Strangers in a Strange Land

As-salaamu alaykom…

Well, I’ll go ahead and say that if you have the means, you really need to travel international business class if at all possible at least once in your life. Basically, Eric and I drank our way from ATL through to JFK and ended up in the Emirates lounge in New York. As much Veuve Cliquot as I can drink? Don’t mind if I do. Deluxe dinner buffet? Sounds great. Free magazines and internet connection? Thank you!

Boarding the plane, Eric and I settled into our fully reclining seats and began watching whatever we wanted on the 500 channels on the 17 inch screens in front of us. For some reason, around four in the morning I settled into the 15 stations of Disney animated features and fast-forwarded through to all the happy endings I could watch. The flight, all 13+ hours of it went by fairly quickly and once on the ground, our customs procedure was expedited because of our seating. We collected our bags, and after a slight hiccup in finding our driver, we headed to the Hawthorne Hotel in Deira (a suburb in Dubai).

Right away, we knew we were strangers in a strange land. If you’ve never visited a Muslim country, or have never been near a mosque, then you have probably never heard the lyrical Arabic chanting of the Adhan – one of the five times a day that there is a call to prayer. It is broadcast over a VERY loud PA system and can be heard for basically a 5-block radius. I can see how it would be a bother for some, but so far, I actually find it kind of soothing.

After a much needed shower, we began flipping through some familiar channels (CNN, ESPN – is there hope for watching college football???) before passing out cold.

The next morning we woke up even earlier than the first prayer – 5am – and laid awake for awhile before going to the breakfast at the hotel. Eric was fighting a cold, so we went back upstairs to lay down for a “few minutes” and woke up to find that it was already 1pm. Damn you jet lag!

I’m not sure why, but being abroad always makes me feel like I’m on an episode of The Amazing Race, so when we go to do something I feel like we have to do it in a hurry. This, coupled with the fact that the place we were trying to get to – a bank – closed early for Ramadan at 2PM, got me all kinds of agitated.
Getting a cab proved to be our first valuable lesson. Asking the hotel to call a cab makes sense, right? Yeah, not so much. So, Eric and I took to the sweltering streets and found ourselves a taxi. Upon arriving at HSBC, we were informed that unless we had a Salary Transfer letter, that we were out of luck and could not open an account. Strike one, Team Wright.

A little discouraged, we headed to the Mall of the Emirates to get cell phones, er, mobiles. For some reason, we first decided that we were starving and went to Carefour (kind of like if Super Walmart was attached to a giant mall and all the white and trashy people had been replaced Arab nationals), to get something to eat…however, it being Ramadan and all, we couldn’t actually eat in public, so I went to the closest bathroom to scarf down a Twix bar and drink my Coke Light (yup, that would be Diet Coke). Energy restored, we went to the Etisalat stand to get our phones and sign up for service. Oh wait, time to backtrack again – turns out you need a phone before they will sell you a card. Making our fourth lap around the Mall, we settled on some basic Samsungs and finally got ourselves connected.

Today’s quest has been to get Eric’s UAE drivers license. Of course, I was very good about getting us out of the country – but not so great about setting up things that needed to be done once we actually got to the Emirates. So, last night, I drafted up a list of all that was needed and this morning we set off – determined to get the gold card necessary for Eric to get his company car. After all, taxis are getting expensive!

After a brief lecture from the “translation” service guy about the virtues of women and marriage, we sat in a random room and waited for Eric’s number to be called. Success!


Like Eric said this morning, it’s all kind of like a big scavenger hunt. I’m hoping now to track down the clues that will find us a place to live and employment for me.

Yeah, I know that pictures would make this a lot more interesting...I just need to find the lead to the camera.