Sunday, February 21, 2010
Spoiled/ Incapable of Doing Anything on My Own
Shopping, Malls, and the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF)
Dubai is all about shopping. There are at least 8 major shopping malls, most of which are bigger than those in the states. Some of them are Festival City, Wafi (Egyptian Themed), Mercato (like Venice), Dubai Mall (biggest mall in the world), Mall of the Emirates (with indoor ski area), Ibn Battuta Mall, etc. The DSF is a month long affair that is one of the main tourist attractions in Dubai. Every mall had ridiculous sales, and pretty much any store you can think of is in Dubai. If you spend a certain amount of money, you get free raffle tickets to win cars, your weight in gold, vacations, and tons of money. Before the economic crises, one Rolls Royce was given away every single day. Now it’s slightly more toned down. They also have a fireworks show every single night and carnivals and cultural events throughout the city. Since I needed to go shopping, I figured I’d go during the festival, and I got a couple raffle tickets to win a Mercedes. Fingers crossed! One thing I did buy was a pair of sandals. This was a big deal because I’ve only had crocs for almost a year now, so for all of you croc haters, I will no longer being wearing crocs all the time! As most of you know, I hate shopping and suck at it, so I recruited my cousin and her mom, and they literally had laid out a route through the mall to take me on to get what I needed. I went to Dubai Mall, and took a couple pictures, so you can see how insane the place is. They have maps just for the parking garage! The mall has an ice rank, an aquarium, and tons of other random things. At some point I will post pictures of the other malls so you can see how nice they are. I hate shopping malls generally, but the ones here are so nice, that I don’t mind going to them. Not to mention, it gets so hot here during the summer, that everyone just hangs out in malls, because you cant do anything outside.
Ridiculous Week!
The last week and a half has been absolutely ridiculous. So much has happened. I’m going to combine 3 blog entries into 1.
One night last weekend I went out with a friend on my side of town, which is called Deira. Deira is the original Dubai. It feels like a real city, its cheaper than most other parts, there are always people out and about, and it’s very diverse. Many parts of Dubai are so modern and nice that it doesn’t really feel like a real city, kind of like a fake resort. Hard to describe. Anyway, walking around was great because the Dubai Shopping Festival is going on right now (I’ll explain this in the next post). So there were a lot of small street festivals and tons of people were out and about. There was tons of street food, carnival games, etc.
During the week, on Monday night, I went to this arts space where every Monday they show an indie movie and there’s a concert afterwards. They showed Sita Sings the Blues, which is an animated story that incorporates Hindi legends with a modern day story, with blues music. It’s a great movie and I actually saw it at the 2008 Chicago international film festival. On a side note, I went the week before, and even though this is a private space, the movie last week had some nude pictures, and they actually blocked the projector to sensor it. All nude images and graphic scenes are censored in Dubai, but it was surprising that the people who run this art space censored a private screening. After the movie, some labor camp workers sang some a capella Bollywood songs, which was absolutely incredible. A bit of background: all the construction workers in Dubai are Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. They live in labor camps, which are horrible housing complexes. They work 6 days a week, and basically work and sleep. They have almost no rights, barely get paid, and literally are not allowed to do much of anything besides work. However, recently, they allowed a singing competition between the labor camps, and some of the winners of this competition were allowed to perform for us. So this was special for many reasons, and the fact that they were legit singers made it even more special.
On Thursday night, which is the weekend here, I got a call from a friend right as I was leaving work. She had been given 2 VIP tickets to the jazz festival and invited me to go. The jazz festival here isn’t like jazz festivals in the states, because it’s not really jazz. They invite artists, like James Morrison and David gray to come and perform. The night I went, David Gray was headlining. IT was a pretty cool experience, especially because the concert as in this really cool outdoor space surrounded my skyscrapers. Unfortunately I forgot my camera. Afterwards, I went out with one of the guys who came to the concert with us, and went to this awesome club called Okku. I have no idea how we got in, clubs here are ridiculous, and for guys, you generally have to have a bottle to get in. But this guy knew everyone, and somehow we got in. The funny thing about Dubai is that you party with anyone and everyone, and apparently the managing director of his firm goes out every weekend and gets a table, and they all party together. Nowhere else in the world would this happen.
On Friday, I had lunch with one set up cousins and then went to this ridiculous club that’s at a beach resort. Its 30 minutes outside of Dubai, and people go during the day to party at the beach. You literally show up in a swimsuit, the club is on the beach, you can go swimming at the club, and some of the tables have Jacuzzis next tot hem. There was an awesome DJ playing and everyone was having an amazing time. I left a little early to meet up with another group of cousins for dinner. These cousins are on the “fun” side of the family the same ones I get together with every 4 years for a family gathering in India. Even the grandparents make dirty jokes, and all around it was a great night. Imagine 40 year olds and older taking shots.
Yesterday, I woke up and went shopping with one cousin and her mom. Right after that, I went to a 20/20 cricket match to see England vs. Pakistan. IT was incredible! There were very few British, but all the Pakistanis were going crazy. I sat in the rowdiest section and everyone was singing and dancing. Cricket is usually an all day event, but this new 20/20 format shortens to the length of a baseball game, so its much more exciting. Pakistan ended up winning at the last minute, and the stadium erupted. The tickets were only about $15, and the best part was they sold samosas at the stadium.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Apocalypse in the U.S.
Two years ago, and 6.0 earthquake hit southern Illinois and St. Louis. I first felt it at 4am. I was wasted and playing guitar hero at the time. Suddenly, the whole house started shaking. I thought it was part of the video game and that that I had beat the game! Anyway, I passed out soon after and woke up again at 8am to the whole house shaking. I thought it was street construction and was so pissed they had started so early and woken me up. I only realized it was an earthquake and aftershock when some co-workers told me later that day.
The 4.3 earthquake that struck Chicago this morning around 4am was a 4.3. Almost no one I know felt it, or even knew it occurred until I told them about it. It was in the suburbs, and barely anyone felt it in the city, but people felt it in Indiana, especially around South bend.
Little known fact: The midwest is the second most active fault line in the U.S. outside of California. It sits on the New Madrid fault line, and every couple of hundred years, there are devastating earthquakes. Because the region is so flat, even small quakes are felt for miles and miles. Here's a great article about it:
http://www.scchealth.org/docs/ems/docs/prepare/newMadrid.html
The earthquake happened in Chicago while I was at work, and everyone in Chicago was sleeping. I wanted to get first hand info about what happened, and I finally realized how people can communicate so quickly using Twitter. On Google, when you search for news articles, there is a live feed function that continuously pops up new articles and blog posts are they are published. This includes twitter, so literally minutes after the quake, I was able to read people's responses and learn where people did and did not feel the quake, how they responded, and what their thoughts were. It was pretty cool.
For the first time, I miss the states, mostly because of the snow! I'm so jealous that everyone in DC is getting 3 feet of snow in a week! I want to be sledding and having snow ball fights in the street. Dubai is a 'cold' 65 degrees. People are bundling up in sweaters and complaining about the cold. Funny how in Chicago people would kill for a 65 degree day and in Dubai people complain.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Being in High School Again
Living with my grandparents is almost like being in high school again. Every time I go out they ask when I’m coming back, what my plans are, who I’m hanging out with, etc. I know every Thursday and Friday night I will be going out (weekends here are Fridays and Saturdays, still getting used to that) but I don’t usually know when or where. And I don’t usually know if I will be eating dinner at home or not. This is usually the biggest concern. After the first week when I told my grandmother that I will go out late on the weekends, she stopped worrying all the time and I was fine for a bit. Other times I’ve come to Dubai, she has stayed awake until I came home, but now she goes to sleep. However, on Friday night I went out to a friend’s birthday party, and we got another stretched hummer limo and bottle service at a club. Needless to say, I was wasted when I got home, and somehow my grandmother woke up. She then proceeded to yell at me for drinking. I honestly don’t remember much of what she said, but when I woke up the next morning, she proceeded to yell at me more and tell me how disappointed she was at me. I blamed it on the American friends I was hanging out with and told her they were bad influences. But now I realize that I will have to move out at some point. On top of that, she set the alarm in my room for 7am!!! I was so pissed!! I asked her about it, and she said she didn’t know how to use it and that it must have happened randomly. But the alarm clock had been in my room the whole time I’ve been here, and had never gone off.
Luckily for me, my grandparents left for India today and will be gone for a month and a half, so I don’t have to worry about them for a while. Besides the whole religion thing, I have been getting really annoyed with my grandparents lately. Every morning I wake up my grandmother wants to talk, which isn’t a bad thing, but when im tired and cranky in the morning, sometimes I just don’t want to talk, especially when she talks to me in Gujurati, a Hindi like language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gujarati_language). I don’t understand the language completely, and I have to really concentrate to understand it, and in the morning im just way too lazy. My grandfather has really bad hearing, and doesn’t understand my English very well. So when he talks to me, I have to yell back at him and repeat myself 5 times, which gets annoying after a while. And then, when I leave every morning, my grandmother wants to hold my hand and pinch my cheeks. This is cute, but doing this every morning for a month gets annoying. On top of that, I don’t work on Fridays and Saturdays, so I can have a normal weekend, but every Saturday morning they wake me up at 8am and ask if Im going to work. A lot of private companies have work 6 days a week, and they think I should be working, but I need my weekends.
In other news, there is a new girl in the Zainulbhai family!!!!! Azeem was officially married this weekend so I have a sister!!!! The wedding ceremonies aren’t for another month, but in Hindu custom, you get married on an auspicious day, and last Sunday was the only auspicious day for the next couple of months. It’s exciting to have a sister!
The only problem with Indian weddings is that sending out invitations are a huge process. For close family members, you have to literally hand deliver the invitiations with gifts. So, for the past week, I had to run around town and deliver invitations with my grandparents.