10 PM for an action-packed long weekend of fun, friends, and falafel. I'm expecting I'll like Syria as much or more than anywhere else I've been in the Middle East (the history! the architecture! the sweets!) so it has some big shoes to fill, but traveling with Mar & Jojo is sure to be full of adventures regardless of the destination.

Okay, so that's the update round-up! Be well and I'll be back from Syria on the 23rd!

Echoing from the Void

Okay I swear to God that someday I will go back to being a regular blogger, but not until the nice weather ends and the flow of out-of-town guests stopped... Hill (from intern summer 2006) and her boyfriend J have been here since Thursday, and we also have E's friend Y staying with us on an R&R break from her NGO job in Sudan, and Al has a whole host of friends from UVA visiting as well, and and and and basically everyone is here until Wednesday night when I leave for Syria for the long weekend with the girls!

So yes, I am alive. And semi-sane. Many fun stories to be shared, some of which may get passed along tomorrow if I have some free time at work... stay tuned!

Rehab

Um... wow. Hi, yes, I blog. Sometimes. But not when my life is insanely crazy, aka the past two weeks of out-of-town guests and the whirlwind of sightseeing and debauchery that comes with them.

Photos from the Smel/Bubba visits may be viewed on the Facebooks. Needless to say, it was ridiculously great to see both of them (Smel for the first time since Korea 2006; Bubba for the first time since London 2005). It was very funny to reminisce and wax nostalgic about how far we've come since we met 9 years ago as innocent Georgetown froshes, fresh off the proverbial boats from Tennessee/SoCal/Brazil and lumped together on the same subterranean dorm floor. Given that those were the days when I thought Iranians were Arabs and I couldn't have located Singapore on a map if my life depended on it, it's pretty funny that a decade later, they flew in from Bangkok and Frankfurt to meet me in Dubai. It's largely the influence of that group of friends that's responsible for me being where I am today - both literally and figuratively - and given the ephemeral, transient nature of expat life in Dubai, it was awesome to spend the better part of 10 days with people who really know, well, me.

So yes. Furthermore, after a suitable whirlwind of adventures - souk shopping, camel riding, skyscraper marveling, as well as an action-packed roadtrip to Oman (which may or may not have involved picking up an old toothless hitchhiking Omani man who spoke no English and driving him over the highest mountain range in the country in my little Tucson) and several epic nights of shisha and Lebanese food and pretentious cocktails - I feel that I have fully established my credentials as an awesome Dubai tour guide. So seriously - come visit.

But yeah, I'm also knackered. Being "on" for 10 days will do that to you. Which is why some might say it's unfortunate that I will be getting up at 5 AM tomorrow to fly to Kuwait for the day with New Friend D. To which I say... the lure of $90 plane tickets and the chance to spend 12 hours in a country you've never been to (which, let's be honest, is small enough and culturally bereft enough to be thoroughly explored in about half that time) can be resisted by no man.

Onwards and upwards!

I'm Alive!

Sorry for the lack of updates but things have been out of control busy - Smel's been here since Monday and Bubba got in last night and R's parents are in town and it's Al's 30th birthday extravaganza weekend and we just finished a krazy 800-mile 2-day road trip through Oman and now I'm taking off work tomorrow to do a helicopter tour of Dubai/Abu Dhabi sponsored by Bubba's company and and and and...

Blogging will recommence shortly when the elaboracy dies down. :)