Dubai
Well, tips on the hottest destination in the Middle East (both figuratively, and actually)
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An interesting BLOG from my buddy Brian Principato–currently living in Dubai! http://dubr1.blogspot.com/
Here is his first post from first arriving:
The journey to Dubai started off on the right foot, I ate dinner with my parents and we sat right next to three good looking Eagles’ cheerleaders. The trip however became less than satisfactory pretty quickly from there on out. After going through security and chilling at the waiting area for a while, we were informed that plane needed more time to get ready for the flight, but it was only about 30 minutes, which is the blink of an eye on the perpetual clock. Once on the plane, it became apparent that I was surrounded by parents with little kids and absolutely no common sense. The guy in front of me, at the very first chance he got, put his seat back all the way AND THEN left his seat to sit somewhere else. What a terrible thing to do to someone, especially a kid who can barely fit in the Coach seats anyway. Every time that I leaned forward to put the chair back up, he would come and sit in it for a few minutes. It reminded of MTV’s Boiling Point or Comedy Central’s Trigger Happy TV. After a while I gave up and was finally able to put the chair up as we went into our descent into London.
In London, I got off the plane and directly onto a “Coach” or bus. Shortly thereafter I went through security again, which I felt was stupid, but it was a new terminal in Heathrow and the logistics were not yet up to par. After waiting a half an hour while security tested and retested my liquids, I realized my personal stupidity led to the unfortunate Liquids debacle. I had put my contact solution, which is acidic and sets off those machines in with everything else in bottles with spray tops. The solution had gotten all over everything. Long story a little bit shorter, they threw away about 30 dollars worth of liquids.
After another short coach ride to my next plane, I boarded and was again the victim of rapid-putting-seat-back, luckily for me the seat behind me was unoccupied so I jumped up and took that, knowing it would take a miracle for the empty seat I had jut vacated to lean back on me. The flight wasn’t half bad after that, saw “I Love You, Man” and “She’s Just Not That Into You” which were both enjoyable.
I arrived in Dubai around 1030 pm and after retrieving my work visa and having my retina scanned, which I only thought happened in Bond movies, I got my bags and preceded out into the muggy 95 degree night. My driver ended up coming half an hour late and I was a sweaty mess, but he was nice and immediately took my bags. We arrived at the hotel about another 30 minutes later and as soon as I stepped through the door, a welcome rush of cool air welcomed me to my “home” for the next week.
The next morning I woke up at a reasonable hour and in time for the complimentary breakfast. I went down and was pleasantly surprised at the spread. I ended up having vegetable noodles, which is very similar to veggie lo mein, but with a middle eastern spice added to it. After breakfast, i decided to venture out into the sand-ridden air to the mall nearby. After the 10 minute walk I looked as if I had just jumped in the ocean fully clothed. After exploring the mall, I learned there was free wi-fi available, which is money. I grabbed an iced mocha at a quaint Dubai coffee shop, a little local place by the name of Starbucks and enjoyed my first free anything since I had deplaned.
As I sat at this little coffee shop, my international phone rang and my buddy’s friend who is in Dubai was on the other end of the call and she was summoning me out to a 4th of July party her friends were throwing and to grab a cab ASAP and come over. I downed my iced mocha and left the mall for the hotel, where I changed into a tank top and swim trunks and hopped in a cab. I met Orna, the friend of my buddy, and we went to her friends VILLA right on the beach. This place was gigantic. The villa was complete with pool, private beach, beach volleyball court, kegs, and huge bottles of Belvedeere Vodka.
The owners of the villa were 3 guys in their mid-20s who had found success in the website business. 2 had founded dubizzle.com, which is like craig’s list for Dubai and the other guy founded a sports leagues site, young money.
I met a lot of interesting people from all over the world there and it was a lot of fun. It was definitely not what I thought my first day in Dubai would be like when I accepted the internship in early September last year, but I am glad it happened the way it did.
Today, Saturday July 4th, the day of my home country’s independence finds me once again at the mall enjoying free internet. I plan to go to the grocery store here which is Geant instead f Giant and buy a 3 pronged adapter in order to use the laptop. AFter I eat lunch here, I am going to take a taxi to my office building where I will start work tomorrow at 9 am. I am excited and obviously a bit nervous, but it sould prove to be a great experience.
well that updates y’all on my situation, I hope y’all are well and will enjoy the 4th of July festivites, which will be in full effect when I arrive a work at 9 am here which is 1 am in the states.
Cheers and God bless America
And Most Recently: Pirate Pong
Yea, I worry too much. Everything with the money went fine and I moved in to the flat today no problem. My room is pretty big with a double bed,dresser, and big closet. The complex has four pools and tons of shops, it’s really quite cool.
Last night, I did end up going out despite my panic and had a fun night. From my friend’s place, we went to a penthouse party in the same apartments as I am in now, only a little further down the beach. This party was unbelievable, open bar, DJ, lights, different themes in different rooms. After doing a sweep of the place, we settled in the beer pong room. Being a 22 year old American, I know a little about beer pong, played it a handful of times, but not very many people at the party knew how to play. I was watching my friend play with a dude from South Africa, who I played pong with later on, cool dude with a sweet accent. As I was watching the game, a funny looking guy by the name of Barney came and asked me to tell him about the game. After i explained the rules he decided he wanted to play and we called next game.
Later on, when I was playing with the South African dude, Josh, our first opponents were classic. This is truly a you-shoulda-been-there type of thing, but I will try to paint the picture. First of all, they were well into their forties, secondly they were Italians who spoke comical English, and thirdly one of them looked like a pirate and decided to play without his shirt on and give us the death stare as many times as he could. Needless to say, we took care of these guys, but there was moment when we were down a cup, in between death stares from Jack Sparrow, that I was certain we would lose. The rest of the party was equally comical and I got back to the hotel around 330 am…fun times.
Be sure to read Brian’s Blog, it is awesome!
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#1 by totomix on June 20th, 2010
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You post awsome articles. Bookmarked !