A wasted afternoon
I was supposed to go to this Best Buddies Int'l meeting where we were supposed to brainstorm for ideas for a fun-fair that we are planning to hold in March for the special needs children.
So anyways, it was on a Friday afternoon, from 15:00 to 17:00. For those of you who don't know, Friday is the weekend here and it's absolutely taboo [at least in my family] to ask one's parents to drop one to any place in the afternoon.
Ammi and I set out from home around 14:30 along with Papa's friend, in the pouring rain. While we were exiting our neighborhood, Ms Neena, the head of the organization's branch in Dubai called me and told me that the venue had been changed from a place that I knew the way to, to another place located in the folds of Jumeirah. We reached Jumeirah road and I called Ms Neena for directions. She handed me to some guy called Jacky who really jacked me up. He gave me wrong directions!
Needless to say, we circled round and round, without getting to the place. I called either Ms Neena or her assistant, my schoolmate Nisha again and again to get my bearings right. This went on for a good [bad] half hour. Finally, I talked to Jacky again and after some yelling from both sides, we agreed to meet in the parking of the Emirates Post building. And so we did. Jacky's cute and all that, but that didn't stop me from being pissed at him.
That wasn't even the worst part. I got there at around 16:00 and it hadn't been more than 10 minutes since I got there when they decided that they'd "brainstormed" enough and everyone got up to leave. I was even madder now. Ms Neena had arranged for a bus to take the folks back, so I hopped on. I couldn't ask them to drop me home because he'd have to drive in the other direction, so I asked them to drop me to Jumeirah Road, from where I decided I'd walk to the beach, stay there for a bit and then call Ammi to ask her to pick me up.
I got to Jumeirah Road and walked from near a branch of Emirates Bank to Chilli's, past Chilli's and towards Burj al-Arab. On the way, I saw tens of cars, spray-painted with the Emarati flag's colors, people sitting on/in the cars, blowing horns, waving their flags, spraying that party spray i.e. just having a ball on the road. Not only that, everybody [mostly local Arab folks] had come out of their houses, onto the sidewalk. At first I thought it was because the UAE football team had won the Gulf Cup [on Monday, by the way, so this isn't really news]. Then, a teenager who was standing on the sidewalk appraoched me [for no special reason, might I add] and started talking to me in Arabic.
"Wayn bitseer?" [Where are you going?]
"Ilash sha'ti. [To the beach].
Then he said some things really fast, so I didn't understand what he was saying. I tried to tell him that I don't speak a lot of Arabic, but:
"Shaikh Mohammad bin Rashid ya'ji min hinaa." [Shaikh Mohammad bin Rashid will come from here].
That's when I understood all the noise and the people in the streets and on the sidewalk. "Ahh! 'Ashaan kiza!" [Ohh! That's why!].
That's when he decided to let me go my way. He was nice :)
While I was walking on and on, I saw like a bajillion cars full of people, grotesquely decorated in the manner described above. Some cars even had Emarati women sitting on the windows, their abayah-covered bottoms hanging out of the car and their hands waving the Emarati flag for all they were worth. That was a surprise, 'cause the Emarati culture is usually too conservative to let their women do something like this. But it's a free country [for the Emaratis, at least!].
I even saw some boys dancing in the street. Gosh, I've never seen such a parade before! I've never seen so many hot Emarati boys/men in one place!
But I had to walk on. On and on.. fortunately, I spotted and hailed a taxi somewhere close to Burj al-Arab and he took me home.
That's around 6.5 kilometers [about 4 miles] that I walked from X to Y before catching a cab for home. On the right are the islands of The World project. Jumeirah's a beautiful district, with its beach and date palm trees and relatively cleaner air.
On the bright side, I had a nice walk in the rain, which I haven't done in a long long time - uh, since December! I also saw a lot of hot boys and I think I may have lost an inch on my waist lol. Now, I think I'll take a shower after that walk and then maybe watch Bent, a movie about a German homosexual in the Holocaust.
So anyways, it was on a Friday afternoon, from 15:00 to 17:00. For those of you who don't know, Friday is the weekend here and it's absolutely taboo [at least in my family] to ask one's parents to drop one to any place in the afternoon.
Ammi and I set out from home around 14:30 along with Papa's friend, in the pouring rain. While we were exiting our neighborhood, Ms Neena, the head of the organization's branch in Dubai called me and told me that the venue had been changed from a place that I knew the way to, to another place located in the folds of Jumeirah. We reached Jumeirah road and I called Ms Neena for directions. She handed me to some guy called Jacky who really jacked me up. He gave me wrong directions!
Needless to say, we circled round and round, without getting to the place. I called either Ms Neena or her assistant, my schoolmate Nisha again and again to get my bearings right. This went on for a good [bad] half hour. Finally, I talked to Jacky again and after some yelling from both sides, we agreed to meet in the parking of the Emirates Post building. And so we did. Jacky's cute and all that, but that didn't stop me from being pissed at him.
That wasn't even the worst part. I got there at around 16:00 and it hadn't been more than 10 minutes since I got there when they decided that they'd "brainstormed" enough and everyone got up to leave. I was even madder now. Ms Neena had arranged for a bus to take the folks back, so I hopped on. I couldn't ask them to drop me home because he'd have to drive in the other direction, so I asked them to drop me to Jumeirah Road, from where I decided I'd walk to the beach, stay there for a bit and then call Ammi to ask her to pick me up.
I got to Jumeirah Road and walked from near a branch of Emirates Bank to Chilli's, past Chilli's and towards Burj al-Arab. On the way, I saw tens of cars, spray-painted with the Emarati flag's colors, people sitting on/in the cars, blowing horns, waving their flags, spraying that party spray i.e. just having a ball on the road. Not only that, everybody [mostly local Arab folks] had come out of their houses, onto the sidewalk. At first I thought it was because the UAE football team had won the Gulf Cup [on Monday, by the way, so this isn't really news]. Then, a teenager who was standing on the sidewalk appraoched me [for no special reason, might I add] and started talking to me in Arabic.
"Wayn bitseer?" [Where are you going?]
"Ilash sha'ti. [To the beach].
Then he said some things really fast, so I didn't understand what he was saying. I tried to tell him that I don't speak a lot of Arabic, but:
"Shaikh Mohammad bin Rashid ya'ji min hinaa." [Shaikh Mohammad bin Rashid will come from here].
That's when I understood all the noise and the people in the streets and on the sidewalk. "Ahh! 'Ashaan kiza!" [Ohh! That's why!].
That's when he decided to let me go my way. He was nice :)
While I was walking on and on, I saw like a bajillion cars full of people, grotesquely decorated in the manner described above. Some cars even had Emarati women sitting on the windows, their abayah-covered bottoms hanging out of the car and their hands waving the Emarati flag for all they were worth. That was a surprise, 'cause the Emarati culture is usually too conservative to let their women do something like this. But it's a free country [for the Emaratis, at least!].
I even saw some boys dancing in the street. Gosh, I've never seen such a parade before! I've never seen so many hot Emarati boys/men in one place!
But I had to walk on. On and on.. fortunately, I spotted and hailed a taxi somewhere close to Burj al-Arab and he took me home.
That's around 6.5 kilometers [about 4 miles] that I walked from X to Y before catching a cab for home. On the right are the islands of The World project. Jumeirah's a beautiful district, with its beach and date palm trees and relatively cleaner air.
On the bright side, I had a nice walk in the rain, which I haven't done in a long long time - uh, since December! I also saw a lot of hot boys and I think I may have lost an inch on my waist lol. Now, I think I'll take a shower after that walk and then maybe watch Bent, a movie about a German homosexual in the Holocaust.