May, June, July Update

Sorry, it’s been waaaaaaay too long since I last updated you, but I’ve been super busy. I left off right at the beginning of birthday week. It was the first birthday in a while I have celebrated without my twin brother, but I made up for that with some really cool things.

For pictures, look on Facebook, there should be a ton from Hanna’s visit, Beirut, and maybe some from the US.

Also, this is very long, so be warned. You might want to break it up into pieces.


MAY (Beirut Birthday)


First, I had a yacht party. I didn’t rent out the yacht, but a group of friends all went on the same yacht the Saturday before my birthday. On the yacht, you can get food, drinks, and they have a DJ. You sail around Dubai, stop to swim, party, and have a good time. Immediately after the yacht party, I had a villa party! I met a girl who has the same birthday as me, and she knew an American with a villa, who agreed to let us throw a party at his place. It was an awesome time, extremely diverse group of people, half of them whom I didn’t even know. Needless to say, lots of dancing and partying. I ended up catching a ride with some random Indians, who got lost, so I jumped out, grabbed a cab back home, made friends with the cab driver, made him smoke sheesha with me, and then finally passed out around 6am.

On my actual birthday I flew to BEIRUT!!! I went with a friend out here, and we met up with Kristine Khouri, a friend from U of C, who lives in Beirut. It was such a ridiculously awesome trip that we did not want to come home.

We landed in Beirut around 10pm, met up with Kristine, and then went barhopping. We had amazing Lebanese food at a pub, had a couple drinks, then went to a couple other places. It was amazing to go to small bars, that are not in hotels, and meet really cool people. One of the bars was a hipster bar, Danys, which was awesome because my favorite bar in Chicago is a hipster bar named Dannys also!

The next day, my friend Ben and I rented a car and drove north of Beirut. We stopped at a couple towns, the main attraction being Byblos, the oldest continually inhabited city in the world. People have been living there since 9000 BC and there were a ton of ruins. Nothing spectacular, but ruins from every age you can imagine, Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Byzantine, etc, with ruins piled on top of each other everywhere.

On the way back from Byblos, we took random roads trying to get to the top of the mountains that overlook the Lebanon coast. We reached the top, where there was a huge Virgin Mary statue. On the way down, we stopped at a café that overlooked the whole coast and had sheesha while watching the sunset. That night, we met up with Kristine again and went barhopping, meeting a lot of her friends, many who are in the art crowd there, and had a great night.

The following day, we walked around a lot of Beirut, seeing the newly rebuilt downtown area, some ruins in the city, a synagogue, the corniche, or waterfront area, some parts of the city that have still not been rebuilt after the civil war, and went to a great restaurant where they serve traditional country Lebanese food. That evening, we went to a famous Armenian restaurant, that only has 4 tables, and where the owner comes to your table and tells you what he is offering for dinner that night. It was fantastic. We had frog legs, liver, and many other great dishes that I can’t remember. From dinner, we went to one of Kristine’s friends going away parties at a cool/ restaurant bar. Then Ben and I decided to meet up with some of Kristine’s other friends and we had a classic Beirut party night. We went to a couple bars, then went to a cool bar that is in the shape of a tube where the roof opens up to the sky. I think it was called Centraale. After Centraale closed at around 230, we went to the most famous Beirut club, B51. It is underneath a parking lot, where the roof opens up to the sky. It was an amazing club, lots of good music and crazy dancing. Around 6am when it closed, we went to Zaatar W Zeit, a classic Lebanese fast food restaurant where everyone goes after a night of partying to get food. Finally, we smoked sheesha as the sun came up on the corniche, and finally passed out at around 8am.

When we woke up, we met up with Kristine and headed north to the beach! The beaches in Lebanon are not your normal sandy beaches. They are very narrow, rocky beaches, but people have set up restaurants with beach chairs all along the coast. We went to a cool place called Pierre and Friends, went swimming, had some great food, and just chilled out. A great way to spend the day after an intense night of partying.

After a quick nap, we headed out to Kristine’s friends party. Her friend had an apartment with an awesome view looking over a cool neighborhood in Beirut called Gemmayze. Around 1am we headed out to a really cool bar. It was a pretty lowkey night, but the highlight was one of the best pole dances I have ever seen, involving two of Kristine’s friends.

The next day, Sunday, the last day of our trip to Beirut, we met up with Kristine and a bunch of her friends, and headed to the Bekaa valley, along the road to Damascus. The Bekaa valley is known for its vineyards, and we went for an awesome brunch. The weather in Beirut was hot, but in the Bekaa valley it was very cool. It was amazing to breathe fresh air, with flowers and trees all around. You get very tired of the desert air in Dubai. We had a great time at brunch and stayed from about 1-6. By the time we got back to Beirut, it was time to go to the airport, and sadly, the Beirut trip was over.

I was extremely sad to leave, bc it was an absolutely amazing time, being in a real middle eastern city with tons of culture, great food, nice people, beautiful women, and an insane nightlife. I put up a couple albums on facebook, so check out the pictures.


JUNE (Chicago, DC, New York)


Going back to Dubai after having such an amazing time in Beirut was kind of depressing. I really didn’t want to be in Dubai, but I just had to stick it out for 2 weeks before I went to the US. So I laid low for most of that time, with the only exciting thing being watching the Blackhawks game at 4am with a friend I met from Chicago.

I took a direct flight from Dubai to New York, then took a cab from JFK to Laguardia and jumped on another flight to Chicago. At the airport I was asking everyone if they knew the score of the Blackhawks game (it was game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals the night before), and the cab driver was the first person to know. As soon as I got to Chicago I met up with my little bro, walked around campus, met up with a couple friends, then went to Jimmys, where the bartenders still recognize me and don’t ID me, and even got disappointed when I asked them what was on tap. Then I went to my bros Phi Beta Kappa ceremony, went out to dinner with my mom and bro, and then went to Weed street for my little bros senior night pub crawl. Having done mine 3 years before, it was fun and weird to be doing it again.

The next day, I went to the BLACKHAWKS STANELY CUP PARADE, which was absolutely insane. There were thousands of people in the streets, celebrating the hawks first win since the 60s, and I was so lucky I got to be there. I joked that the city was throwing a party for my return, but I was definitely the person that traveled the farthest to be there. Later, my whole family arrived, we went to the MSI senior night, then went to dinner at L20, which was the best meal of my life. It’s a seafood restaurant, I had 12 courses, and the dinner was over 4 hours long.

The next day was graduation, which was sad because the last of the Zainulbhais has finally graduated from the U of C, and because the graduation was at the exact same time as the USA England world cup match. But my family probably made the most noise out of anyone when my brother was called up to stage. That morning, I had walked around downtown for an hour looking for a blow horn.

That night, we went on a booze trolley for my older bros bachelor party, and had a ridiculously amazing time, driving around Chicago on the trolley and stopping at random bars, and yelling at Cubs fans in Wrigleyville. All around great day and night.

The next morning I went to a drunk brunch with some friends, my favorite thing to do in Chicago, then went to a couple bars. I told all my friends that if they wanted to see me, they would have to meet me at the bar, and many people came out. I iced a bro for the first time, twice, went bowling, changed my flight back to DC, twice, hung out at a friends apartment, and had a blast on my last night in Chicago. The next morning I woke up at 6am to drive with my bro back to DC.

For the next week, I was in DC with tons of family preparing for the final receptions for my bros wedding. To recap, I was in India for 2 weeks in March for 10-15 wedding parties, so this was the culmination of all of that. Family from all around the world flew in, we had a tent built in our backyard, and all week we were preparing, hanging out, swimming, grilling, and having a good time.

The first ceremony was on a Friday night, for all of our religious community in DC. It was at our house, under the tent. The food was amazing and everyone had a great time. The main event was Saturday night, at the Reagan center in downtown DC. It was in a huge, beautiful lobby, over 300 people, and by the end of the night, we had everyone on the dance floor, not wanting to leave. One of the highlights was an Indian dance that Tameem and I did with Anju and Elif. After the wedding, many people came back to our house to relax and hang out, many staying till past 4 in the morning. FINALLY, on Sunday, we had a brunch in the tent, for most of the out of town family and friends, which turned into a huge world cup viewing party and pool party. Everyone was glad that the wedding was finally over, but also sad that everyone had to leave bc it was such an amazing time.

Most of the week after was recovery from the wedding and putting our house back to normal, and of course, watching world cup. When the US scored against Algeria my little bro and I went absolutely nuts.

Late in the week, I went to NYC for a classic weekend of partying. Some of the highlights include: A family friends 50th birthday and 25th wedding anniversary, with great food and tons of dancing, followed by another friends birthday party that night. The next day was even crazier, with a huge gathering of friends to watch the US – Ghana match, including a Ghanaian cab driver I had met the night before, calling me (I made a bet with him that the US would win, and if they did, he would have to drive me around all day for free), and so when Ghana won, he called me and said “Hello, this is the cab driver” then absolute pandemonium and screaming in the background.

After the match, I went to a friends day party, then out to dinner with family friends for a birthday dinner, then to another friends party in my honor, then back to the birthday girls karaoke party, then running around soho meeting tons of random friends, then finally watching the sun rise in Brooklyn. The next day was more of the same, running around to friends places, swimming at a friends pool in the city! Finally ending with watching the season premier of entourage.

The next morning I was completely exhausted and caught a plane back to Dubai, sleeping the whole way, and after landing, sleeping again from 9am-6pm. I was not at all happy to be back in Dubai after 3 crazy weeks, but I had my second visitor coming with another crazy week to ensue!


JULY (Hanna’s Visit)


Hanna arrived the night after I got back to Dubai. The morning after she arrived, she went to Dubai Mall, one of the largest malls in the world, with Dean and Deluca, Magnolias, Bloomingdales, and other US stores. After the mall, we went to the gym, then home for lunch. Its so hot here in the middle of the day, that after lunch, you have to take a nap because you literally cannot go outside. In the evening we walked around the spice souk, full of spice stores, and the Gold Souk, a market area with hundreds of gold shops, packed with tourists. After, we went out to an apartment party (typical apartment party in Dubai, waiter serving alcohol, extremely diverse, and slightly older crowd), then headed out to an Indian dance club and danced to Bollywood music for the rest of the night. Then, we stopped at my favorite sheesha place and played backgammon and smoked till the sun came up.

The next day, we walked around the Dubai International Finance Center and the Emirates Towers, which have some very cool architecture, then went sailing! I have to admit, I got seasick for the first time in my life, but it was great being out on the water and checking out the views of Dubai from the water. After sailing, we watched one of the World Cup quarterfinals at the sailing club. In the evening, we went to Souk al Bahar, a mini mall with classic Arabic architecture, next to Dubai Mall, for dinner. In between Dubai Mall and the Souk is a huge lagoon with the largest water fountain show in the world. Behind the lagoon is the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. At night, it is one of the coolest places in Dubai, with the Mall, the building, the market, and the water show all in one location. We watched the world cup match during dinner, then went to Neos, a really cool lounge on the 46th floor of a hotel next to the Souk and Dubai Mall, looking over the whole city.

I was completely exhausted the next morning, so Hanna went out with my friend Ben for a little offroading, and a tour of the Palm Jumeira (a huge man made island in the shape of a palm tree) and the Atlantis hotel (same as the one in the Caribbean). Next, Hanna and I went indoor skiing! Completely awesome and crazy, we went to an indoor ski slope in Dubai. You get everything there, including a ski suit, skis, boots, etc. and get 2 hours to ski. It was great fun, especially to say that you skied in the desert. Immediately after skiing, we went to Barasti, a beach bar, that built a huge tent on the beach to watch the world cup. We went to the Argentina Germany match, and being inside this tent was honestly like being inside a stadium. It had the biggest TV screen I have ever seen, with tons of vuvuzelas blowing, and it was so loud you could barely hear yourself think. After, we went to a friends place for a couple drinks and a view of the Dubai Marina, a huge development built around a fake marina, with about 60 skyscrapers. It’s the area of town where most of the Europeans live. Later that night we went to another development called JBR, which has a nice beach walk, got some food, then met up with some more people for sheesha and another world cup match.

Sunday, Hanna’s final day, was July 4th! I called my friend who hosted my birthday party at his villa, and convinced him to host a party. In the morning, I went to work, but Hanna went shopping for some saffron, rose oil, a backgammon board (I convinced her how awesome backgammon is), and a cake for the party. In the afternoon, after creating a US flag on a sheet cake from Magnolia, we headed out to the July 4th party. There were a ton of Americans and foreigners, and we grilled and chilled all afternoon and evening. A great way to celebrate July 4th in Dubai, and a great way to end Hanna’s visit!

Now it’s mid July in Dubai, the hottest time of year, with temperature regularly reaching 115 degrees and humidity at 60%. It sucks to go outside, so most people don’t, although in the afternoons I am working outside now in a warehouse. I just started taking GMAT classes and will be applying to B school this fall, hopefully. I’m also looking to move to Bombay in the next couple of months, so I am applying to jobs there as well. So, while it is hot as shit in Dubai, I am keeping busy, but can’t wait for another adventure!