Indigo Saturday brunch and the one-hundred mile tea.
I have been in love with India since I watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and recently became intrigued with Indian food when I watched The 100 Foot Journey. Yes, I live vicariously through movies. Sometimes even Bollywood. Dreaming of the day that I can have an experience as equally exotic as I see in the on the screen. Continue reading “Indigo Indian Buffet”
Living in possibly the world’s glitziest city takes cash. Cold. Hard. Cash. There might be an oil field a few kilometers from my villa but I am not on the payroll. So therefore, we expats have to find ways to make the biggest splash with the least amount of cash — because this awesome lifestyle doesn’t come cheap! Those gold flaked cappuccinos… well, they don’t grow on trees.
The expat secret to living the luxury lifestyle can be found in one little book or now that we are in 2015, should I say, one little mobile app. And everyone knows it. It’s called The Entertainer. Continue reading “The Glamorous Life”
As reported in 7DaysUAE:
Dubai has earned a perfect score in an honesty experiment. Filmmakers from the UK carried out the test 45 times on the streets of the city – and on each occasion a kind-hearted resident returned it to the owner.
Daniel Jarvis, 26, from the hidden camera prank series ‘Trollstation’ and cameraman ‘Digi’ Dan, 25, visited various areas, such as Downtown Dubai and Bur Dubai, in recent days for the ‘Would You Steal In Dubai? Social Experiment’, which has been posted on YouTube and had more than 70,000 views by last night.
Jarvis told 7DAYS that they were surprised and heartened that no one even looked inside the wallet, which contained a few euros and some dirhams.
He said: “We’ve done this in London and other parts of the UK, but we’ve never had an experiment where no one’s taken the wallet.
“First we did the test on Sheikh Zayed Road, near Trade Centre and Emirates Towers, but everyone kept returning it. Then we thought, ‘maybe it’s because people in this area are rich’.
“So we went to Bur Dubai, which looked like a poorer area… but people kept returning it there too.”
The wallet is returned once again
The wallet is returned once again
The pair tried out the same test in London and said someone ran off with the wallet on attempt number 12.
Jarvis, who plays the suited, wallet dropper in the video, said having the property returned was “such a nice feeling”.
“I feel the media always twist stories about Arab countries,” he said. “There was once a headline about something like a man getting 15 years in jail for stealing a teddy bear. We’re showing the world it’s not like that at all.”
Trollstation’s channel has 230,000 subscribers and the duo’s next stop is likely to be Europe then America and Africa.
“It’s impossible to beat Dubai’s score now, of course, but we’ll see if someone matches it,” Jarvis said.
Please visit the original article 7Days
Be careful over there! my American friends said to me. As if the Middle East is simply one big mosh pit of danger, mayhem and debris.
Be careful doing what? I thought to myself. Choking on lobster, slipping on a marble floor, or poking my eye out with a canape skewer?
What exactly do they think could happen to me? — I LIVE IN THE UAE!
Oh, no, you’re mistaken. I don’t live in Saudi Arabia. I can drive here. It is fine. And I don’t wear an abaya. Although on a bad hair day it sure would be a snap. And if I decide to do so it does not effect my feminism. My human rights are not limited as you might think they would be. I just can’t look like a harlot when I’m walking the streets. So far that hasn’t been a problem for me.
None of the craziness you see on TV is anywhere near me or my family. This is the wealthiest place in the world. There are no beheadings or prison camps or things like this you might read. I am perfectly safe here — I LIVE IN THE UAE!
In the UAE, they prefer that I not scream obscenities or flip my middle finger at the crazy new driver that cut me off at the pass. Yes, in the States I would shout, shake my fists, and tell them to kiss my arse. But I really don’t miss that privilege and it is okay by me, if we all focus on a little more civility. You see, it is a conservative place in many regards. They prefer if we all do not behave like total schmucks, lugheads or goofs. In fact, everyone here uses their manners and are extremely gracious; they call me madam and my husband sir and they go out of their way to please us.
They must be thinking about Iraq or Iran and they are as close to the UAE as New York is to West Virginia; although, you must agree, there is a huge difference between them. If you lumped New Yorkers and West Virginians together, any American would tell you they have nothing in common. They may be the same religion and in the same country but there is a world of difference between them. We live in a bubble, a very expensive bubble it may be; that separates us from the rest of the Middle East. Life here is grand we have no complaints. We live in a world of over-the-top excess. Free from the badness many nations face.
There’s no danger here. We are a very happy bunch. We shop and we explore and we eat fancy brunches. Tell the media how happy we are and to stop lumping Muslims together. There’s nothing threatening about being here. Get out your maps and look into it. Get on a plane and come visit us.
We are here of our own choosing we like our little Utopia. Please save your be careful over there for someone who needs it. We are living the dream. Please come and see it!
We love living in the UAE!
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The two words you never want to hear an expat say are “I’m leaving” — and regardless of how many times you hear them it never gets easier.
The first time my nine year-old felt the pain of these words was when his sailing buddy, his soccer buddy, his first friend and his best friend said, “I’m leaving.” My heart ached for him as he quietly cried in hidden places and he moped around for weeks before deciding that his life would go on.
At school, we have seen families come and families go. Either back to their home countries or off to new adventures. Favorite teachers leave. And the learning still continues. Companies relieve people. And new companies hire them.
There have been times during this journey when I stopped myself and thought, this is one of the best days of my life. I want to capture it and keep it forever. But life evolves and changes: and while recovering from a loss, we are preparing for a new beginning. The fact that things change is what keeps it interesting and yet emotionally exhausting at the same time. It is a love affair with the unknown. An addiction to the experience. A memory that may never be forgotten.
Constantly saying goodbye and saying hello. An old friend leaves as a new friend walks in the door. Knowing there’s no time for sadness because you need the new person as much as you needed the friend who just left. We hold each other up, and watch out for each other’s best interest; we band together like brothers and sisters. Ready to take on whatever is thrown our way as we try to make sense of the mysterious and the illogical.
The expat life isn’t intended to be enjoyed without good friends. You have to share the experience. You need a sidekick, a buddy — a girl pack in order to navigate the craziness; otherwise you will be lost in the experience. And that would be really sad.
Hello…Hello…Hello. I don’t know why you say goodbye; but I say Hello.
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Something strange happened this week.
Twice I was in a room filled with people who looked just like me — and it was odd. Nobody with dark skin. Nobody with a Middle Eastern accent. Nobody dressed in their country’s native clothes. Only white people, in white people clothes, having white people conversation — and I was bored.
Since I arrived in the Middle East I have been immersed in a melting pot of cultures and I have not stepped outside my melting pot since I arrived. Here in the UAE, my norm has been a mosaic of languages, clothing, and exotic features; all of which I now consider ordinary. One day I asked my friend Wlede, “Is this dress too African for me?” Of course not! was the response. In the States I would have received many stares for exploring fashion outside of my own ethnic group. Here nobody raises an eyebrow. Many days I ask myself, “Who have I become? Do I even still feel American anymore?
I never realized the extent of our global education until Max called out to me, “Yalla habibi! (Come on my loved one — which, as a nine year-old boy, he obviously didn’t quite understand or he wouldn’t have said it.) Another day he tossed out a “Ya know mate” that would rival any Aussies’s. And then he surprised me with the British terms keen, trolley and trainers almost in the same sentence. Who is this kid?
Raising an expat kid is different. They absorb the culture of their classmates and sometimes identify it as their own. They will swear up and down that they are from countries outside their home. Laura, my Italian friend, has three children who assumed they were Chinese. Imagine explaining to your child that although they’ve lived in China all of their lives, they are not Chinese. Interestingly, in their little view of the world they do not recognize the difference.
My friend who is a kindergarten teacher asked her class, “So class where are you all from?” One little boy screamed, “Exxon Oil!” While another little girl with a Texas accent said, “I’m from Saudi.” Many American children of teachers teaching internationally and other expats living abroad have never lived in the United States. They’ve lived here and there around the world, moving from assignment to assignment. Kerstin, my American friend whose children have never lived in the USA said, “I hated it when my kids lost their Aussie accent!”
Of the nineteen children in my son’s class there are probably ten different ethnic groups represented. During holidays the children disperse around the world to visit family or vacation in far away places. The cultural experience an expat child receives in the UAE is unmatched. Yes, we are living in the Middle East but we are truly receiving a global education due to the overwhelmingly large expat community. We are a melting pot larger than New York City. And fortunately for me, I am learning to pick and choose the best each country has to offer.
When deciding to move internationally, our goal was to create a global citizen. Someone who isn’t defined by geographic borders, an inherited culture, or misinformed by the evening news. Someone who is as comfortable in Dubai as he is in London. Someone with a kind heart, an accepting spirit and a thirst for knowledge and exploration.
And then one day Max said something to me that was so British it made me smile.
I realized with the quip of his little British slang that this experience was achieving its bloody goal.
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