Reminders of Home

The last 2 weeks, since I came back from my brother’s wedding, have been insane! Lots of parties, meeting tons of people, and having an amazing time. I actually met a ton of people who reminded me of things or friends back in the states, hence the title of this post.

The first weekend I was back, I went out to a lounge opening with my cousin and some of her friends. It was pretty cool, free booze, and I actually met an Indian girl who grew up in Dubai, but went to University of Illinois for undergrad. I said something sarcastic to her at the beginning of the night, and she basically ignored me, but at somepoint she overheard me talking about going to U of C, and she got all excited.

The next day, I went to my first drunk brunch, for a Turkish friend’s bday, at a hotel called Al Qasr. It was insanely expensive, about $115, but totally worth it. It was all you can eat and drink for 3.5 hours, with live music. The food was insane. It was all set up throughout a huge seating area, indoors/ outdoors, around a pool, etc. Each station had food from a different area of the world. I had lobster, shrimp, sushi, steak, burgers, kebabs, mojitos, chocolate, candy, etc. In the end, it is actually worth it because if you ordered these items a la carte anywhere in Dubai, the price would be way higher. After brunch, we all went back to the bday boy’s apartment and had a pool party. By 10 I was exhausted (I haven’t been day drinking in ages) but another friend picked me up and we went to a chill house party where a couple people played guitar and we all sang along to songs we knew. I kept requesting Don’t Stop Believing, but when they finally played it, I forgot the words!

This past weekend, I went to a couple beach parties. There’s a website called meetup.com, which is a great way to meet people when you are new to a place. There’s a group in Dubai called Dubai New in Town, and every week they have events for people to meet each other. This weekend they organized a meet up at the beach, and 80 people showed up! Everyone brought food, we BBQed, ate, played beach volleyball, went swimming, and even had an easter egg hunt! People from all over the world were there, Russians, Egyptians, Americans, even a Mexican. It was really cool meeting all these people, from all over the world. I am planning on attending many more of these events, and now it’s a whole new social scene that I am part of. After this beach excursion, many of us decided to go to a beach party at a bar called Nassimi Beach. The bar is on the beach, at the Atlantis Hotel (the same as the one in the Caribbean) in a part of Dubai called the Palm Jumeirah, which is a manmade island in the shape of a Palm tree. It is a really cool place, especially bc there is no dress code and I was able to wear a Hawaiian shirt! Tons of people were there, and I randomly ran into 2 people I know, which is the first time that has happened to me in Dubai. As most of you know, I love running into random people, and one of them was the cousin of my sister in law who I just met at Azeem’s wedding.

On Saturday, I went to a really cool sports bar and watched the Man U Chelsea match. It was the first time I was able to call people and organize an event on my own, which was very exciting, and now I finally know a place where I can watch American sports!

Overall, a very exciting 2 weeks and I met tons of people from all over the world, including a girl from Rockville, Maryland, a couple American students studying abroad in Dubai, a bunch of Indians, some people from Chicago, people that love NHL (Canadians, of course). I think I finally feel settled in Dubai now, especially that I have a good group of friends that I can always go out with.