I can't think of a headline for this one...

It was only 33 degrees today....The weather is changing - yahoo!
Actually, it’s been absolutely beautiful the last few days. I discovered that I can even see the sea from my bedroom! I have a room with a view and until the weekend, didn’t even know. Since I arrived in the UAE 6 months ago it’s been hot, humid, hazy and horrible. Now, there are even blue skies and clouds (didn’t know the Middle East was capable of such natural wonders) and you can sit outside in the evenings without looking and feeling like a melted bowl of Haagen Dasz.

The big news is that I have decided to buy a car. I swore blind that I wouldn’t - I am an ardent supporter and lover of public transport - but it is MUCH MUCH more “cost-effective” (like the marketing speak?) to buy a car. Petrol is ridiculously cheap here - about the equivalent of R2.90 per litre. And I can buy a really nice little environmentally-friendly 4x4 brand new - something I would never ever be able to afford at home. You don’t pay a deposit, the interest rate is only about 3-4% and monthly repayments are much less than the monthly cumulative total of my daily ferryings between my apartment and our car-pool rendezvous spot. Have I convinced you yet? Good.

There’s only One Little Problem.

I can’t seem to get my head around this left-hand-side-of-the-road-driving-thing. All the cars are automatic, so I don’t need to worry about changing gears with my right hand or anything like that. It’s just that my brain is stubbornly stuck to the idea that you turn left at a roundabout (traffic circle). And can you believe that none of my friends, or colleagues, will let me drive their cars around parking lots to try and get used to it? They call it “my insurance doesn’t cover anyone else driving.” I call it “rude”. So I’m probably just going to have to get into my new vehicle and, in the immortal words of Nike’s mid- ‘90s campaign, “Just Do It.”

I have to admit that besides the (obvious) financial benefits of buying a car, the best thing will be that I will no longer have to deal with taxi drivers. It may just be me. Or the fact that I am blonde. Either way, I have been proposed to twice.
And don’t get me wrong. I like Pakistani folk as much as the next person, but seriously.......??!!

Driver: “ You beautiful. You married?”

Me: “No. I need to go to Spinney’s on Al Wasl Road.”

Driver: “Children?”

Me: “No. You know Spinneys? Al Wasl Road?”

Driver: “ You need husband. Children good. You beautiful lady. I take you home to Pakistan. You like country.”

Me: [under my breath] “yeah, and can we honeymoon in Sierra Leone then too?”

It can get particularly awkward in peak hour traffic, where there’s nowhere to get out, and nowhere to hide.

They are an interesting lot these taxi drivers, who are typically from Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. You get ones that sing along unashamedly to the latest hits on the local Bollywood station. Or ones that are particularly interested in talking about South African cricket (“Hansie Cronje best player. And Alan Donald. Best batsman”).
I once got a taxi driver who INSISTED that I smoke in his car (“I like my customers to feel comfortable”) and despite my persistent protests about it being illegal, stopped at a store and bought me a pack of Marlboros. And then there was the guy who after ten minutes of driving piped up [insert Indian accent, and that beautiful, typical head-bobbing thing here] “It’s getting a little uncomfortable in silence. I put on radio”. I had tears...... Perhaps you needed to be there.

Anyway, there’s one thing that all taxi drivers have in common - and that’s a complete lack of verbs, adverbs or prepositions in their sentences - pretty much everything except the most basic of instructions. I am aware that English is a really difficult language, but you can never ever say to a driver: “at the traffic light, you should do a u-turn because I need to go in at the rear entrance of the building.”

You have to say: “At light, u-turn, back-side building.”

It’s the only way. Anything else is lost in translation.

Fishy Pedicure

Something else I did just to able to say “been there done that”… a pedicure, expertly conducted by a shoal of fish.

Here’s a step-by-step guide, in case you feel like one too:

1. Decide to spend a morning at “Wild Wadi,” a water-theme park with rides on tubes, swimming pools with fake waves etc.
2. After some fun in the sun and a thrilling ride down the “Jumeira Scarer” you will probably be thinking, “gee I would love to have a pedicure round about right now” (as one does).
3. Marvel at how they seem to think of everything here in Dubai as you walk up to “Fisho” – the home of the fishy pedi – right in the middle of Wild Wadi.
4. Pay the entrance fee and wash your feet with the special soap provided.
5. Sit at the edge of a fish tank and slowly dangle your feet and calves into the water.
6. Try not to totally freak out as hundreds of inch-long little fish attack your feet and begin feasting on dead skin cells.
7. Do not embarrass yourself by shrieking loudly at the excruciating ticklishness inflicted by the fish as they suck and nibble away at your feet like they haven’t eaten for a week.
8. Fight the feeling that that this is more than a little creepy.
9. Do not let your mind wander to thoughts of piranhas. Or leeches. [shudder]
10. After a while, you will get used to the feeling.
11. Concentrate on not thinking about leeches.
12. Do not look at your fish-festooned feet.
13. Seriously. They are not piranhas. They’re too small. Really.
14. After twenty minutes, you will be unceremoniously evicted from the fish-tank area.
15. But, as you slip your feet back into your slops, they should feel silky smooth-ish.
16. Go home to ease your bewilderment.
17. Book your next pedicure with your usual lady at “Feet First” in Mall of the Emirates, where there are no fish tanks to be seen anywhere.

For more information AND pictures go to:
http://www.jumeirah.com/en/hotels-and-resorts/wild-wadi/Services--Facilities/FISHO/

Bottomless Bollie and other tales of Brunch

Allow me to introduce you to the Friday Brunch in Dubai....

As the name so cryptically suggests, it concerns food, and in this particular case, LOTS of it.

Friday Brunch is an institution here. Most hotels, restaurants and bars “do brunch”. It’s usually a (fabulous-beyond-words) buffet affair where you pay a set amount and can eat and drink all-you-can between 12h30 and 15h30.

But allow me to put this into perspective: It’s Friday brunch, i.e. it’s on our first day of the weekend, which is also the Islamic Holy Day. And basically, while the Muslims are at Mosque praying, the ex-pats are getting trollied on Bollie. And I DO mean trollied, and I DO mean Bollie - the really expensive bubbly sparkling wine that you can actually legally call “Champagne”.

You may be able to tell that I am speaking from experience. And you’d be correct. I was invited by my aunt and her friends to join in for Friday Brunch last week. Of course, I had read all the ads in the papers and Time Out magazine in which hundreds of restaurants proclaim to “have the best Brunch!”. I’d heard the rumours about these notorious affairs and how completely out-of-hand they can get, so, I was keen to see for myself. I blow-dried my hair, thanked God once again for Bobby Brown’s Under Eye Concealer (it was a long week, ok, I was really tired), slapped on some lipstick, and caught a taxi to my Inaugural Brunch.

I arrived at a scene unlike anything I have ever seen before. All the women were dressed to the nines.. heels, hair, designer outfits, you name it! The tables were decorated with balloons, party hats, fake-plastic tiaras and those hooty-blowy things that you buy for kids parties. Taking into account that this was an Australian restaurant, I chalked this down to the quirky habits of our cousins Down Under. Apparently Brunch is an occasion for themed decor experimentation.

What was truly astounding, however, was the service at this eatery. The food was the obligatory buffet (sushi, seafood, roast, leave-your-diet-at-your apartment, etc etc etc), so no waitrons needed for that. But it was the serving of the drinks that defied all comprehension. No sooner had you taken a mere two sips of Bollinger, than an apron-clad Filipino lass or lad would magically appear to top you up! There were about 200 people all drinking the same thing, at the same time, so how did they know that under-dressed little-old-me “needed” a refill? The Bottomless Bollie was in town and it was taking no prisoners.

There’s nothing quite like having unlimited alcohol at a set price to get people well and truly, um, festive.

By three-thirty in the afternoon, the place, and everyone in it, was unrecognisable. The music (‘70s, 80’s & 90‘s of course), which had been getting progressively louder, was suddenly at nightclub level. The green and red disco lights were turned on, psycadelically reflecting off the mirror ball in the centre of the room, which was apparently everyone’s cue to get up and shake their collective booties - whether in the aisles between the tables, on the tables, or at the bar. Let me just say again.. it was three thirty in the afternoon. Not the morning.

It must also be noted that the average age of ex-pats in Dubai is between 35 and 60. There are no “young things” - employers tend to look for people with experience, so you’re never going to get a bar or club filled with students. The reason I’m mentioning this, is to give you a proper picture. You won’t find twenty-somethings getting-down to JayZee’s latest. Oh no. This was well and truly fully-grown men and women - doing dance moves that really are best left in the decade from which they originated - shrieking “ooooooh, we’re halfway there.... oooooh oooooh, liiiiiiving on a prayerrrrrr!” and “..and I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more......”.

I can assure you, however, that no-one was walking anywhere after this. And certainly not 500-miles.

What a day! From my position as casual observer and small-time participant at this event, I can confirm that Friday Brunch is lots of fun.

But having said that, there is no way in hell that I could do more than one Brunch a month - if that. I don’t care how tempting the ads and posters are. And when they say that Friday Brunch is an institution, they really mean it. You need to go to one to recover.