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I landed in Dubai on a Saturday, which is the new Sunday. That is, the work week here begins on Sunday, which makes it the new Monday. Thursday is the new Friday. It's hard to get used to.
The problem with foreign reporting trips is that you only have a limited window of time to get everything you need. So if something unforeseen happens that limits your time even more, you start to panic a little. (Of course, I tend to panic a lot over everything. Enough said.) ...
March 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)
After a few days I finally made it down to Dubai Creek. Most of the Dubai I'd seen thus far was still under construction and almost wholly unwalkable. But Deira, sometimes called "the heart of the city," is a much more lived-in area by the water - boats packed with tourists slipping past the skyscrapers. A boat pilot came up to me and tried to hand me a brochure. He was speaking English but I couldn't make out any of the words except "boat," "go" and "okay." He wanted to take me on the water but I had to interview Tamsin Sherifa Madgwick at the Sheik Mohammed Center for Cultural Understanding. . . .
March 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Strangely, a Dubai DJ will play Sean Paul and The Proclaimers right next to each other. I don't know where in the city we were but the club was called "Rock Bottom." And it was. White people paid 40 Dh for a blue drink called a "Bull-frog." Main ingredient: Red Bull. And by "white people" I mean me. Barely an Arab there tonight except one man who told me his cousin lives in Minnesota. One of the new American friends I was with hails from Minneapolis. Small, small world tinted with blue food-coloring.
March 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)
One of the ironies of Dubai is that all the cab drivers live in Deira, and yet it's impossible to find a cab there. At least for a white guy who wants to go to Knowledge Village. I broke my feet walking around in circles trying to find a place where cabs might congregate. I tried the main thoroughfares first but all the traffic was whipping by too fast. I tried flagging down something that at least looked like a taxi as it waited at a stop light. I waved and waved but the driver ignored me. Finally I walked right up to his window and said, sort of desperately, "Can I get in your cab?"
March 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Up at 6:40 or so, couldn't bare the cheese/processed meat/grapefruit breakfast again so
I had yogurt with frosted flakes in it. (They didn't have any granola.) Helmut Mackleburg didn't have any breakfast, just coffee. He's the General Manager of the Taj Palace Hotel in Deira -- the first and longest standing sharia-compliant hotel in Dubai. He's a large man presiding over a large place - massive ceilings (the hotel I mean), four restaurants, beauty salon, pharmacy, etc. And like the other sharia-compliant hotels I visited it had those same framed drawings of the president, the former president and the vice president of the UAE. behind the concierge desk. Most of the female guests in the lobby wore abayas. Some had their faces fully covered, tucking fork-fulls of eggs under their veils at the balcony cafe. . . .
March 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)
