A cultural obstacle course

Earlier this week I went to get a blood test for the renewal of my residence visa. Little did I know that it would be an entire morning of adventure.

First I went to a hospital called al Wasl Hospital. It’s not on al Wasl road, in case you were wondering. In fact, in a freaky metaphysical way, it’s barely on the road it is on. As one drives toward it, you pass it from several directions, each time following the convenient brown road signs which indicate what turn to take next. One such sign actually described a serious of upcoming turns in the shape of an ampersand (&). Such are the highways of Dubai.

When you get to al Wasl Hospital, you will be surprised to discover that the parking lot is a tropical garden. Lush and full of delightful planty smells! Unfortunately, the delights do not extend past the parking lot for the average visa renewer. Once you enter the “Blood Center,” you quickly discover that, although all government hospitals do blood tests for visa renewal and this is a government hospital, there are no blood tests here. “Go to Maktoum Hospital in Deira,” they said. Oh boy.

For my non-Dubai-based readers, let me pause here to explain that the concept of driving into Deira should fill you with dread and panic. Dirty Deira is a wonderful place, full of people and sidewalks and cheap food, but the roads are a tangled gridlocked mess, full of detours and horns at all hours of the day. An unlucky turn can leave you mired in traffic for the rest of the afternoon.

But I was in an adventurous mood so I picked a nice long NPR podcast to keep my brain occupied and off we went… and I got there, by some miracle or another. I even managed to park directly in front of the hospital. And that was the last normal thing to happen to me for the next 3 hours.

As I walked to the parking meter, rummaging for coins, I realized that I suddenly had a shadow. He was a middle-aged dark-skinned Indian man. He told me later that his name was Mhmd (no vowels the way he pronounced it). He explained that this part of the hospital was closed and “visa you need visa?” was done in another building. He also seemed keen to help me find change for my 5 AED bill to feed the meter. This is not normal; he clearly wanted to sell me something. But I was only in the market for a blood test that day and I surely wasn’t going to buy that from him, so it was a little confusing. Before I knew it, he whisked me down the street, around the corner, and up the block into his brother’s friend’s cousin’s grocery shop to break the 5 AED, back to my car, then to the visa-you-need-visa reception building, whose attendant informed me that I needed to go to a typist to get a picture, laminated healthcare ID care and some mysterious paperwork in Arabic and English. So my shadow then whisked me down the street, around the corner, and up the block into a different brother’s friend’s cousin’s
T
Y
P
I
S
T
shop. I have to spell it for you vertically because of the several dozen “Typist” shops clustered around the clinic like anemones on a reef, every single one of them displayed the word “Typist” vertically on the storefront glass. It was a little strange.

It was also a little strange to have a shadow. It was partly protective, partly helpful, and partly annoying. Nevertheless, oblivious to my emotional interpretation of it, Mhmd Shadow led me into the brother’s friend’s cousin’s Typist shop, a tiny linoleum-lined room with a high desk on one side and some plastic chairs on the other. I was plonked down into a plastic chair. A different Indian guy pulled down a plastic window shade behind me, switched on a fluorescent light and came veeeeeeeery close with a small digital camera to take my new ID picture. Then I sat and sat and sat until finally all my mysterious papers were ready. I paid the bill, which included an intriguing 10 AED charge for “Knowledge Dirham,” and then Mhmd Shadow took me back to the visa-you-need-visa reception room.

From here I entered into a series of rooms. In each room, I got in a queue or took a number, waited, then sat opposite a person who looked over my mysterious papers, added a new one to the stack, and sent me to the next room. This went on for quite a while, with no one demonstrating any particular interest in my blood. Then suddenly I get to the final gate. And the room is full of a million people, some of them accumulating dust with the length of their wait. Oh boy.

Fortunately for me, there seems to be a dedicated room for western ladies only and since I am definitely the only western lady I had seen all day, needless to say the wait is short. I’m in the chair, stab in the arm, here’s your band-aid, bye bye.

I made my way back to my car, dodging a few lost rain drops, and thought to myself, this is the first time in a long time that I’ve felt like I live in a foreign country and, as baffling as it was, it was kind of fun.

A Cake for Pop

This weekend our friend Scott threw another fabulous dinner party. I brought a friend (CARLENDER!) and dessert. Out of the pages of my chocolate cookbook, a recipe for "Torte del Nonno" jumped out at me. Delicious crust and chocolate custard and roasted pine nuts! Yum!










It also happens to be Italian for "Grandfather's Cake"... and so I hereby dedicate this dessert masterpiece to Pop, who has just came through double bypass surgery with flying colours! Hurray for Pop! We love you!

Eva, radio DJ

Last night, Mahmoud and I guest DJ'd on Dubai Eye. It was my first time on the radio and I was a little nervous. Fortunately, Mahmoud is a pro and Zahrah, the host, made it easy. I was told I didn't even mumble!

Here's us dancing while a song was on air and below is our playlist:
1) Time to Get Away - LCD Soundsystem
2) Dead Disco - Metric
3) Pump Up the Jam - The Lost Fingers
4) Oh Mandy - The Spinto Band
5) I Put a Spell on You - Screamin Jay Hawkins
6) Prezlauerberg - Beirut
7) Undone - DeVotchka
8) Flashdance, what a feeling - Yael Naim
9) Parentheses - The Blow
... We had 8 more songs but, alas, not enough time.

The nicest thing was that Dad, Nancy and Joe were listening live -- 7000 miles and 9 time zones away!

Au revior, corporate hair!

My pink streak has come out of hiding after 3 years! Hurray!

21 Hours in Athens

I'm back in Dubai now, ensconced in my normal coffee-quaffing spot on the balcony and reflecting on my few hours in Athens earlier this week.

I have high praise for my hotel, the Magna Grecia, which, while much smaller than its name might suggest, boasts a friendly staff who were quite patient with my inability to open and close my safe and who continually insisted that it was a little cold out and that I should put on a coat.
... Oh, and the view of the acropolis from the lounge isn't bad either. I was plugging away at a contract on my laptop for about an hour before I finally looked up and thought "hey! that's the acropolis!"

I didn't get out much though. I spent most of my time on the computer and, at some point between 3am in the time zone where my soul was and 3am in the time zone where my body was, I dozed in front of George and Magdaleni's crackling fireplace. I didn't think it was possible to doze in front of a crackling fireplace and simultaneously to create a cash flow model but, when I awoke, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a beautiful cash flow model with complex formulas clear! Eureka!

The next morning before my flight, I managed to snatch a few hours of Athens on foot. Here are the highlights:

- Down the street from my hotel, I came across this pint-sized church. It's placard indicated it had been there since the 1600s. I love the way its neighboring building has grown up and over it organically.



- Guards with pompoms! It was one of my most hilarious discoveries of my first trip to Greece that the guards of the parliament building are dressed with woolen white tights and giant pompoms on their shoes. To this day, I have never -- anywhere in the world -- seen a less intimidating guard uniform.



- I bought some Menthos. They were mysteriously labeled "chewy dragees" -- anyone able to explain this to me?



- I found a guy who sings worse than me!


- A merry crisis to all and to all a good night!

Adventures in Greek Television

So, what does one do whilst waiting in an Athens hotel room for someone to come pick up one's jetlagged self? We flip on the TV of course and see if it's still as surreal as I remember it being from my month here in 2004... I have the most vivid memory of laying tucked up in a twin sized bed in Patmos (the bed was hard as a board), eating greek yogurt and watching -- and crying, to be honest -- some movie which involves Macaulay Culkin dying.

Well you'll all be pleased to know that Greek TV is still as spectacularly random. On tap today:
1- Black and white footage of some people singing in Spanish on a bus. This is not merely one scene; I deduce from my repeated visits to the channel that this is the subject of the entire show. The singers appear to be hippies and radiate the type of joy you'd expect of hippies on a bus.
2- Home shopping network, seemingly devoted entirely to beaded necklaces. It is possible that the channel is called Ricardo. That is surely not the name of the model. I would guess she's an Elena and she looks bored shitless of beaded necklaces.
3- A cowboys & Indians movie. The lead character is named Charles White Eagle. He has a son who wears feathers in his hair. Everyone is speaking in American accents so sharp you could cut cheese with them.
4- Documentary about russian gymnasts. The adult being interviewed looks like she is pining for her days of glory.
5- A music concert that looks like it was filmed at a school gym. The singer resembles a young hippopatomaus, if it were possible for a young hippopatomaus to have her make-up done by a drunk prostitute. She's dancing enthusiastically, though, which is much to her credit considering that it doesn't appear there is any one in the audience.
6- The news. American soldiers somewhere.
7- A news panel set in front of a gold and purple wall. There is a silent blonde woman and two male commentators (one with a lot of hair on his head and one with none) who rattle like machine guns at one another.
8- Softcore lesbian porn. It conveys a surprisingly gentle and soothing mood through its black-and-white tone and near-silence. It's layered behind a mild fuzz of static which occasionally makes one half of the screen jump. There are unintelligible logos and phone numbers covering most of the juicy bits.
9- Football. Gooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaalll! There is no static on this channel.
10- More news. John McCain, looking much less stiff than he did during the election.
11- Something so static-y I can't even figure out what I'm looking at.

That's it from Athens tonight. Over and out!