Venice – Homeward bound

Travel days suck. They just do.

It was recommended that I catch the 11:25 bus. ‘K. At 11:10 I checked out and by 11:15 I was standing at the bus stop. The bus however was not so cooperative. When it hadn’t appeared by 11:40, I studied the schedule and found that there was an 11:50. So I waited. And that bus didn’t show up either. As there was another one at 12:15 I gambled and won. Then I couldn’t find where to check in and the very helpful Italians wouldn’t tell me where I needed to go and the signs were no help at all. I went to an information booth and the man behind the glass would only shake his head at me. I’m aware of how annoying it is to answer stupid questions all the time, but nobody held a gun to your head and made you go into hospitality. But I found the departures desk, checked in (where the woman screwed up my seating assignments on both flights so instead of having window seats I ended up in the middle both flights.)

On the flight to Dusseldorf I was nearly sick despite my trusty Dramamine. In case it ever happens to you, try to arrange to be sick with a helpful English speaker next to you. I had a very helpful, but non-English speaking Danish man to one side and a fluent English speaking German man on the other side trying to pretend it wasn’t happening. It’s got to be me. I exude a pheromone that attracts only unpleasant Germans. Not that I wasn’t trying to pretend it wasn’t happening too, but when you’re sitting there with an airsick bag clutched in one hand and a napkin in the other, pretending only works so well.

I had a glorious 6 hour layover in Dusseldorf and to my good fortune this terminal was much better than the last. It even had a super secret waiting area with cots. Then is was shoveled into my next flight where I was not just in the middle of the row, but also in the middle of the plane and once again we had a rather rough landing that left me clenching my teeth and thinking, “I think I can, I think I can.” Honestly, all of Europe seemed to have an unwelcome mat out. Other places, even random people on the street were nice to me. In Italy pretty much only the bus drivers were nice to me and I think that had a lot to do with how bedraggled and wet I was that first day.

In Abu Dhabi I took my sweet time getting off the plane and through Immigration. I had a 4 hour wait for the bus to Al Ain. At the Immigration desk I watched the officer poker face everyone who went through until he got to me. He looked at me, looked at my residence visa, grinned and waved me on.

I arrived in Al Ain at 10:30 in the morning. There is a 2 hour time difference between Venice and Al Ain, but that still has me traveling for 21 hours. The fish feeder had quit working at some point while I was gone, but the fish had the grace to not eat each other.

Travel is starting to get a bit wearing. Having to figure everything out all the time, like when the grocery store is open. Getting lost. Arriving at a destination and realizing you’ve forgotten something key. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Crabby immigration officials. Unhelpful information desks. You know, I’d really like to know what’s going on next time I go someplace. I may be headed to Paris Disneyland for Christmas next year out of desperation.

Venice – Day 4

Monday was the day the toilet wouldn’t stop running. Initially, I thought I would go into Venice late because I hadn’t seen it at night, but when time to leave came I just didn’t have the interest to go and my knee still hurt from a three day accumulation of stairs. Since my iPad battery was dead I decided to take a walk while it charged, planning on the way back to stop at the neighborhood grocery store for a snack of some sort as I could not face cold lasagna again. The grocery store was open as I passed it on the way down the road. I walked down the road for a while and then turned around and walked up the road for a while and then started back. The entire round trip took about an hour and apparently I looked like a local because someone stopped me for directions and looked completely freaked out when I said, “sorry, no Italian.” I went to the grocery store only to find that it was closed. Open at 2, closed at 3. From past experience I can guess it will be open again around 5, but until then I’m stuck with nothing but €3 Cokes and €2 Kit Kats (also beer, whiskey, gin and brandy, but I’m even less likely to get into those.) I used the bathroom, flushed and got my iPad off the charger. Now just imagine, the flush sounds like Niagara Falls at peak volume. The room is eight by ten. There is no escape from the noise. Plus I have spent the last three years in a place where water is precious. So I headed down to the desk. All the way down the stairs I could hear the water running through the pipes. I’m not exaggerating. I was standing at the desk explaining and asked the desk clerk if she could hear it and she could. The very lovely repairman came up and fixed it, explaining to me what had happened and how he fixed it, entirely in Italian of course and now I’m afraid to use it again.

Around dinner time I decided to make another stab at the grocery store. I replaced my suitcase so that it no longer looked like animals had been nesting in it and determined how much space I had to smuggle home goodies from the grocery store. Too bad the grocery store wasn’t more accommodating. It’s just a little neighborhood place and while the ginseng coffee looked interesting I figured I didn’t need anymore help being wired. The neighborhood people think I’m amusing and smile at me when they see me now. The cashier in the grocery store was very patient while I sort through my mess of coins to pay for my meager dinner. This is unusual. Italy doesn’t have, shall we say, a service oriented culture. If you are lucky when you walk into a shop they will ignore you. If you’re not, they will watch you like they expect you to start randomly pocketing stuff. Once you decide to purchase something, sometimes they are pleasant and sometimes they act like you are bothering them. For the first few days when I walked down the street the passersby stared at me like I was an invading Hun. Now, they’re smiling back. Too bad I’m leaving tomorrow. They’ve just started to like me.

I did learn why I never managed to see Venice after dark. The freaking sun doesn’t set until eight o’clock! What the heck! In Abu dhabi the sun is setting at seven and by eight I’m in bed. I thought it was because I was going out too early. This is just another way in which Venice is like Disney World. To get the best experience you really have to stay in the park, er on the island, islands. Whatever. To get the best experience you must be on site. That way you can go out early for the entertaining sight of the milk boat and the trash boat, go back to your hotel for a midday rest and drying off session if it happens to be raining or you had the mis fortune of walking into high tide because you didn’t expect it to be on the sidewalk, then go back out for an afternoon stroll, maybe fetch dinner and you’ll have the energy to see Venice after dark when the sun sets ridiculously late. However, unlike Disney, you will have to drag your luggage through half of Venice to an overcrowded vaporatto to the bus that will take you to the airport. And how you find your hotel in the first place is a mystery. I couldn’t find anything twice unless it was the Rialto Bridge or San Marco Square, both of which seem to have their own gravity.

Travel day tomorrow. The airport bus leaves here at quarter to twelve. The bus in to Al Ain arrives at ten. Almost twenty-two joy filled hours of buses, airports and crowded planes unless I luck into another upgrade. Come on, upgrade! I need to get some sleep.

Venice – Day 2

And what a difference a day makes. I woke up Saturday to sun. Well, not sun, but thin clouds with patches of blue. Because the previous day’s inbound bus had been packed and the high tide had been ever so much fun what with the wet feet all day, I decided to leave later. Sleeping in was not an option as everyone else in the building was up, slamming doors and running water so I dragged my self down to the fully stocked but still disappointing breakfast. Okay, call me spoiled but I’m used to a much more varied menu. Scrambled eggs, wet bacon, tinned pears, a couple of unattractive bread choices, slices of lunch meat and one kind of cheese, cereal and water or, I swear, Tang to drink is just not up to snuff. No fried halluomi, no bread pudding, some hotels have a table devoted to fruit! At least they brought coffee to the table.

I stalled until nearly ten before setting out to the bus where I triple checked and committed to memory the number (12) and when it arrived in Venice I committed the lane number to memory (B5). To be fair the bus I had gotten on the day before was #2 in lane B6. So close. I had planned to go straight to the vaporatto for a sightseeing cruise, but when I got off the bus I noticed a different bridge into the city. The route I had taken in the day before was under construction so it was like a cattle run, but with graffiti, and it dumped you into the Times Square version of Venice. This bridge went into a neighborhood area with a few little shops and laundry hanging across the canals. It was sunny. I was warm. My camera battery was charged. What more did I need?

Lunch. The missed dinner and the unappetizing breakfast caught up with me around midday and I kind of got my heart set on a rolled sandwich containing some form of pig meat. The previous day, when I didn’t want food because I was too busy being cold, I saw them all over the place. Saturday, nada. I even attempted to retrace my route from the day before and that was a dismal failure. Every thing in Venice is a narrow alley or an odd shaped courtyard with a capped well in the middle of it. I spent half the day being certain I was in that very courtyard before, but weren’t they doing construction then? And no sandwiches to be found. I eventually broke down and purchased a calzone which was spectacularly disappointing and overpriced. Of course, within half an hour I spotted a shop selling the sandwiches I had wanted. It’s a sandwich. I have tortillas and ham at home. But this is Venice!

Legs tired I decided to take that vaporatto ride I had been promising myself. I found the nearest stop, which was not a line I had been on before and hopped on figuring they all went around in circles.

They don’t.

Before I learned that, I rode down the Grand Canal which was much more attractive in the sun and I hopped off at an impressive looking building that turned out to be the only thing to see in that general area. Then I hopped back on the vaporatto and rode it to the end of the line which was on an entirely different island. There was a huge terminal there so I wandered around a bit. Took some pictures. Debated gelato. Then I found another vaporatto going in a more favorable direction.

On the way to the island of difficult return, I had seen a park from the boat. There was a stop there, so it was just a matter of getting on a boat that went there. After being in busy downtown Venice and terrifyingly crowded San Marco Square, the park was astonishing. More trees than people! Statues! A wide boulevard leading to a fountain that appeared to have a statue of Marco Polo on top. That whole block leading back in the general direction of San Marco Square was very quiet and largely owned by Chinese people. My first clue was the pair of little Chinese girls riding their bikes down the road chattering in Italian. I gave in to the desire for gelato there. Not ice cream, not ice milk either, somewhere in between but tasty.

I managed to get to the Rialto Bridge (and then in a bad case of Twilight Zone-ism, couldn’t get away from it). It is purported to be the prettiest bridge in Venice. Those who purport need to look around a little. There are at least a dozen prettier bridges. It’s not just the hordes of tourists ruining the view either. It’s a tall bridge with shops built on it in two rows near some unassuming buildings and along the backs of the shops there is graffiti. What is pretty about this? I saw dozens of bridges, tall bridges, low bridges, wide bridges, bridges with stairs, bridges between buildings, bridges in front of beautiful buildings. What makes this bridge better? Advertising. Don’t fall for it. Unfortunately, like a black hole, once you get near it, you can’t seem to get away.

At some point while I was trying to escape the gravity of the Rialto Bridge I started seeing signs on the ground for bathrooms. After the impossibility of finding bathrooms in Paris curiosity got the better of me and I followed the signs down the road, up an alley, through a tiny courtyard with a restaurant, down another alley, around a corner to a surprisingly clean building where they were charging one and a half euros to use the facilities. They were clean and stocked so I couldn’t really complain except that I only had a two euro coin and they gave me ten pennies and a handful of other small coins as part of my change increasing the weight of my purse unnecessarily.

Having burned up most of the day, I decided it was time to head back to the hotel. At the top of the bridge leading to the bus station, I spotted my bus and in the effort to hurry nearly went face first down the cement steps. On the bus I asked the driver if he went to the neighborhood my hotel is in and handed him my card. He said he did. I told him that I had gotten on the wrong bus the night before and he chuckled, but made sure I got off at the right stop. I stopped in at the restaurant for some carry out and ended up buying a three day supply of lasagna. Who knew that the piece he was indicating was actually twice the length of the spatula?

   

Venice – Day 1

The first day I went on a circuit of the neighborhood, mostly because I realized I had forgotten to pack contact solution and needed a pharmacy. I found one imaginatively named Acqua & Sapone where I was unable to find what I needed on my own. Silly me, I should have known contact solution would be on the bottom shelf under the condoms and across from baby bottles. I did find a lovely restaurant where the very nice man taught me Italian for take out (porta via) and made me a calzone.

The next morning I woke up to rain. I thought ‘yay! Rain!’ Shows you how dumb I am. After breakfast, which I got to as the poor breakfast guy was trying to rebuild after it was demolished by outgoing Chinese tourists, I got instructions on how to get to Venice. I had to go to the block behind the hotel where the restaurant was and buy a ticket from the tobacconist. There were one, two, three and five day options. I’m here for four days. Perfect. I bought a three day ticket, hopped on the very crowded bus and headed into rainy Venice.

Now, on top of the water coming from the sky, high tide means that the water in the canal comes up over the sidewalk and if you aren’t paying attention, you will walk into a cold puddle. When I was reading up in it, one of the sites mentioned that rubber boots were a good idea. No really, rubber boots. You can tell the locals because they’re the ones in the knee high rubber boots. So I’m soaked from all sides, but jeez, this is Venice and I need to find a camera store because my camera battery was dead. (Did I mention that? Dead. Like the last time I used it I forgot to turn it off dead. And I’m in Venice.) So I’m wandering around drenched, looking for a camera store and I realize that, as there are buses on land, there are public transportation boats in Venice. I further realize that this card I bought to get into Venice works on the vapratto too! In Venice, the only way to get around is by boat or on foot, wet sodden foot. So I try to determine how this works, give up and sit down to wait hoping all will be revealed. As I’m waiting these two Chinese girls come over to ask me a question. I tell them I don’t know anything, but they don’t realize thata ima nota talkin ina Italiana accent. When I explain that I am a tourist also, they ask someone else who can tell them what they need to know and I go with them.

Cute girls. They had one day in Venice before they went on to another city and they were studying in England. What a group we made. The American teaching in Abu Dhabi and the Chinese girls studying in England looking for San Marcos Square in Venice in the rain. It took us about 45 minutes to find the place and we were freezing. Also, I was seasick. The sea between the islands is just alarmingly wide and the water was rough.The square had flooded in low tide so there were platforms set up as pathways. I parted company with the girls there because I spotted a camera shop where I found a universal charger. Woohoo!

After that I wandered around for a while just gazing. People kept stopping me to ask me questions. I know not why. I look about as Italian as Serena Williams. But I answered as best I could. Then I decided to look for a vaporatto landing to head back to the hotel. I should have known when I couldn’t manage to get to one that there were rough times ahead. I could see them, but there always seemed to be some combination of water and masonry in the way.

I managed and after a very long and packed ride I got back to the bus station. (Also terrifying. When I say the boat was packed, I mean to the gills. All I could think was we were going to sink and could I swim in thirty pounds of fake fur coat, blue jeans and sneakers?) At that point I realized I had no clue what bus I needed to get back to the hotel and there are no maps. Gah. So I read signs and spotted Mestre, the town I am staying in. On that bus I asked the driver if it went to Mestre. He reacted as if I had asked if the bus went on the road. Of course. That probably should have been a clue. I dismissed my initial bad feelings because I really couldn’t see on the way out. Eventually, I couldn’t dismiss anymore and I realized the hotel clerk had given me a card with a map of where the hotel is on it. I pulled that out the card and asked the woman across from me if I was on the right bus. After several minutes of hemming and hawing the answer boiled down to “this bus no.” She couldn’t tell me any more so I hopped off and began polling perfect strangers as to what to do. Twice I got sets of directions and set off. Both sets were correct, but I was about five miles off course at that point, as well as soaked and with my shoes eating into my heels. In desperation I got on the first bus I saw and asked the driver if he went anywhere near where I needed to be. Of course not, but he was very kind and spoke good enough English to put me off at a stop where I was to catch either the nine or the fifteen and they would take me where I needed to go. The fifteen happened to be the first one by, but I wasn’t taking any chances and showed the driver my card. He let me stand up front with him and counted down the stops until we got to the one nearest my hotel from which I could see the sign. A twenty minute trip into town took me an hour and a half to get back.

I was so tired and cold that I curled up on the bed planning to go to the restaurant around the corner for dinner later. Never happened. Before crawling into bed, I had the foresight to hang my clothes on the towel warmer and open my umbrella in the shower. After an hour and a half resting, I took the dry stuff down and arranged my shoes so they could dry. I also fiddled with the charger and then fell asleep for three hours. When I woke up it was bed time, my shoes were dry and my camera battery was charged. So it wasn’t a total loss. But no supper!

Resturants of the world that I miss (in no particular order)

Rich’s – Conception, Chile
The worlds most delicious burgers. The meat was so fresh the sometimes I would swear I could hear mooing from the kitchen, though that might have been the kitchen staff. They were served on a 5 inch plate and filled it so I always split one. They also served magnificent thick sliced fries.

Domino – also Conception, Chile
Directly across the food court from Rich’s was a hot dog place where I learned my very first Spanish phrase. Sin mayo. Domino served beef, pork and turkey dogs and had a four page menu. If it could be put on a hot dog, it was- with mayo. Lots and lots of mayo. The first time I ate there, I didn’t know any better and was sick for about a day afterward. My favorite was the Americano which had onions, tomatoes, cheese and “American sauce” which is yellow relish. A very close second was the avocado dog. Cheese, about half an avocado and onions. I tried to convince then to combine the two, but they had no idea what I was talking about so I had to enjoy my Americano avocado dogs in the privacy of my own kitchen.

Belly Full Deli – Akron, Ohio
Absolutely the best deli in the Midwest. I ate there so often that all I had to do was walk in the door and Tom would say, “short Reuben, turkey on rye or are we feeling adventurous today?” most of the time it was the short Reuben. Alas due to some incredibly poor business practices of their landlord, the Belly Full Deli closed several years ago and I haven’t been able to eat a Reuben since.

Dos Tacos – Seoul, South Korea
I have a minor addiction to Mexican food. The first year in Korea I was forced to hike half a mile from the nearest subway stop (really not so bad) to a little import food shop outside Itewon for retried beans and tortillas and then hike back (the really bad part) with the increasingly heavy cans. At home, when I broke out the retired beans, I would scrape the inside of the can like it was a bowl the I had mixed a cake in and lick the remains off my fingers. The second year I found Dos Tacos. The guy who owned the restaurant had grown up in Southern California. He knew Mexican. He also knew good business. I would go there once a week for a chicken and avocado burrito and if he felt the avocados weren’t ripe enough, he wouldn’t sell it to me. This particular hidden gem was very near a church and if you wanted to eat there on a Sunday, it behooved you to be there early or eat late because they only had six table and a couple of counter chairs. Many people will tell you that the best Mexican in Korea is Chili Chili outside Youngsan Military Base. Those people are deluded. I maintain that Dos Tacos is the best Mexican food in Asia.

The Mexican place in the Philippines.
The second best Mexican place in Asia I have forgotten the name of, but I am willing to bet that if I walked in there now, after a five year absence, the staff would recognize me. When I was in the Philippines, I must have eaten there every other day. The first time is was lucky enough to be there during green mango season so I got to try green mango salsa. Amazing. The ripe mango salsa is also stunning. For a while I considered moving there, half for the weather and half for the restaurant.

The beach restaurants on Nai Hat Beach, Phuket, Thailand
Seriously, pick any one. There were about seven that all had seating out on the sand. They painted their menus on the walls dividing their designated seating areas so you could walk down the beach and choose a restaurant. The fish market was just down the beach so all the fish was fresh caught. And this market was literally fifty feet from my hotel and I never cause a whiff the fish was so fresh. They even had a brick oven pizza place.

The Maldives

I went to the Maldives over Eid at the end of October, but due to some technical glitches and plain old laziness I didn’t get anything posted until now. Here goes nothing.

After a harrowing adventure in immigration at the airport where I watched a woman meltdown because she wasn’t getting special treatment and had to <gasp> wait with the rest of the rabble, I collected my bag and met with the folks from the resort. They grabbed our bags from us, loaded us onto a boat and we set off for the island. View of Mali from the boat Another view of the airport from the boat. The bathroom. There were doors that opened to the sea. Unfortunately here were also kayakers who  liked to paddle right below that window. The view below the toilet. The room. That door to the left is the bathroom door and where I was standing when I took a picture of the windows over the bathtub. I have lived in apartments smaller than this. Less well appointed too. The patio. The island in the distance is the staff island. Everyone on staff lives there. According to Maldives law they have to be given the same treatment as the guests. We were told they eat the same food as is available at the restaurants. I wonder if they had the same cinnamon soap. Fish The resort has a coral farm. They grow coral in a tank until it is large enough to implant on the reef. I swear those shadowy shapes at the top of the image are rays. Morning glories on the beach. Fruit bat. Same fruitbat. Yes, the same fruit bat. It was a very photogenic fruitbat, okay? This is the chef’s garden. The herbs used in the restaurants on the island are grown here and the fruitbats like to hang out in the trees here. Oh my God! Fruitbat and friend! Every path on the island was white sand. Concrete underneath kept the paths firm while the trees overhead kept them shady. Of course, I didn’t duck into the shade soon enough. Hamock over the water. Paraglider in the distance.No fruitbats this time, just a pretty view. There were cottages in the interior of the island. Believe it or not, they had their own pools. Water. An unsuccessful fruitbat picture. Stork The pylons that my cabin was sitting on. Laying in bed you could feel the tide moving. Itty, bitty black and yellow striped fish. More black and yellow striped fish.  Itty, bitty blue fish swimming around the pylons. Closer view of blue fish. Even closer view of blue fish. Crab that I put my finger on while walking down the stairs into the water. Mass of fish around the pylons. Shark. I swear its a black fin shark. They like to hunt at the edge of the light making them extremely difficult to photograph. Water at night and a failed attempt to photograph a shark. In my obsession to photograph sharks, I didn’t realize that I was standing right next to a stork who was also hunting at the edge of the light. The picture looks further away than it was. I was focused on the water when I noticed people at the table to my right pointing at something past me. When I looked to the left that stork was standing less than 3 feet away form me. The burn. I told you I didn’t get into the shade fast enough. I was walking ankle deep in water and burned myself so badly that the muscles in my legs contracted. Side view of the spectacular burn. Night view of the staff island. This fish had a horn. Hard to see, but I swear it had a horn on it’s forehead. View of the beach. It’s all in the details. I think this one is called a pipefish. The business class lounge at Male Airport. It was a really nice lounge.

Because Living Overseas is Awesome!

Last year about this time two friends and I had decided we wanted to spend our Eid al Adha vacation in the Maldives. We waited until school was in full swing before heading to the Etihad Air office to schedule and discovered to our dismay that it was booked solid. So was our second choice, Cyprus. We ended up booking to Kuala Lumpur (and I further postponed the vacation to Christmas due to illness.) Kuala Lumpur was fabulous, but I really had my heart set on getting to the Maldives before it sank. Okay, it’s not really sinking. The land is staying at the same level. The water is rising. I want that passport stamp before this little paradise vanishes.

So this year we hustled our buns into the Etihad office to see Mohammed before school started to schedule before all the rooms were booked. My friend was set on a room over the water. I didn’t care. From the pictures, you’re never more than 15 steps from water anyway. We set to fly out on October 25th and return October 27th. Short, but enough for Eid.

As I was cleaning up my office for the start of the school year, I discovered the school calendar. We were scheduled to be off on the 24th also. Glory be! One more day in paradise. So we hustled back into the office to change the date. Yes, it was going to entail a small fee, but vanishing paradise beckoned! We talked to a different Mohammed who nearly had heart failure trying to sort out the change. He wanted us to pay then and there before the reservation was confirmed, but I had a bad feeling about it, mostly due to this Mohammed’s nervousness, so we promised to come back the next day.

The next day the school system issued a new official calendar changing the dates of our Eid break to October 26th-28th. During the giant annual rally where this information was given out, the second Mohammed called to say that our confirmation had come through and we could come in and pay. Yeah. Timing is everything.

We decided to take a stab at convincing our principal to give us the time. There is a precedent and we’ve never asked for anything before. Plus, it was only two of us, as our other friend is saving for a cruise next summer. Our principal said to try to change it, but if we couldn’t it would be okay with her.

Off to the mall again. This time a different Mohammed was there. (There are 4 Mohammeds in this office alone with only 6 people working there.) This Mohammed we’ve talked to before and he wasn’t so nervous. He still had to spend about an hour digging around in the computer and making phone calls. Finally he managed to get us both a room and a flight leaving the 25th and returning the 28th. He was flabbergasted that we would be expected to work on the 25th at all because this particular Eid is always a 4-day holiday. Since the room wasn’t officially confirmed he didn’t want to charge our credit cards and could we come back tomorrow?

Our principal was actually pleased that we would only be taking one day and seemed also quite sure that the district would announce a few days before the 25th that we indeed did not have school. I won’t be either. This happens at least once a year. Planning is sort of a mysterious art here.

So, for the fourth day out of six, we headed to the mall again. This time the two of us who were going bought lunch for our other friend who is saving for the cruise because we’d made her go to the mall so much. We paid and lo and behold the price was cheaper than had been quoted before. WooHoo! I used the extra money to buy a pair of shoes.

So watch this space because very soon, there will be pictures of the Maldives.

Adventures in living overseas – the wedding

One of the teachers at my school got engaged at the beginning of the year. Now, for Western women, getting married is usually on the list of “things I’d like to do” with “like” having varying degrees of intensity. For women here like sort of becomes required or “how could you not?” A single woman lives with her mother (who has carte blanche on decision making for her) until Mum dies and then she goes to live with a brother. I like my brother, but if I had to live with him? If he could tell me whether or not I could travel, even as far as the next city to go shopping? One of us would be dead inside a year. And my brother isn’t bossy.

Anyway, back to the wedding. Martha was not only getting married, but getting married to a super rich guy from Dubai. The wedding promised to be the event of the year and I was informed that I had to go.

Another aside. To get invited to a wedding here you only have to be tangentially associated with the bride or groom. Last year some friends went to the weddings of another teacher’s siblings. Invitations are open to whoever sees it and there is no RSVPing. I was also told not long after arriving that a wedding of 800 guests was almost too small. In that case, the bride’s family was from Oman and couldn’t travel in (don’t know why. Oman is literally across the street and not as big as Ohio.)

The big day arrived and due to me being a spectacularly bad girly girl, I had to plunge into my closet in the hopes of turning up something that didn’t scream kindergarten teacher. I dug out a skirt I bought last year and never had the occasion to wear. I tried it with several tops until I found one that looked decent, but ended up with the shoes I wear all the time because I was having enough trouble tripping over my own hem to want to add unfamiliar high heels to the mix. I washed my hair and let it dry fluffy and slathered on make up.

My friends picked me up at 8:30. This is a fairly normal starting time and the reason I don’t go to weddings more often. The reason the start so late is that the men’s party is outside and for most of the year it’s too dang hot to start earlier.

Yet another aside. Last year, shortly after arrival I witnessed a men’s wedding party. Dozens of tables placed outside with white clothes and crystal. Food carried around by servers so that each table essentially becomes its own buffet. And the cane dance. I’m willing to bet that the cane dance is all about fertility. Plus it’s funny to watch.

We arrived at the wedding hall by 8:45 because Al Ain is approximately the size of a postage stamp. The reception was supposed to start at 8:30 and we’d assumed that being there shortly there after we’d be early. Nope. The parking lot was packed. We had to park across the street in a runoff lot. The receiving line did not contain the bride or groom, but was a whole bunch of women in sparkly dresses and the Bedouin veils that look like metal mustaches. Must have been twenty of them. They were friendly enough and shooed us into the main room where the real bling started.

Women wearing veils encrusted with crystals. Women wearing form fitting dresses encrusted with crystals. Women dripping in diamonds and gold. Women wearing their hair twisted up around tiaras. And they weren’t even the bride!

The room easily could have contained two basketball courts with bleachers and it was a sea of tables. Ten seats / table x by a sea of tables seating women encrusted in crystals and dripping diamonds and gold = where are my sunglasses?

Then it became a waiting game combined with a baby shower. We also got to play the “you’re on my hem” game. Servers came around and plied us with excellent ginger tea, Arabic coffee, green tea, chai, some other tea and juices. For some reason the chocolate never made it over to us, but we got lots of fancy dates. I should have picked up the chocolate dipped date with the gold covered pecan because I’m sure I’m not getting my RDA of gold, but I didn’t see it in time.

Sadly, the food wasn’t all that good. Most of it was cold. Okay, maybe all of it. The chicken was dry. The lamb was greasy. I wouldn’t go near the biryani because I couldn’t identify the animal on top of it and I could see that it was cold by the way it wasn’t steaming and the fact that the server was handling the plate with her bare hands.

So the food wasn’t inspiring, the show was amazing. I finally know why the malls are loaded with those ridiculous, over the top dresses. And seeing my coworkers in fancy make up? Seeing their hair!

The bride arrived about 11:30. There was a mass rustling as women yanked on their abayas over their party dresses and then the bride came in on the arm of her brother. Normally, the bride comes in alone. I don’t know if this is her family’s tradition or if the shoes were just too tall for them to risk her walking on them alone, but on the arm of her brother she arrived. She walked the width of the room, very slowly. She paraded around and around on the stage, very slowly. She was ensconced in the bridal couch, very slowly. Cut me a break. It was closing in on midnight and I’d been up since 5. A couple of minutes later someone from school came over to say that we were all going to go up as a group to congratulate the bride so we arranged ourselves at the bottom of the stage and waited for some signal that I never saw to head up. There really is no such thing as a line here. We all just sort of mobbed around until we worked our way up to the bride, said our congratulations and then had to figure out how to escape upstream without stepping on the wrong hem and bringing down the entire group. The bride sat on a white couch, in a sea of tulle and crystals. Her face was caked with so much whitening make up that I could barely tell it was her. She didn’t say anything. I doubt she could breathe well enough to speak in that tight dress.

After we went back to our table, there was some more rustling as the bride was draped in a white veil for the arrival of her husband and his family. Pictures were taken of the happy couple, him looking serious, her draped in a veil, her brother on the other side. At one point, after the photos were taken, I think it was the brides mother, went up to her and she lifted her veil and draped it over this woman like the two of them were in a private tent. A mixed sex group, I can only assume they were family of the bride or groom (though not both), started dancing on the stage. This probably doesn’t sound too shocking to you, but you didn’t just spend 2 hours in a room full of women. The way society is set up here, I can go days without encountering a male over the age of 7. The males I do encounter fall into 2 categories, men selling me food and the rare father of a student. When I say days I mean, if I have enough milk, I can easily go a week without even seeing an adult man. So to see a mixed sex group dancing together (and doing some kind of tribal dance I’d not seen before) was amazing.

At that point we decided to swipe some flowers and call it a night. It’s perfectly acceptable to plunder the flower arrangements and the fruit tables on the way out, but the nannies had gotten to the fruit ahead of us.

Came home, washed face, collapsed into bed, woke up 5 hours later without the aid of an alarm, cursed my body clock, tried to go back to sleep, gave up wrote this. Now, I think I’m going to indulge in a little forbidden meat with eggs and milk for breakfast and contemplate taking a nap.

Malls! Malls! Malls!

There were, within one block of my hotel, four malls. Pavillion Mall is very upscale. I was sort of surprised they didn’t do a credit check on you at the door. Stahill Gallery, attached to the hotel, was even more upscale though much smaller. Fahrenheit 88 and the one close to the train station that didn’t appear to have a name were just sort of standard, American style malls. If you were willing to walk a couple of blocks or ride the monorail one stop the Times Square Mall was a 10 story monstrosity with an amusement park though the top two floors were pretty much deserted. The roller coaster in the Times Square amusement park amazed me. A few blocks in the other direction were the Petronas Towers, which contained, surprise, a huge mall. Two actually, one at the base of each tower. All the malls were jammed to the hilt with shoppers and the halls were most certainly decked. You couldn’t get a table to eat between 11am and 3pm, or after 5:30. I’m not sure there was ever a table free in any of the food courts I saw.

So if anybody wondered if I was missing Christmas, I don’t think the Malaysians would have stood for it.

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Batu Caves

My friends insisted I go to Batu Caves. It’s amazing. Stupendous. Astounding. Well, it wasn’t a mall. Batu Caves were discovered (according to my guidebook) 120 years ago and the Hindus decided to make a shrine of them. When you get off the train, you follow the crowd to a gate lined with people selling stuff. The gate, which is large enough to accommodate a car, is closed, but there is a man door open in it. Nothing to write home about. Stone, wrought iron, not snazzily decorated. Kinda disappointing considering that we’re talking about a Hindu temple. Inside is a huge statue of the monkey good which starts to make up for the lack of deco on the gate. Then there’s a little temple where you are invited to take off your shoes so you can go inside. As the temple has no walls and there was no way I was walking barefoot in a tropical tourist attraction, I chose to observe from a distance. A bit further along you get into the truly fabulous Hindu architecture. There’s even a koi pond and some lovely little bridges.

And then you get to the temple. Or rather to the steps at the bottom of the temple.

Ever since I was in Korea, steps have made me breathless. Not sure if it’s leftover asthma which I got from living there or my hypochondriacal memory of it. Caves have always made me claustrophobic. I’ve gotten over a fear of manmade tunnels, but caves? I don’t care how long they’ve been there or how many people walk in and out perfectly safely everyday, those suckers are just waiting for me to step inside so they can collapse on my head. (I got panicky watching The Molly Maguires starring Sean Connery.) Between the two, standing at the bottom of the immense number of stairs leading up to the cave made me a little dizzy and I had visions of being carried down all those steps by some poor Malaysian Hindu when I freaked out and collapsed.

So instead I went shopping. I found a very nice blouse at the first store I stopped in which I knew would solve a couple of holes in my school wardrobe, but I chose to wander around to see what else was there before buying. There was a lot of stuff there. Guys splitting open coconuts before your eyes. Rainbow wigs. Bubble guns. Unidentifiable fried foods (what is it with the unidentifiable fried foods. Can you just fry anything and that makes it good?)

Eventually, I circled back to the first store and started checking out my desired purchase to see if it would fit. The clerk said I could try it on and led me to a – I kid you not – broom closet, complete with a broken mirror and a sloping ceiling. The shirt fit, but as I was taking it off, I banged into the fluorescent light, which blinked out leaving me half dressed in a pitch dark broom closet with a sloping ceiling and a broken mirror. I tried tapping the light back to life to no avail and ended up getting dressed in the dark. Fortunately, it occurred to me to feel for seams so I didn’t put my shirt on inside out.

On the way out I encountered the monkeys. The travel book had promised monkeys, but I forgot until I saw one. At that point I remembered that it said not to get too close as they bite.

Travel is so enriching.

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