Working and Eating: Thursday in Dubai!

Dear Family and Friends,

I’m back in the hotel after another successful day in Dubai. This morning I woke up at 5:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep. I got out of bed around 6:30 and started the day. I took the metro to my first meeting in the morning. On the metro I stepped into the Women only car. Women and children, actually. I didn’t get on that car on purpose, but was glad I did because it was pretty interesting! It felt kind of cool to be in the car i’m not sure why. I felt connected to all the other working women in the car.

Twice during the ride a men stepped through the car. I was pretty shocked that this happened. I guess the women only is not enforced that much and additionally the signs are Tiny.

All day I worked and had meetings. I got to see the only Bloomingdales outside of the US.  I wanted to buy a bag bag that said Bloomingdales in Arabic but they cost about 40 dollars (for basically a plastic bag) so nope.

I had a really delightful dinner at the Armani hotel in the Burj Kalifa. I went to the Japanese restaurat and sat outside on the patio. I had green tea, seaweed salad, softshell crab roll, and mochi ice cream. They give you a plate of three varieties; mango, green tea, and lychee. I was going to get sake, but sake started at 58 dollars for 250ml… nope.

I’m not sure what is on the agenda for tomorrow, because it’s technically my day off. In this region we get Fridays instead of Sundays. I am thinking of sleeping as late as possible although I’m not sure that will be very late because of silly jet lag, working at the last supermarket and taking a little time off on Saturday afternoon to go to the beach or one of the souks (market) on that day because it’s my b-day! There’s supposed to be an amazing spice market, gold market, etc.

Hope you are well! Thanks for reading even though there aren’t any pictures. Hopefully the Internet in the next hotel can handle it.

Love, Annie

Wednesday in Dubai

Dear Family and Friends,

Today was a pretty solid work day in Dubai. After sleeping from 5:00 PM yesterday to 8:00 AM this morning, I was definitely ready to work. I started at the Mall of the Emirates, an enormous mall. I spent until 5:30 there collecting prices.

For lunch, I had Lebanese food, basically the exact same thing as yesterday but more expensive because it was a mall restaurant. Very delicious. At lunch, I stretched and and a waiter came over to me and told me it was bad to stretch after a meal. I’m not sure if it was offensive, or he just meant it was bad for you, because he told me something like: I work out a lot and when you do that, it breaks the passage where the food goes. I waited until I was far away from the restaurant to stretch again.

After the mall, I went straight to the Jumeirah Beach area to do a little more work and to see the area. Normally, I would have gone to the hotel first to drop off some stuff, but the hotel is pretty gross and there isn’t any reason to hang out in the room, I don’t really want to be there except to sleep.

I got to see the beach and walked on it a little. I had dinner at an indian restaurant outside and really appreciated being able to do that. I had a really nice tandoori paneer dish that I hadn’t had before. Jumeirah beach area is ritzy and pretty of cheesy. There are a lot of serious cars and fancy hotels. It didn’t seem like there was a lot of “culture”, everything was just new and had an outlet mall atmosphere where there are a lot of different stores and restaurants but all the architecture is the same and the restaurant names are large and often lit up.

On the upside, there is pretty good people watching here. There are tons of people of different nationalities walking around, I have noticed especially there are a lot of Russian people. Tomorrow, I have some meetings.

Hope you are doing well.

Love, Annie

Hi Dubai!

Hello Family and Friends,

Hope you are well. I’m back on survey again, this trip will be to U.A.E., Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar. I hope you will enjoy reading! This morning I arrived in Dubai after a day and night of transit. I flew through London so the flights weren’t too long, but they did feel really long for some reason. It’s 11 PM here, and I just woke up after passing out at 5:00. Hopefully I can get back to sleep!

Today was a recovery day. In the morning I took the Metro and wandered around some of the different areas of the city. The highlight of my day was lunch (surprised?). I did some research online and found a good area. I asked the cab driver to take me to such and such street because I wanted to get something delicious and he took me to one of his favorite places for something local and delicious. Unfortunately the pictures are not loading so I’ll have to provide them later. I had fattoush and mixed grill plate. They gave me to go with the meal some garlic sauce and some pickles, yum. Probably a good thing I’m alone after that meal! I sat outside and it was really nice to be outside considering the recent weather in Boston.

After lunch I walked around the area near the restaurant, and then around the Burj Kalifa but did not go inside. One thing I did notice was that in some areas modest dress is more important than others. In the morning when I went to the Marina area, there were people (including women) dressed in shorts and tank tops going running, and tourists were in shorts, and that was totally normal. However, when I walked around the area near the lunch restaurant, my calves (I was wearing a dress that hits below my knee with a sweater so the bottom of my legs were the only thing showing) were getting a lot of attention.

It’s also interesting that every building is new with modern architecture. That’s it for tonight!!!

Love, Annie