Well, I have survived my trip from Dubai to Madrid, via Amsterdam. I will never be warm again. I have not seen under 17C since April and when I got off the plane in Amsterdam, it was -1C! I was in flip flops because that is all I own over here!! I have sneakers today so it was better.
I thought that Amsterdam would be cooler (not temperature-wise) but then again, I only saw the airport. I am a stressed out traveler so leaving for a couple of hours to go to the city sounds like hell to me. Once I arrived in Spain, I met my parents at the airport and did not get a visa stamp. It was weird. In Amsterdam, I had to go through customs to get to the other terminal. Here, no one checked anything. One would think they would be more vigilant. I guess since they pulled out of Iraq, they are feeling pretty confident.
Anyway, today we went to the Camille Claudel Exhibit at the International Cultural Center. If you have a chance to see her sculpture, it is really amazing. She studied under Rodin and may have actually been responsible for some of the sculptures in which he is credited for today. That event plus lunch and fighting the traffic in the rain took up most of our day. Now, I need siesta before dinner at 9pm!!
Don't worry- plenty of pictures to come!
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
**Happy Holidays**
Well, I am off to Spain to meet my family for Christmas. This is impede (even more) my ability to post on the blog. I hope that you all enjoyed the Rugby pictures and have a safe and happy holiday season. I will post even more photos as soon as I can!
Saturday, December 15, 2007
**Rugby Pictures**
As promised, here is my attempt to share my 100 photos from my 2 days of mayhem. I am sure that my friends, who are well versed at e-stalking, will tell me if this is a bad idea. If it is, I will figure out an alternative!!
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
**RUGBY**
To close out the 3rd decade of my life, I spent the last weekend of my 20s at the Dubai Rugby 7s! Let me tell you that it was a bizarre experience. I have been to many drunken sporting events in my life but they have all been American. Being that this sport is qualified as "gentlemen acting like thugs" (as opposed to soccer), the crowd was drastically different. Everyone was drinking at 9am but there were no real fights and very limited security. Everyone was very chill- like the Woodstock of sport. Not to say that it was without drama. Apparently, people are VERY concerned with how their team competes. Since the US only scored once in 2 days of play, I chose my favorite team by match or surrounding fans. I have now found that this approach to rugby is not appreciated by "serious rugby fans"- whatever, I was born in a true first-world country where your opinion doesn't count! Yeah, I am such a great world traveler! Here are some of my observations:
1) England's song is "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"- this is an American spiritual song sung by slaves. I thought that was the most random choice.
2) The organizers only had one CD of songs to play because by day 2, I never wanted to hear the following songs EVER AGAIN:
-Sweet Caroline
-Is This The Way To Amarillo
-Hey Baby
3) People will wear anything (or close to nothing) in public in a Muslim country
4) I did the conversion after the weekend and a 12 pack of Heineken beer with a cloth cooler was close to $80 USD! I am glad that I didn't think about that at the time.... I am mildly unhappy with the close to 10 coolers sitting in my apartment- we drank WAY too much expensive beer!
5) They imported cheerleaders from all over the world to be the international squad touring with the groups. I have no words for these girls except they do fit my normal views of cheerleaders.
6) The "Stadium Food" was officially PIES. I thought this was weird since people were walking around selling pies. Then, we got a round of pies. They were chicken pot pies..... little ones for personal eating. Gross.
OK, I am going to try to share the pictures of this day on Webshots tomorrow. I hope it works. Let me know if you have problems and I will just email you the link or whatever!!!
1) England's song is "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"- this is an American spiritual song sung by slaves. I thought that was the most random choice.
2) The organizers only had one CD of songs to play because by day 2, I never wanted to hear the following songs EVER AGAIN:
-Sweet Caroline
-Is This The Way To Amarillo
-Hey Baby
3) People will wear anything (or close to nothing) in public in a Muslim country
4) I did the conversion after the weekend and a 12 pack of Heineken beer with a cloth cooler was close to $80 USD! I am glad that I didn't think about that at the time.... I am mildly unhappy with the close to 10 coolers sitting in my apartment- we drank WAY too much expensive beer!
5) They imported cheerleaders from all over the world to be the international squad touring with the groups. I have no words for these girls except they do fit my normal views of cheerleaders.
6) The "Stadium Food" was officially PIES. I thought this was weird since people were walking around selling pies. Then, we got a round of pies. They were chicken pot pies..... little ones for personal eating. Gross.
OK, I am going to try to share the pictures of this day on Webshots tomorrow. I hope it works. Let me know if you have problems and I will just email you the link or whatever!!!
Saturday, December 1, 2007
**Dubai Airshow**
I am not even sure how to describe this experience. Let me preface this with the observation that people here are not at all concerned with personal space. If you have seen video of Indian trains or buses, you would understand. It is like a clown car- hundreds of people packed into a space designed for 60 people tops.
I decided to go to the Airshow last minute. I had a ticket since our company had a booth at the event. I pre-registered online and caught a ride over with a colleague, who had a much sought-after parking pass. It took us nearly an hour to get 4 miles down the road to the Expo. I hate traffic- especially when someone else is driving. We park and get on the line for pre-registered ticket holders. The other line was hundreds of people long. In normal Arab fashion, we walked to the front of the line and they let 2 of us in because we were women. Then we stood in line and gave the lady our ticket. She scanned it and told us to get our name badge at the next counter; they would call out our name. There were 100 people shoving each other in front of me and 10 minutes later, my name gets called. They can't see me in the mosh pit so I shove my way forward. 15 MINUTES later, when I get to the side of the booth, they will not stop calling names and give me my tag. Finally, after I spot my tag, someone hands it to me.
The crowd sees that I got my tag before them and surge forward. Now, I am a 6ft tall bad ass and I was trapped. The police guards came over to pull me out.
I was unhappy about the experience. I was crazed with thoughts about how this would never happen at an industry event in any first world country! I then went through security and set off the metal detector. Again, I head to the booth to get patted down by a Muslim woman. Like I am sneaking in weapons into the Airshow?!! By this time, nearly 3 hours had passed since we had left the office so we hurried up to go see the A380 fly, stopped at the both to say hi and then headed home. If I had paid for that ticket, I would have been very pissed off!
I think I am done with Airshows for awhile!!
I decided to go to the Airshow last minute. I had a ticket since our company had a booth at the event. I pre-registered online and caught a ride over with a colleague, who had a much sought-after parking pass. It took us nearly an hour to get 4 miles down the road to the Expo. I hate traffic- especially when someone else is driving. We park and get on the line for pre-registered ticket holders. The other line was hundreds of people long. In normal Arab fashion, we walked to the front of the line and they let 2 of us in because we were women. Then we stood in line and gave the lady our ticket. She scanned it and told us to get our name badge at the next counter; they would call out our name. There were 100 people shoving each other in front of me and 10 minutes later, my name gets called. They can't see me in the mosh pit so I shove my way forward. 15 MINUTES later, when I get to the side of the booth, they will not stop calling names and give me my tag. Finally, after I spot my tag, someone hands it to me.
The crowd sees that I got my tag before them and surge forward. Now, I am a 6ft tall bad ass and I was trapped. The police guards came over to pull me out.I was unhappy about the experience. I was crazed with thoughts about how this would never happen at an industry event in any first world country! I then went through security and set off the metal detector. Again, I head to the booth to get patted down by a Muslim woman. Like I am sneaking in weapons into the Airshow?!! By this time, nearly 3 hours had passed since we had left the office so we hurried up to go see the A380 fly, stopped at the both to say hi and then headed home. If I had paid for that ticket, I would have been very pissed off!
I think I am done with Airshows for awhile!!
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