Abu Dhabi Do!

It takes a village to save a kitten

2012-02-07T09:41:00.002+04:00

There aren't many places in Abu Dhabi – or anywhere, for that matter – where you'll find Indians, Emiratis, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Canadians, Lebanese and Americans working side-by-side in dirty, smelly manual labor.

But a stranded kitten will do that to people.

He's stuck in a drainage pipe across the street from the villa where I live, going on four days now, but not from a lack of effort from the people in the neighborhood.

On day one, a couple of us finally figured out where the plaintive cries were coming from.

On day two, we managed to wrestle off the massive steel covering and lower food and water into the pipe.

By the evening of day three, an energetic, complex, often hilarious and altogether inspiring rescue operation was underway. More than a dozen people chipped in with labor, equipment, lights, food – and no shortage of creative advice on how to free the stranded creature.

The situation: The shaft is about three feet square and 10 feet deep, with two feet of rancid water at the bottom. The kitten is in a pipe that connects to the shaft just above the water line. There's no other way out.

As several neighbors gathered around the open drain cover on the second night, our first concern was keeping the kitten alive. After much discussion, we hit on an idea that worked: A dust pan duct-taped to a broom was just long enough to lower food and water into the mouth of the pipe. The problem of starvation, at least, was solved.

On day three, volunteers from an organization called Feline Friends came by, but they couldn't hear the kitten and assumed he had moved on. They closed up the drain and left.

But when I came home from work, I heard another weak, feeble cry from inside the grate. I ran to get the Indian neighbors who had helped the night before, and we started again.

It didn't take long to make the decision: We had to get down there. But no one wanted to drop into two feet of filthy water.

As more neighbors began to gather, someone came up with sanitary gloves and we started to work with a bucket and rope, lifting the smelly stuff a gallon at a time and dumping it onto the sand. When we got the water level down to 3 or 4 inches, my Indian neighbor bravely volunteered to make the descent.

While others went in search of a ladder, I covered his feet and legs with plastic bags and secured them with duct tape. (Handy stuff, that.) He descended into the shaft, stepped tentatively into the water, then crouched to shine a flashlight into the pipe. The kitten, thoroughly frightened, was about 10 meters away and backing up fast.

After several failed attempts to get the kitten to move in our direction – including one involving a water hose and a red plastic ball, donated by a young Indian boy – we stood around talking about how to get the last of the water out of the shaft, thinking, if it were dry, the kitten might not be afraid to come out.

Then one of the young Emirati girls from the family that provided the ladder spoke up.

"Why don't you just fill it up with sand?"

We looked at each other, looked at the sand all around us, and felt pretty foolish.

A dozen buckets of sand later, the floor of the shaft was as dry as the desert. We stacked a few paving stones and used a rope to lower a pet carrier onto them, lined up with the mouth of the pipe, with food and water inside. The idea: come back later and see if he's inside, then lift him right out of there.

Several of us met again at 11.30 p.m. The kitten – gray and white – poked his head out of the pipe but would not go inside the carrier.

About that time, two people from Feline Friends pulled up and apologized profusely for bailing out earlier. On their advice, we pulled up the carrier and took out the food, because they had a cage trap they could bring the next day that might work – if the cat was hungry enough. We all returned to our homes, tired but hopeful.

When I checked this morning, the kitten – I'm thinking we should call him Piper – was sitting on the sand, looking up at me like he had not a worry in the world. And maybe he didn't. His international cast of caretakers are bringing him food and water, he has a dry place to sleep, and he doesn't have to go dumpster diving for food like the other street cats.

Inside the mosque, the bare truth

2011-09-06T21:18:00.013+04:00

Everything was fine until I looked at my feet.

I was at the Grand Mosque for an iftar dinner with a Muslim friend, and after the meal, which signals the end of the daily fast during Ramadan, he invited me to join him in the mosque for the evening prayer.

That was a pleasant surprise – I had always heard non-Muslims were not welcome inside a mosque during prayers. I knew I would have no idea what was being said, but I figured I could work out my own prayers. He told me not to worry, just follow his lead and it would be OK.

So there I was, in the third-largest mosque in the world, in the holiest month of Islam, smack in the middle of row upon orderly row of praying Muslim men, doing my best to think my own spiritual thoughts and trying to keep up as we bowed and kneeled and touched our foreheads to the cool, hard marble floor ...

And suddenly I noticed all the brown, bare feet in the row in front of me ... and to the left of me ... and to the right of me ... everywhere I looked, bare feet. Hundreds of them, mostly middle aged feet but lots of little boy feet and old man feet, too, every one of them as bare as could be.

And then I noticed my own feet, covered with ... blue and gold socks.

Distracted and alarmed – had I just violated mosque etiquette? – I immediately lost my place in the bowing and kneeling ritual. I was too busy looking left and right to see if anyone was looking at my feet.

I was afraid I had embarrassed my host. There are so many tenets of Islam that I don't know or understand; what if socks are prohibited by the Quran? What if there's a fatwa against argyle?

The bowing and kneeling and head-touching-the-floor continued as I nervously glanced around, half expecting someone to pull me aside and admonish me, or even banish me from the mosque. But everyone seemed immersed in the prayer ritual, and I made it to the end without incident.

As we shuffled through the crowd toward the exit, where we had left our shoes (well, my shoes, his sandals), I whispered my concern to my friend. My lasting memory of iftar at the Grand Mosque will not be the call to prayer or the meal shared with hundreds of men or the holiday atmosphere or the giving spirit, but rather the overwhelming relief I felt when he laughed and said, "No, no, socks are fine! People just don't wear them much here."

Ramadan kareem.

Pakistan cricket and a bicycle built for three

2010-10-29T13:20:00.011+04:00

Three of us were crammed into the back seat of a Toyota Yaris, grumbling good-naturedly about our discomfort as we navigated the confusing highways and dusty roads that lead to the cricket ground on the outskirts of town.

Then we saw the bicycle.

A middle-aged Pakistani man stood upright in the pedals, slowly weaving toward the bright lights of the stadium.

On the seat behind him sat one friend.

On the handlebars in front of him sat another.

A good 10 or 15 kilometers from town, they clung to their perches and seemed not at all distressed by the situation. Their countrymen were playing a cricket match, and their destination was finally in sight.

You may have heard about the Pakistan national cricket team this summer – a spot-fixing scandal during their tour of England, three star players suspended, allegations of more matches being fixed, and on-going spats between players, coaches and the national cricket board. All this for a team that has not played a home match since March 2009, when the Sri Lankan team bus was attacked by gunmen before a series in Lahore.

You might think such a serious mess would dampen the fans' enthusiasm.

But no.

Pakistan is playing a month-long series against South Africa in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and with 1.2 million Pakistanis in the country, the team has received lots of support. The cheapest tickets – 30 dirhams, about $8 – are pricey by Pakistan standards, but even those who could not afford tickets showed up on this night, happy to stand outside the stadium and catch a glimpse of the field or the scoreboard.

Inside Sheik Zayed Stadium, in the stands and along the grassy banks that surround the field, fans were cheering and chanting and banging on chairs, having a good time despite the team's tattered reputation, depleted lineup and lackluster showing.

South Africa won easily, but as we left the stadium, the Pakistan fans did not seem any more disappointed by the result than they were deterred by the scandal. Corruption, one cab driver told me, is a way of life in Pakistan. They regret the scandal, but they are not overly surprised by it. They still love cricket, and they still love their team.

Many of the Pakistanis here are laborers and taxi drivers who work long hours for low pay and don't have a lot of entertainment options. So a chance to see their beloved team was more than enough to draw them to the stadium on the outskirts of town, even if it took a few hours perched on a set of handlebars to get there.

A cab driver's perspective on America

2010-10-07T20:43:00.008+04:00

Out of the blue, my taxi driver said to me the other day, "There are no Muslims in America, right?"

Dammika asks me a lot about America. Where I live, what my house looks like, how many days a week people work, why my children don't live at home while they're in college, whether it's hot or cold, how far it is from New York to Los Angeles, if the streets look the same as in Abu Dhabi ... he's a sincere and caring and curious guy.

He's from Sri Lanka, and a Buddhist, which I could have guessed by the way he panics whenever a butterfly flits into the path of the cab. We're going to die one of these days because he's afraid of killing a wayward moth.

He seems pretty smart about the ways of the world. But he was astounded when I told him that, yes, there are Muslims in America.

"But there are no mosques, right?" he asked. "Where do they worship?"

I thought this was all coming from the Ground Zero mosque controversy, but when I asked about that, he didn't seem to know what i was talking about. He said he just assumed that after 9/11, mosques and Muslims were banned from America.

So he was perplexed when I told him there are millions of Muslims in America, and thousands of mosques, and plenty of Buddhists, too, and that while there are extermists who cause problems, people are, for the most, free to do as they please when it comes to religion. And then I started telling him about America being founded on, among other things, freedom of religion.

He shook his head in wonderment.

"America ..." he said. "It sounds like a very good place."

Marking time in the Land of Sand

2010-08-19T23:42:00.017+04:00

Well, hello there.

Yes, I know, it's been a while.

Seems like just a few weeks ago, I was marking off six months in Abu Dhabi, half a year in the land of sand and sheikhs, 26 weeks chock full of new experiences and stories to tell, every day a discovery.

Now ... well, it's been a year, and how the heck did that happen so fast?

And why don't I have anything to write about anymore?

Maybe it has all become too commonplace. What once seemed remarkable is now the norm; the great story that I couldn't wait to share now feels like just another routine moment in the monotony of everyday life.

Not that there's nothing going on. Let's catch up.

I went to Rome for a few days, which was a treat. I met six US Marines on shore leave ... twin Russian sisters, 25 years old, in town to pick up an award for their animated film ... a couple of American guys who live in Rome and meet for happy hour drinks at the same pub every day to watch the tourists walk by ... a family from Charlotte, including a dad who decided he and I should race down the streets of the historic district on Segways, chariot-style ... and a poker table full of young Italian punks who weren't too happy when I walked away at 4 am with a good portion of their euros.

I celebrated my one-year anniversary in Abu Dhabi and my birthday, all on the same day, with a dozen or so good friends from work. It's Ramadan, so even though the bars and restaurants are open, there's no music, so things are kind of quiet and subdued. With the right combination of good people, that's a blessing -- you can actually hear each other talk!

My air conditioner broke, for about the fifth time this summer, and I have to say, there's nothing like having no A/C when its 115 degrees outside to make a person irritable. I now have a direct line to the maintainance guys, who try their best -- they were here until midnight the other night, trying to help me maintain my cool -- but for these prices, seriously, cold A/C should be a given.

I'm dealing with the heat much better than this time a year ago, when I was a novice with scrambled brains and had no clue how to survive on the surface of the sun. Now I know all the tricks for ducking from one cool place to another, and I gave up running outside months ago. Now, it's an easy 5K jog on the treadmill at the gym a couple of times a week. For the record, I still hate treadmills, but that will have to get me by until it's safe to go outside again.

One of my favorite pastimes has become listening to Braves games on internet radio. They're in a pennant race, as you might know, and it's an interesting reversal of the early 1990s, when we all stayed up late to follow the West Coast games. Now, I can catch afternoon games from 9 pm until midnight or so. For night games, if I wake up at 5 or 6 am I can catch the last couple of innings, which seems to be all that matters with this team. And for those West Coast trips, I can get up at a reasonable hour and still catch the end of the game before heading off to work in the morning. Kinda makes me feel like I have a head start on everyone else.

It's not surprising, I suppose, that one of the things that make me happiest is something with a strong connection to home. That's what I'm doing right now, listening to the Braves on WSPG out of Spartanburg, South Carolina, waiting on another rally, thinking about the anticipation of October baseball and the crisp mornings and cool nights of fall, and football season. My favorite time of the year is just around the corner, and while I may not be there in body, believe me, I am there in spirit.

Blowin' hot and cold

2010-07-02T00:50:00.013+04:00

I often marveled at tales from friends who lived in faraway places like Minnesota and Wisconsin about the brutal winters and their daily battles with snow and ice – places so cold that people would often go weeks without venturing outdoors for any length of time. From heated garage to underground parking lot to skyways between buildings ... if you worked at it, they said, you really could get by without coming face-to-frozen face with the arctic-like temperatures.

And from the comfort of my mild-mannered Florida or Georgia winter, I scoffed at the folly of living in such an extreme place.

Well, you know what they say about payback.

Here I am living in Hades, at the other end of the extreme, where we're several weeks into a heat wave that will last a good four months. That's four months of ducking from front door to waiting taxi cab, taxi to the comfort of an air conditioned mall or workplace, the idea of a pleasant stroll down the street as ludicrous as trudging through the snow and ice just for the fun of it.

At the moment, a few minutes past midnight, a quick check at weather.com reveals that it's 95 degrees with 65 percent humidity – "feels like 104" – and the forecast for the next ten days ticks off like an out-of-control metronome: 102-103-104-106-104-108-109-108-109-110 ...

It won't stop until it hits 115 or higher, not once but for days on end when we reach August and September. The hottest I've ever been before was probably on Hilton Head Island in late August, but that really doesn't compare. This is not the "dry heat" of the Arizona desert, either, thanks to the 60-70 percent humidity. This is a sweltering, oppressive heat that saps your energy and spirit and drives you indoors with every bit as much force as any icestorm ever did.

Gooooaaaalllll!!!! (I always wanted to say that)

2010-06-24T23:36:00.007+04:00

Welcome to the World Cup in Abu Dhabi, where Americans are clearly second (or third) class citizens, well down the pecking order from the lordly British, Germans, Italians, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilians, Ghanans, Algerians, Serbs, Australians ... well, you get the picture.

Some of that is because of sheer numbers (there are probably 10 or 20 British ex-pats here to every American), and some is because of our (lack of) pedigree when it comes to international soccer. Excuse me, football. They invented the game right there in England, have you heard?

So it was not really a surpise when, even though we showed up early and were promised the U.S. game would be on the big screen RIGHT IN FRONT OF US, when the games kicked off last night we were escorted to three seats at the bar in front of a 17-inch set with fuzzy reception and no sound. And it was not a surprise, really, when the management could not find the game for the first five minutes or so. Of the six channels showing the World Cup, five had the England-Slovenia game, and the one with the U.S.-Algeria game was proving quite elusive.

But soon we had the game and a bucket of Budweiser -- ("I traveled 8,000 miles to drink Budweiser?" my friend asked) -- three of us along with a quiet American gentleman on the stool behind us and a guy who I think was Italian. He never said a word but stared at the screen the entire game and seemed to get excited whenever the U.S. did well.

All around us the room was teeming with England fans, of all nationalities. They were comfortable and confident after an early goal, moaning loudly at every near-miss and agonizing over every Slovenian attack. Some would walk by our TV from time to time to check the score -- if both games had ended in a draw, the U.S. would have been in and England out -- but mostly they stayed in front of their big screens and cheered on The Three Lions.

As the U.S. game went agonizingly into injury time, a scoreless draw almost a certainty, we dejectedly calculated the time remaining and became increasingly resigned to our fate. A handful of gleeful England fans gathered behind us, and you could almost sense them counting down the final minutes in their heads.

Then suddenly -- in 12 seconds, according to the LA Times report today -- the ball went from the American goal-keeper to a player up the field, and two quick passes later a shot bounced off the Algerian keeper and into perfect position for Landon Donovan to drill home the winning goal. It was dejection to jubilation in a heartbeat -- we jumped and shouted and high-fived like we had just won the World Series.

The other fans were very gracious -- when both teams win, I guess everyone's happy -- and a few even conceded that the U.S. had clearly been robbed of at least two goals during the tournament and deserved to win the group. As we sat there chatting and waiting for replays, eager to relive the moment, the joy of being an underdog became evident. Our small but merry band of Americans was just happy to have survived and advanced; the England fans were already working themselves into a state of worry about the next round, where an impressive Germany squad awaits.

A good day to stay indoors

2010-06-09T23:32:00.009+04:00

At this age, it's not often something happens to you that's never happened before.

But today, for the first time in my life, a trip to the beach was wiped out by ... a sandstorm.

I've had beach trips canceled by rain and clouds and wind and work and hurricanes and tummy aches and a balky MGB that just wouldn't start, even though everything else - I mean, everything else - was primed and ready to go. But that's another story.

I took today off because I plan to work all weekend for the World Cup, and I was looking forward to an afternoon at the Hilton Beach Club. It's a great place to go when it's 107 degrees out, because in addition to the beach and the gulf, you have a couple of pools you can drop into when the heat is intolerable, plus a poolside bar with cold beverages. What more could you ask for?

My faithful cabbie arrived at the right time and I climbed in with my backpack full of beach wear and my iPod and a NY Times crossword puzzle book and some sunscreen. (An aside: Dammika, my driver, is always shocked when I get into the cab not wearing work clothes. To him, a day off is a foreign concept.)

We had gone several blocks before I realized ... it was foggy. Really foggy. Or at least, it looked foggy. A big standstorm is not nearly as dramatic as it might sound. The city just looks foggy - or froggy, as Megan used to say - and it's definitely not a good day for the beach.

So I detoured to the mall and walked around for a while and bought some books - including my first Stieg Larsson novel - and had a nice lunch and came home. A glass of wine, some cheese and a good book ... not exactly Pass-A-Grille Beach reincarnated, but still not a bad afternoon.

Close your eyes, and it's 1968 all over again ...

2010-05-31T22:37:00.016+04:00

Tonight I feel like I'm a kid again, on a summer visit to my grandmother's trailer in the backwoods of Baker, Florida, listening to the Braves game on the radio and thinking this is the coolest thing ever.

Instead of a tiny, battery powered transistor tucked under my pillow in the dark, picking up WJSB in Crestview, it's a laptop on my desk at my apartment in Abu Dhabi, picking up WLJA out of Jasper, Georgia, on the internet, as clear and crisp as if I were driving north on I-575 headed for the mountains.

The commercials coming out of Jasper sound a lot like they did in Crestview then, touting local businesses with that country twang that is distinct to our part of the world. Don't miss the Red Tag Sale on tractors at North Georgia Ford. Ice cream on special at the IGA Foodliner. I half expect them to break in with the farm report in the top of the sixth inning. Hog futures at 3.75 a pound, up a quarter.

Hank Aaron, Felix Millan (still my all-time favorite Brave), Clete Boyer and Milt Pappas have given way to Jason Heyward, Martin Prado, Chipper Jones and Tommy Hanson. And on the air waves, Ernie Johnson and Milo Hamilton are gone, replaced by Jim Powell and Don Sutton, two of the best radio guys in all of baseball.

And when you close your eyes (the best way to listen to baseball on the radio), the rhythm and poetry of the game are the same, and it's easy to imagine the stadium's magical expanse of green that an 11-year-old boy has never seen but knows as well as he knows his own backyard.

Take my stuff ... please!

2010-04-03T22:11:00.008+04:00

I went to a party last night and came home with a cookbook, a DVD, a dictionary, a box of maps ... and a new bed.

It was a "Take My Stuff" party, a clever and necessary concept around here, where people come and go all the time and the cost of shipping your things back home, wherever that might be, is usually more than they're worth.

Try as you might to avoid accumulating stuff while you're in Abu Dhabi, it's hard not to. Even if you get by with basic furniture (Ikea is one of the most popular places in town), over the course of a couple of years, "stuff" is going to find its way into your flat. Books, pots and pans, furniture, televisions, DVD players, candles, lamps ...

A "Take My Stuff" party solves the problem of disposing of all that. The person who's leaving (in this case a reporter headed back to her native Canada) provides the beer and snacks and invites everyone they know to come pick over the bones of their Abu Dhabi life.

Most of the big stuff is priced at a fraction of its original cost (always negotiable), and the small stuff is free -- unless two people happen to want the same thing. Then, much to the host's delight, a bidding war starts. (I watched two guys push the price of a DVD to 50 dirhams -- more than it would have cost new in the store.)

I hadn't planned on taking anything, but it was easy to get into the spirit. I'd been thinking about getting a new bed; I bought a twin bed when I moved in, thinking my flat was too small for anything else. But after six months, I'm starting to feel like a monk every time I see it, pushed into the corner, very small and simple and spartan-looking.

So I jumped at a chance to pick up a like-new full-sized bed from Ikea, complete with mattress and matching nightstand, for 500 dirhams. (That's $136.15.) It will make things a little cozier in my already cozy flat, but I'll sleep better at night, and that's worth a lot.

Here's what else I took home:

-- "Asian, One Step at a Time," a very cool illustrated cookbook that starts each recipe with a photo of all the ingredients and includes photos of what the food should look like during each step of the cooking process. First recipe I want to try: Bun Cha, a Vietnamese pork dish.

-- A "Pulp Fiction" collector's edition DVD. Someone came behind me and put in a claim, too, so we had to bid for it. It took 20 dirhams to win ... still not a bad price for a classic, right?

-- A set of seven "UAE Off-Road Aerial Maps." They're huge, and the one that shows Abu Dhabi island and the surrounding desert will soon become wall art in my flat. (You don't want to invest a lot of dirhams in art that you probably won't be able to take with you. I have a camel tapestry that I bought in Dubai, a small water color from Muscat, and a poster of the Burj Khalifa that was printed in the newspaper. The map will be a nice addition.)

-- An Oxford Dictionary that must weight five pounds. I love dictionaries. This one will never make its way home with me, but while I'm here, it's a treasure.

The bed will be delivered this week, and soon you won't recognize the place: new "art" on the walls, Bun Cha cooking on the stove, a Tarantino flick playing on the laptop, and, hopefully, just enough space left for me to squeeze over to the bookshelf and pick up the dictionary and solve that last stubborn clue in the Sunday crossword.

The Turkish odds (and gods) were against me

2010-03-25T21:51:00.015+04:00

I didn't ganyan. I didn't ikili. And I certainly didn't gifte.

As far as I can tell, those are the words for win, quiniela and daily double at horse tracks in Turkey. And for three races at Istanbul's massive Veliefendi Racetrack, I didn't come close to picking even one horse that finished at the front of the pack.

I had an excuse, though. Everything was in Turkish – the program, the tote board, the racing form, the tout sheets. Everything except some of the horse's names, which was part of my downfall. I mean, how could I not bet on a filly named Bye Bye Baby when she was running against the likes of Gülipek, Sari Papatyam and De Nîgrîs? Who cares if she was 25-to-1?

Placing a bet was high comedy in itself. The tellers neither spoke nor understood English. So I would hand them exact change (usually 5 or 10 lira) and jab my finger at the program to indicate the horse I wanted to bet on. They all found this highly amusing. The thought of betting a perfecta or trifecta box was so daunting I never attempted it. For all I know, they don't even have perfectas and trifectas.

The odds were a challenge, too, and it took a few races to figure them out. They seemed to the calculated to the nickel, or the kuru, or whatever it's called. The odds on a horse would not be, say, 3 to 1. They would 2.85 to 1. I spent two or three races thinking it was 2 to 85 or something, which would be a longshot in any language. No wonder so many people were excited to have the winner.

Once I figured it out -- and after not picking a winner in my first three tries -- I decided to go with the chalk in the fourth race, which was aptly named Western Girl. As any horse coming out of the 16 gate should, she bided her time at the back of the pack and romped home at the finish, paying a paltry 1.85 to 1 on a five lira bet. I happily cashed my winning ticket, and after a couple more futile tries I called it a night and took a taxi back to Sultanahmet.

The Sultan of the Sidewalk

2010-03-23T15:54:00.006+04:00

Fikri has a tough job. He stands outside the Antique Turquoise restaurant on Akbiyik Caddesi in the Sultanahmet neighborhood of Istanbul, trying to persuade passers-by to stop for a meal or a drink or at least a cup of Turkish tea.

It gets chilly out there, especially in the evening, but he's friendly and charming, and more successful than I would have imagined.

My first afternoon in town, I sat enjoying the sunshine at one of the sidewalk tables at the Turquoise and watched him work. It's an art, and he's a master. He seemed to sense when to give up after the first rejection, and when to keep trying. Many people would get several strides past the restaurant before one last comment got them to turn around and at least take a look at the menu.

The restaurant was just around the corner from my hotel, and we talked every day I was there. He was curious about America, and Abu Dhabi, too. The entire staff was friendly, and they serve a great hummus. I didn't get to try the "salt meat" -- a huge serving of beef wrapped in leaves and coated in a hard layer of salt, which is then set on fire, tableside – but I did treat myself to a great steak on my last night in town, served sizzling on a marble platter.

Fikri joined me for a cup of tea after I finished dinner, and I asked him if he was the best "greeter" on the street. He dipped his head modestly, and said it would embarrass him to say so. But it was obvious that he was pleased, and that he took pride in his work. He's a chef by trade, he said, but he has been at the Turquoise for seven months, blowing on his hands and sipping tea to stay warm as he works his sidewalk magic.

Do I look Turkish to you?

2010-03-23T15:50:00.009+04:00

The first guy approached me thirty seconds after I got out of the cab at Taksim Square, at the top of Istanbul's famed Istiklal Caddesi. He fell in stride beside me and said something in Turkish. When I replied, "I don't understand," he laughed and switched easily to English.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were Turkish. You look Turkish," he said happily.

Yeah, right.

If you look around on the internet for things to do in Istanbul, you're likely to come across warnings about scam artists. The word is out: They strike up a conversation, offer to show you around, then buy you a cup of tea or a drink. All this is a prelude to luring you to either a rug merchant's shop, where you get the hard sell, or worse, into a bar where the two of you end up buying drinks for lots of new "friends," after which the bartender presents you with an exhorbitant bill – we're talking $2000-$3000 – and demands payment.

Armed with this information, my scam radar was on full alert, and I quickly brushed the guy off. I continued walking down Istiklal Caddesi – an incredible three-kilomometre-long pedestrian avenue of shops and galleries and cafes and clubs, with hundreds more tucked away on the side streets -- wondering if I had been too hasty. I mean, what if I had just been rude to a friendly Turk?

Those concerns disappeared about two minutes later when another fellow appeared at my side, and also said something in Turkish. "I don't understand," I said again.

He had exactly the same gambit. "But you look Turkish," he insisted. "Isn't that funny! I thought you were Turkish, so that's why I addressed you that way." I let him get as far as the invitation for tea and a tour before convincing him that no, really, I would be OK on my own.

This happened twice more within the next 15 or 20 minutes, and each of them used the same lines. You'd think they would come up with something new, but maybe they've learned this is the most successful approach.

They certainly pick the right place to have the best chance of finding a mark. It's said that more than a million people a day stroll down this street on weekends, and based on my visit – one of the few times I ventured outside of Sultanahmet – that's easy to believe.

Everything's cool in Istanbul

2010-03-23T15:36:00.013+04:00

Istanbul's cool.

It doesn't need my endorsement, of course. This place has been cool for several thousand years, long before it was called Istanbul. When your history dates to the Neolithic Age and you've been the capital city of so many empires it's hard to keep count, you get a reputation early on for being a pretty cool place. And after a quick visit over the weekend, I can vouch that its coolness is alive and thriving.

Different sources peg the population at anywhere from nine million to 15 million. Either way, it's a huge place. It spans two continents - the only city in the world to do so - spilling from Europe into Asia (or vice versa; I'm not sure anyone knows which side was settled first).

I stuck with my recent travel strategy of trying to get to know a small area really well rather than attempting to see everything in one visit. There's nothing like sitting at a sidewalk cafe in a faraway place, sipping a Turkish tea and enjoying the sunshine and having a guy from the restaurant up the street walk by and call out "Robert, how are you?" because he remembers you from the day before.

I spent most of my time in Sultanahmet, a historic district that includes the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, the Grand Bazaar and a maze of winding cobblestone streets lined with funky boutique hotels and restaurants. It runs along the Bosphorus Strait, a stunning body of water that separates Europe from Asia and is packed with ships of all shapes and sizes, bound for ports unknown.

Sultanamhet is built on the hills that climb semi-steeply from the water's edge. There are no high-rises; nothing more than four or five stories, all very old and charming and quaint. Many of the buildings have rooftop terraces for restaurants, and because each street is a little higher above the coast than the one before it, they almost all have spectacular views of the Bosphorus and the Asian side of the city across the way.

The Blue Mosque is the main attraction. It reminded me a lot of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi, just 400 years older. The Topkapi Palace is nearby, and the Grand Bazaar, and the whole place is bustling with a nice mix of tourists and locals from early morning until around midnight.

There are cats everywhere, even in places where Abu Dhabi doesn't have cats. I saw bar cats and cafe cats and palace cats and rocks-beside-the-sea cats. No ceiling cats, though – Abu Dhabi still has the corner on that market.

The restaurants and bars are an eclectic mix of styles that attract a lot of the backpackers and other young vacationers. I walked into one that was playing James Brown's "The Payback" at full volume, then switched to some intolerable techno junk for about 20 minutes before the "DJ" started taking requests. Just write down a song and hand it to the bartender, who uses a laptop to find a recording online, and it will get played. I managed to get the Old 97's and Lucinda Williams into the mix. Not sure how the crowd liked it, but Istanbul seems like a live and let live kind of place, no matter what they think of your taste in music.

Nothing fishy about this deal

2010-02-24T15:41:00.005+04:00

Two pounds-plus of just-off-the-boat fresh shrimp, deveined, butterflied, marinated and grilled to perfection. Total cost: About $10.

Sometimes you just gotta love this place.

I finally got around to checking out the fish market yesterday. The directions were spotty – head toward the port, resist the temptation to turn off at the fruit and vegetable market, circle the roundabout and find the big warehouse-looking building on the docks. It was much easier than it sounded – a big sign saying "FISH MARKET >>>" was a clue that wasn't included in the directions I got from a co-worker – and well worth the effort.

Inside, the market works like a souk -- row after row of big steel tables of iced-down seafood, each manned by a guy trying to get your attention and convince you his is the best, freshest and cheapest you're going to find. The variety is amazing – all kinds of fish, shrimp, clams, crabs, lobsters ... the temptation to overindulge is strong.

But we stuck with the plan: pick out the shrimp (30 dirhams for a kilo), then take them to one of the "cooking shacks" at the side of the warehouse, where guys again compete for your business. It's a great concept – you hand over your catch, tell them how you want it prepared, and come back in 30 minutes. You fork over 10 dirhams and they give you the shrimp, wrapped in foil and smelling so good it was hard not to open them up and try one on the way home.

Sunday night football, Abu Dhabi style

2010-02-15T12:29:00.005+04:00

Two teams based just a few blocks apart, battling for first place in the national pro league, traffic jam outside the stadium, mounted police, helicopter buzzing overhead, drums beating, rabid fans cheering and chanting, and on the field a nail-biter to the finish.

Now that's more like it.

I had been to two soccer matches here, and each time came away unimpressed. Not by the level of play, but by the lack of energy and excitement. Much of that was due to small crowds (a couple of thousand) in a huge stadium (capacity 40,000), and uninspiring matchups on the field.

But last night, Al Jazira and Al Wahda, tied for first atop the tables, squared off in Al Wahda's cozy 12,000-seat stadium, and it was a doozy.

You could feel the buzz outside the stadium. People and cars and buses jockeying for position, a steady crowd moving toward the gates, the sound of drumbeats coming from inside. Tickets were 10 dirhams, but free for Al Jazira supporters – team officials handed them out, no charge, as we entered the visiting team stands. (My first two games were at Al Jazira, which plays two blocks from the office, so I consider them my team.)

Inside the stadium, as is customary for visiting fans, we were relegated to end-zone seating, well clear of the home crowd, which was probably a good thing. I don't understand Arabic, but it sounded like a whole lot of trash talking going on. Some of it was good-natured chanting back and forth; some of it came complete with hand gestures that would make a New York cabbie proud.

The crowd was close to 10,000 and sounded like a lot more, especially after Baiano, the Brazilian striker who bolted Al Jazira for Al Wahda this season, send the home crowd into a frenzy with a first-half goal. The Al Jazira section came back to life after a goal to even the score early in the second half, but the excitement was short-lived – just a minute later, Baiano put the home team back on top with a brilliant header.

It was then, as Al Wahda's players and fans celebrated, that this became a certified big-time sporting event. A kid in a dishdash and a maroon Al Wahda scarf ran onto the field, easily eluding a couple of out-of-shape cops as he scrambled to and fro, the crowd roaring. An Al Jazira player finally slowed him enough for the cops to catch up, and six burly policemen hustled him off the field as he grinned widely and flashed a V sign to his friends in the stands.

The game got a little chippy after that, as Al Jazira pushed aggressively for an equalizer. But it never came, and when the final whistle sounded the Al Jazira fans directed a few half-hearted insults toward the celebrating winners, then filed quietly out of the stadium.

Meet my new best friend

2010-02-13T18:31:00.007+04:00

For a couple of weeks, I had been hearing a kitten outside the villa. A very insistent kitten, I must say, seemingly doing his best to get someone to pay attention.

But I hadn't spotted him until a few evenings ago, when I came back from a run and there he was, sitting on the front steps like he'd been waiting for me all along. He was friendly but demanding in that way only cats can be.

He hasn't worked his way into the apartment yet, but he's getting close. I've been taking him a little food almost every night. We have a bit of a routine. If I've been out for a run, I come inside and get a bottle of water and food for him and we sit on the steps together. If it's not a running night, I'll take a glass of wine and a book for me and food for him. I'm not sure he really cares which night it is.

He was tiny when I first saw him, but he's grown quickly. There's no sign of a mom, or sibling cats. I don't know how he got here, but he has the run of the grounds inside the villa walls, and he's doing just fine. I think maybe he's here to keep an eye on me and make sure I don't get lonely.

Happy anniversary to me!

2010-02-12T21:01:00.015+04:00

Six months ago today, I boarded a plane in Atlanta, bound for JFK and then Abu Dhabi, excited and scared and curious about what awaited me on the other side of the world. This wasn't turning a page or starting a new chapter; this was a new book. Maybe a whole new library.

I'm happy to report that half a year in, it has been an unforgettable and rewarding experience, one I will never regret, easier than I ever dreamed at times, and much harder than I imagined at others.

It has made me appreciate my family and my friends and even my country more than ever. The feelings for the people I left behind are difficult to deal with sometimes, but not unexpected – you are the best family and friends a man could have, so of course I miss you terribly.

It has been a bit of a surprise, though, to miss not just the people but the place. We take a lot for granted in America. We bicker about our politicians and whine about our taxes and fret about our future, but I can tell you, I meet people everyday who would move to the U.S. tomorrow if they had the opportunity. I'm not overly patriotic, and certainly not political, but being here has made me grateful to be an American. Enough said.

The biggest surprises, after six months? The oppressive heat of summer (I knew it would be hot, but 115 degrees with 80 percent humidity? C'mon!). The high cost of living (rent). The affordability (food, taxis). The crazy-quilt opulence of Dubai. The beauty of the desert, and the beach. The tolerance for western values in some regards, the unwillingness to accept them in others. How much I really do like falafel. The mystery of Emiratis. The dichotomy of downtown Abu Dhabi, where you can walk down one street and feel like you're in L.A., then turn a corner and be in Karachi.

Surprising and impressive, too, is the friendliness of the people from around the world who come here to make this place work and grow. I am especially in awe of taxi drivers, as you can probably tell from earlier posts, perhaps because I meet a new one almost every day, and because the sacrifices they make for their families is humbling. Many work 12 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week, sending home every dirham they can to support their families and stoke their dream to return one day to Pakistan or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka.

The things I miss the most, after six months? Family and friends, of course. Watching American sports at normal hours. Shady, tree-lined streets. Atlanta's restaurants. A bartender who cares who's playing right field for the Braves. Florida, all of it. A newspaper that writes about things I care about. A crisp fall day. Sibling summits. American-style crossword puzzles in the newspaper. Live music. Rain, and weather in general. (It has been said that Abu Dhabi doesn't have weather, just climate. There's a big difference between summer and winter, but the change is so gradual you don't notice it. Each day is pretty much like the one before.)

So there it is, six months under my belt, with who knows how many more to go, nothing but blue skies and sunshine and good times ahead. I must be the luckiest man alive.

Beware the hidden bride

2010-02-10T15:40:00.006+04:00

An ambassador who lives in Dubai was in court this week seeking a quickie divorce and hoping to recover more than 500,000 dirhams worth of jewelry and other gifts he had bestowed upon his bride-to-be.

His complaint? Once the marriage contract was signed, he says, he lifted his wife's niqab (veil) to kiss her – and discovered she had a beard. And was cross-eyed, to boot. He quickly canceled the wedding and headed off to find a lawyer.

He had only met the woman a few times, apparently, and each time she kept her face covered by the niqab. But he liked her enough to propose marriage. He even sent his mother to visit the bride-to-be's family, but they duped her, he claims, by showing her photos of the woman's sister – who was beardless, I assume. Or at least clean-shaven.

Final outcome: The ambassador got the divorce, the bearded lady got to keep the gifts.

The subdued Super Bowl

2010-02-08T15:51:00.003+04:00

This was my Super Bowl:

No beer, no soda, no chips, no dip, no pretzels, no chili ... and no commercials.

I discovered it's not much fun yelling at the TV when it's 5 a.m. and you're afraid you'll wake the neighbors. And I discovered that I really did miss the commercials (they're blacked out here).

The sun came up, the game ended and I went back to bed. Work was only a couple of hours away.

Table for one, please

2010-02-08T15:19:00.007+04:00

A hungry black cat, Tim McGraw tunes, complete solitude and a sparkling new Audi 8.

You never what you'll encounter when you go out to dinner in Abu Dhabi.

The spot: The Riviera, a well-recommended waterfront restaurant about a mile from my flat, located in an out-of-way marina called The Al Bateen Club. The date: A Saturday night, which is a slow night here because it's the last gasp of the weekend; everyone goes back to work on Sunday morning.

Still, it was a bit of a surprise to walk in about 8 p.m. and discover I was the only one there – not counting two hostesses, two waiters, four waitresses, two bartenders, and I assume a cook or two back in the kitchen. Probably some dishwashers, too. They all seemed happy to see me.

I had my pick of tables, of course, and chose one against the railing overlooking the marina. The moment I sat down, the black cat appeared on the slanted seawall that runs along the other side of the railing. He was a pro – he walked up, meowed hello, saw that I didn't have any food yet and disappeared into the darkness.

As I scanned the menu (Italian with English subtitles), I noticed country music playing in the background. Odd, I thought, for an Italian restaurant in Abu Dhabi. Odder still, they played the same artist the entire hour and a half I was there. Someone must have bought the box set. (I must confess, I had to Google some lyrics before I was sure it was Tim McGraw. I wonder if he knows he has a fan club in Abu Dhabi?)

The moment my food arrived, the black cat reappeared. He sat patiently on the other side of the railing, letting me know he was there without being pushy. (Panhandlers could learn a thing or two from this cat.) My bowl of seafood fettucini was huge, and I was happy to share. Small pieces of shrimp and fish and mussels dropped over the railing were quickly devoured. The cat had obviously been through this routine before – the moment the waiter took the dishes away, he once again slipped into the shadows.

The food was good but not great, the wine was fine but a little pricey. The location was a bit odd – I had to walk along a dusty road through a dark construction site to reach the club – but the view was nice and the service was great, as you might expect, considering the numbers. (Just before I left, two guys came in and took an inside table. They were the only other customers I saw.) The area around the restaurant looked worth a return trip, too – a big pool with an outdoor bar, a shisha lounge, a health club.

Oh, and the Audi A8. I asked the hostess to call a taxi for my short trip home, and rather than dialing the standard cab company she went the luxury route. The car was gorgeous and the driver was friendly, and he didn't seem to mind that he had come all that way to drive me the short mile back to my flat.

Emiril has nothing to worry about

2010-02-04T00:40:00.005+04:00

Made my first attempt at chicken masala tonight. I think I'll give it a B-minus. Not bad, but man, I can't wait to try it again!

Half the fun of cooking here – or anywhere, for that matter – is the grocery shopping, which I did tonight after work. Lots of interesting people at Spinney's, always. It's one of the few places where westerners and Emiratis and everyone else mix it up with little or no pretense. We bump shopping carts and jostle for position in the produce-weighing line, abayas and shorts and flip flops existing in blissful harmony.

I found everything I needed without much trouble, even the garam masala powder, which surprised me but maybe shouldn't have. I also picked up some more baby asparagus, which has changed my opinion of asparagus forever. (cooked with a little olive oil and pepper and parsley in a hot skillet ... yum.)

Back to the main dish. The green onions and cumin and masala powder and (secret ingredient) all came together perfectly. Until I overcooked it! I rescued it with a little water, but when I spooned it over the long grain rice, it was just ... not quite right. The chicken, however, was sublime.

Not bad for a first effort. Like I said, a B-minus. I'll go for the A-game masala next time. Someone alert Food Network.

Greedy + Gullible = A really bad day

2010-02-02T13:49:00.003+04:00

Greedy is bad. Gullible is sad.

Put the two together and here's what happens:

Two Abu Dhabi men were cheated out of 250,000 dirhams (about $68,000) by swindlers who promised they could double the money in six hours by covering it with a magic powder.

But when the men went to police, they were charged themselves with being involved in black magic – a crime, as it turns out, even for the victims. They lost their money and now they face jail time, too.

Here's what they say happened: A friend told them he knew people who could magically double their money. They met at a home and delivered the money to two Africans who took it into the bathroom.

There, the Africans hid the real money in their clothes and filled a clear plastic bag with counterfeit money, covered with the promised magic powder. They shook it all up to make it appear there was more money, then gave it to the two men and told them they had to wait six hours for the doubling process to complete.

When they opened the bag, of course, Dumb & Dumber discovered that the money was fake.

They tried to call the swindlers, but the sneaks had turned off their cell phones. So they went to police, and things went downhill from there.

The police eventually tracked down the swindlers, too, and they will soon stand trial for black magic and counterfeiting. Unless, I suppose, they have a magic powder to make the charges disappear.

Remember Pick-Up-Sticks?

2010-01-30T15:58:00.007+04:00

Do you know what this is? I'm not sure, either. It's a sculpture, of sorts, made from unfinished 2x4's and 2x2's. Up close, they appear to be pieced together haphazardly, like over-sized toothpicks, but when you step back it looks more uniform. It was erected last month on the public plaza at the Corniche beach, and as you can see, people ride bikes and walk all around it.

It has seven sides, or arms, or legs, or whatever they are, so the general consensus is that it represents the seven Emirates. Of course, people assume that about anything here that comes in sevens, so who knows for sure? Maybe it's a giant pick-up-sticks game.

(By the way, for all you friends having fun in the freezing rain today, it was a glorious 80 degrees and sunny at the beach. Just lettin' you know.)

A moment for Moosa

2010-01-29T18:49:00.009+04:00

"Bad things do happen, of course. It's just that they don't seem to happen nearly as often as in the States. And stranger-on-stranger crimes are rare."

A few days before I casually typed those words in early December, a four-year-old boy named Moosa had been found dead in a restroom at his neighborhood mosque in Dubai. Police soon learned that a man had lured him away from his friends with the promise of an Eid holiday gift, then raped and murdered him.

The man confessed and the trial was swift. The story that unfolded was all too familiar: the gruesome details of the crime; the lonely, pathetic history of the killer; the grief of the family.

This week, the man was sentenced to death by firing squad. Curiously, before he is executed he must serve a six-month sentence for drinking alcohol on the night before the murder.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say with this post. Maybe that I was wrong; that even one such horrific crime makes a place just as bad as anywhere else. Maybe I feel guilty for not thinking of Moosa when I wrote that item in December. Mostly, though, I'm just hoping you'll take a moment to think of him today.

Which one of these does not belong?

2010-01-28T17:06:00.008+04:00

The Ultimate Fighting Championship is coming to Abu Dhabi, it was announced yesterday, for one of the biggest mixed martial arts events in history. Two title fights, the sport's biggest stars, hours of bone-crunching entertainment as fighters from various disciplines bash each other bloody inside an eight-sided cage.

This country has a thing for big-time sports events. It's part of the effort to promote Abu Dhabi and Dubai as "world class" cities, along with top-flight museums (branches of the Guggenheim and Louvre are under construction), big-name concerts (from the New York Philharmonic to Beyonce) and star-studded film festivals.

I understand the attraction to Formula One racing (it's pretty obvious; the local drivers all think they're Jenson Button). Likewise the golf and tennis tournaments with all-star fields, and certainly the Club World Cup soccer tournament.

And given the interest (and investments) of certain sheikhs, staging the world's richest horse race at a new $2.7 billion race track makes perfect sense.

But Ultimate Fighting?

Admittedly, I don't know a lot about the sport, but I've seen enough to know that its brutality seems an odd fit with the country's other efforts to gain exposure. Whether you like it or loathe it, there's no arguing it's violent – John McCain once described it as "human cockfighting" – and despite rule changes to make it more palatable to the masses, it's still banned in some U.S. states.

But its popularity is rapidly growing worldwide, and the UAE's interest is no passing fancy. Two weeks ago, a government-owned entertainment company bought a 10 percent stake in the company that owns UFC, and it has the support of a sheikh who is a jiu-jitsu blackbelt and an avid fan of mixed martial arts.

It may not fit ... but with backing like that, I'm guessing it will be a hit.

An ambassador in every cab

2010-01-24T22:19:00.011+04:00

When you visit Oman, one of the first things you notice about the cab drivers is, they smile and talk and laugh ... and then they try to talk you out of every rial they can. But you don't really mind, because they're so nice about it.

All the cabbies there are Omani nationals – it's the law, one of them told me. In the UAE, your driver might be Pakistani or Bangladeshi or Indian or even Sri Lankan, but he will never, ever be Emirati.

The Omani drivers are proud of their jobs, and proud of their country. They want to show it off, and they want you like it. They want you to like them.

There are no meters in the cabs, and when you ask about it they just shrug and say don't worry, so it's up to you to negotiate a fare. Which is hard to do when you don't know where anything is, and don't know the going rate.

The rookie mistake (which I made, twice) is to not even try to set the price up front. You get where you're going and you offer what seems a fair amount, and they look at you with hurt expressions and say, "Really? Is that all? I thought you liked my taxi ..."

And when you finally draw the line and say "No more," they laugh and clap you on the back and say thanks. I think they they just enjoy the game.

Hussain certainly did. He's the guy in the photo, who drove me up and down the coast around Muscat, from the cool port neighborhood of Muttrah, where I was staying, south to the new Shangri La resort, at the end of a highway cut through the mountains for the sole purpose of getting to the hotel.

Hussain was a trip. He was funny and smart, and proud that he spoke five languages. We were walking down to the beach at the Shangri La and overheard a man and his son talking. "They're speaking Persian. Watch this!" he whispered to me, and called out to them. A five minute conversation ensued, mostly (he told me) about how impressed they were with his excellent Persian skills.

But he was proudest, without a doubt, of his English. He assured me that Americans spoke the best English, and he had trouble understanding the British and Australians, and don't even get him started on the Italians and the French ...

We had lunch together and he told me about his travels and his family, proudly showing off photos of his wife and daughter. He good-naturedly ribbed me about wearing shorts ("Why you not wear trousers? We won't be able to get into the palace!")

Every five minutes he would ask if I was OK, and if I liked his country, and every time I reassured him that yes, Oman is a fine place, he beamed proudly and nodded to himself, happy to have won over another tourist.

48 hours in Oman

2010-01-23T20:58:00.015+04:00

Two days in Oman, a weekend road trip to Muscat, 48 eye-opening hours, and then home again with so many good, unexpected stories, I don't know where to start ...

With Mr. Andy from Manila, the Filipino musician who interrupted Disco Inferno night at the Falaj Hotel to step up and deliver a searing rendition of the guitar solo from Hotel California?

With the Pakistani bar where men sat in rows of straight-backed chairs watching a trio of maidens from their home country perform come-hither dances, while the manager bought me a drink and explained, passionately, that nothing bad could happen to the girls because as soon as the bar closed they were whisked away and "locked up" until the next night's performance?

With that wicked cut I made on the eight ball that endeared me to my Omani pool partner and led to us commanding the table for five straight games?

With Olaf and Anna, the charming couple from The Netherlands who shared after-dinner wine and stories and a spectacular view from the rooftop restaurant at the Marina Hotel?

With the beauty of a place where the mountains do, literally, tumble into the sea, and the unassuming city finds purchase in whatever nooks and crannies it can?

Or with Mr. Hussain, the world's loudest cab driver, who practically bullied me into taking a sight-seeing ride but turned out to be the world's best tour guide, a proud speaker of five languages (I heard him use them all) and Oman's best PR agent?

I can't choose ...

Road trip: Muscat or bust!

2010-01-20T20:51:00.011+04:00

I'm headed to Oman tomorrow morning for a couple of days, to check out the seaside town of Muscat. No one seems to know whether you can get from here to there by bus, but I'm going to give it a try.

(Bus to Al Ain, find some way across the Omani border, then another bus to Muscat ... how hard can it be?)

Not sure what to expect. But if I haven't posted a blog by early next week, someone send lawyers, guns and money!

Random thought ...

2010-01-18T22:18:00.009+04:00

Washing up the dinner dishes, listening to Neil Young, sipping a last glass of wine ...

Sometimes, Monday night in Abu Dhabi seems a lot like Monday night in Atlanta.

What, no kumquats from Kolkata?

2010-01-16T21:32:00.009+04:00

A trip to the grocery store here is like a visit to the United Nations. Here's what went into my shopping cart tonight at Spinneys:

- Avocados from Australia

- Peppers from Holland

- Potatoes from Saudi Arabia

- Onions and apples from the U.S.

- Oranges from South Africa

- Lemons from Egypt

- Lettuce from Iran

- Bananas from the Philipines

- Asparagus from Thailand

- Garlic from China

- Okra from India

And that's just the fruits and vegetables.

The rest of the store, too, is filled with food from around the world. The reason for this diversity is, the UAE imports 80 percent of its food. There's not a whole lot you can grow in the desert, I suppose, so just like the U.S. is an oil dependent country, this is a food dependent country.

When I was told before I came to Abu Dhabi that anything in the grocery stores at home would be available here, I wasn't sure whether to believe it. But sure enough, you can find everything from Grape-Nuts to granola bars, peanut butter to Pringles. (But alas, no Wheat Thins!)

The produce is remarkably fresh, by the way, considering it all comes from somewhere else, and it's very reasonably priced, too. Four good-sized tomatoes for 11 dirhams? That's three bucks – let's see you beat that in mid-winter at your neighborhood Publix.

There's even pork, in the stores that cater to westerners. If you crave bacon or ham or sausage, it's kept in a separate room at the back of the store, with a sign over the door saying:

PORK

FOR NON-MUSLIMS

Buying meat is about the only thing that's a challenge, and only because I'm math challenged. But quick, you tell me: is a steak that sells for 115.50 dirhams per kilogram a good cut of beef? I can hardly do the math one way, much less two. Sounds like a lot, right?

Now that I'm back at home, using my calculator, I can tell you: I bought that steak for $14 a pound ... I think. All I know is, it tasted great in my fajitas tonight.

The villa life, Abu Dhabi style

2010-01-14T11:53:00.013+04:00

Ah, the villa life ...

It's not what you might think. Lots of people live in villas here. As in, lots of people live in the same villa.

There are many beautiful, massive single family villas, for people with money. I would love to live in one someday. But most villas – even new ones – are divided into apartments. There must be eight units spread out across the three floors of my villa, although I have not explored every nook and cranny.

It's not a bad deal, really. Villas are nicer than apartment buildings, on the whole. Mine is on a quiet street in Al Bateen, with a shaded patio and lots of plants. It's private; there's the gate to the street, and a big, imposing front door that opens onto a common area. You get more for your money in a villa, too, although my rent is still at least twice what you would pay for a similar place in Atlanta.

It's just not the luxurious lifestyle often associated with the word "villa." My apartment is a small studio, maybe 12 feet by 20 feet, with a bath and a tiny kitchen off to the side. (The kitchen is so small, there's no space for a stove or refrigerator. I had to put those in the main room.)

But it has 12-foot ceilings and cool tile floors, and I've managed to comfortably fit in a bed, a sofa, a desk, a wardrobe, a flat-screen television, a bookcase and a coffee table, plus the kitchen stuff. What more does a man need? It's cozy, and it's home, for now.

A daily reminder

2010-01-12T21:02:00.004+04:00

Fajr, dhuhr, asr, maghrib, isha.

Pre-dawn, midday, mid-afternoon, sunset, evening.

They are the five prayer calls of Islam, and it doesn't take long here before they become touchstones throughout your day. You can hear them almost everywhere, indoors or out, which is not surprising when you consider there are more than 5,000 mosques in Abu Dhabi. There are three within 200 yards of my apartment, and at least 10 within a one-mile radius. There's even one on the grounds at work.

There was a time when a man climbed the minaret at each mosque and issued the call to prayer, but these days, most mosques broadcast a recorded call over loudspeakers.

They all begin at the same moment, which can create an eerie sound when you're in an open area and can hear the calls from several mosques at once. This is especially noticeable along the Corniche, where you can hear the calls echoing off the towers of the city and booming back toward the beach.

It's a unique sound, not quite a melody but pleasant nonetheless. It can be jarring when it wakes you in the pre-dawn darkness – somehow, it seems louder then – but most times, for non-Muslims, it's just a subtle reminder of the passing of the day.

Office pools without borders

2010-01-08T12:16:00.021+04:00

I'm sitting here enjoying a little slice of Americana this morning – an office pool for the NFL playoffs. I'm not filling it out yet, just looking at it and listening to Jeffrey Foucault's Ghost Repeaters and savoring the moment a little longer.

It's not hard to keep up with American sports here – thanks, espn.com – but it is a little hard to keep up your interest sometimes. The novelty of staying up until 1 a.m. for NFL games wears off after a while. Likewise with getting up at 5 a.m. to watch the World Series. I've never seen a game from any U.S. sport in a bar – they're too busy showing soccer and rugby and European Tour golf.

But you can usually find someone to talk sports with, either an American with a favorite team back home, or a expat from elsewhere who may never have been to an NFL game but frets over his Fantasy team just as fervently as any Yank. I've been to football watching parties where the laptop got passed around more than the beer.

I just didn't pay as much attention as usual this year. There aren't a lot of games on TV, I got here too late to join the fantasy league, the Bucs were awful, the Falcons were up-and-down, I missed a chance for a return visit to Lambeau Field ... all of that cut into my interest.

But enough with the disclaimers. I still should be able to outsmart a bunch of Britons and Aussies and Canadians, right? Let's make some picks.

Wild card round: Packers over Cardinals, Cowboys over Eagles, Bengals over Jets, Patriots over Ravens.

Conference semis: Packers over Saints, Vikings over Cowboys, Colts over Bengals, Chargers over Patriots.

Conference finals: Vikings over Packers (sorry, Jim!), Colts over Chargers.

Super Bowl: Colts over Vikings in a classic, 35-34.

There, that was easy. I'll expect you to be thinking of me when you see Peyton Manning hoist the Lombardi Trophy on February 7.

Going smoke free in the UAE

2010-01-07T17:25:00.012+04:00

They're doing their best to make me like this place.

The president signed a new law yesterday that pretty much bans smoking in public. That's a big deal here, where every bar and restaurant you walk into reeks of cigarette smoke -- and so do you, by the time you leave. It makes you think twice about ordering food, because you know you're likely to have someone next to you blowing smoke your way throughout the meal.

About 25 percent of the population are daily smokers, and they're not shy about lighting up. No one asks if you mind if they smoke. A few people might hold their cigarettes off to the side to keep the smoke from drifting your way, but not many.

But the government's not messing around with this new law. You can't sell tobacco products in residential areas; businesses must have a permit to set up separate smoking areas; you're not allowed to smoke in your car if a child is riding with you; and all tobacco advertisement is banned. Businesses can lose their licenses or be shut down if they're caught violating the ban.

Now if I can just get them to do something about the rent prices ...

This run was for the birds

2010-01-06T12:47:00.007+04:00

I'm a firm believer that you should always try to keep moving when you go for a run -- no breaks! -- but I made an exception this morning. I was cruising along an Al Bateen side street when I came upon a man in a dishdash standing in a small grassy area, tending to four beautiful falcons.

I stopped and asked if I could look at them. He spoke no English and I speak no Arabic, so it wasn't a long conversation. The man, whose name was Mohammed, was obviously proud of his birds, however, and he seemed pleased that I was so impressed by them.

I didn't have a camera, of course, but the birds looked a lot like the one in this photo. Three of them sat tethered to their perches and preened in the sunshine, while he held the fourth on his arm. It tried to fly away when I first approached, but he said some soothing words and soon it calmed down and returned. The bird seemed to keep a wary eye on me after that.

We "chatted" for a few minutes -- he wanted to know if I was from America, and I asked him the birds' names. He told me, pointing them out one by one like a proud parent, but I could not pronounce their names, much less spell them.

Soon, I said goodbye (ma'a salama, one of the few Arabic expressions I know) and resumed my run. Abu Dhabi, by the way, is a terrible place to run in the summer months -- 95 degrees at 10 pm, are you kidding? -- but right now it's gorgeous. It was 57 when I rolled out the door at 9 am, which is just about perfect in my book.

The streets around Al Bateen are ideal, too: wide sidewalks, including a stretch with a soft surface; very little traffic (but be careful of the cars that are out there; they speed like crazy); several tree-shaded pathways; and immaculate greenery and parks. There are no hills, of course, which is great right now but probably doesn't do much to prepare me for a race in the States.

A grand opening surprise

2010-01-04T22:00:00.007+04:00

Ever wonder what you might do with that spare $10 billion you have lying around? Perhaps you should have loaned it to Dubai; maybe then the world's tallest building would have been renamed in your honor.

The Burj Dubai officially opened today, to much fanfare. If you've been reading, you know what an impressive thing it is; at 828 metres, more than twice as tall as the Empire State Building, a sparkling tower looming into the clouds high above the rest of Dubai's skyscrapers.

Only it's not the Burj Dubai anymore. Tonight it was renamed the Burj Khalifa, out of respect for Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, the Ruler of Abu Dhabi and the President of the UAE ... and the man who last month put up $10 billion to help Dubai get through its financial problems.

I'd say he got his money's worth; the Burj is attracting international attention on an unprecedented scale. It is THE place to be in Dubai; even we spent New Year's Eve in the shadow of the Burj, with thousands of others, watching a spectacular water show in the lake fronting the tower and marveling at its overpowering presence.

And by the way, if you had only $10 million or so to spare, you could have at least purchased the entire 100th floor. That's what Indian expatriate businessman Bavaguthu Shetty did; he said he plans to model the 15,000 square feet into guest houses for friends and family.

Advantage, Abu Dhabi

2010-01-02T16:02:00.011+04:00

I'm not a huge tennis fan, but the chance to see the top two players in the world on New Year's Day was too good to pass up. So I rousted myself from bed and headed out to Zayed Sports City to watch Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, who were given a bye into the semifinals of the Capitala World Championships.

It was a great day. The sun was shining, the cozy stadium was mostly full, and everyone was in holiday spirits. Like most sports events around here, they did not have assigned seating, so I was able to move around the stadium. It was a diverse crowd; at various times I sat alongside Americans, Germans, Australians, two kids who I think were Egyptian, a French family and two elderly Emirati women.

Nadal held up his end of the deal with a fast-paced, spirited win over David Ferrer. But Federer looked rusty and disinterested in a loss to Robin Soderling. (Rumor has it, Federer and Soderling had a big time at the New Year's Eve party at Emirates Palace, which may have accounted for their lackluster play.)

The event is really more of an exhibition than a tournament, and Federer didn't seem to mind that he lost. I didn't either, really. He was my favorite player until last year at Wimbledon, where he won his record 15th grand slam title. That part was fine. But immediately after that epic match against Andy Roddick, he reached into his equipment bag and donned a pullover with "15" embroidered on it. Was he that sure he would win? Did he have a plain pullover in the bag, too, in case he lost? Not a big deal, I guess, but it just seemed like a crass move from a guy with such a classy reputation.

After the matches, cabs were scarce, and I ended up sharing a ride with two guys on holiday from the Ukraine. They were having a blast, and why not? It was 14 below in the Ukraine, they said, with not much to do. Abu Dhabi was pretty much their idea of heaven.

Crashing the border to Oman

2009-12-30T14:59:00.015+04:00

I spent 15 minutes in Oman, perhaps illegally. Does that count as a country visited?

We took a road trip to Hatta, a small town about 100 kilometers outside of Dubai, nestled in the mountains of the same name and hard against the border with Oman. It's a beautiful area, surrounded by rough, jagged peaks. High in the hills above the town is spring-fed lake, by far the most serene spot I've seen in the UAE.

We started out from Dubai and watched the scenery gradually change from urban sprawl (not just an American phenomenon, apparently) to low desert hills and scrub brush to massive red dunes, and eventually, the dark and rugged Hatta Mountains.

In the town of Hatta, there's a heritage village and museum but not much else: a few stores, a police station, a bus station, and on the outskirts of town a new housing development that was noticeably devoid of people. But the lake was beautiful. We hiked along a small peninsula to a rocky outcrop surrounded by water and enjoyed the sunshine and solitude.

Leaving Hatta, we decided to continue east the 10 kilometers to the Oman border. Laborers who leave the country illegally are known to cross the border here, making a dangerous, six-hour trek through mountain passes and wadis, always at night, and far enough from the highway to slip through undetected.

Our plan was simpler: just drive to the border, take a look and then turn back. But after a quick passport check on the UAE side, we were suddenly across the border and into Oman, where we somehow missed the checkpoint and were stopped by a guard who, incredulous, asked us, "Why you not stop at immigration?"

He sent us back to the checkpoint, where we had to get both an entrance and an exit visa, which at first befuddled and then amused the woman helping us. She smiled and gave us a three-week visa anyway, and we turned the car around and headed back to the UAE, laughing all the way.

Christmas Day in the desert

2009-12-29T17:19:00.020+04:00

"Ho, ho, Merry Christmas!"

People gasped in several languages as a spotlight lit up the top of a sand dune behind the huts that covered the barbecue grills and the full-service bar. There sat Santa Claus, on a camel, waving to the crowd as he worked his way down into the campsite, past the shisha tent and the gift shop, calling for all the children to meet him at the stage for "free Santa gifts" before the belly dancing show started.

It doesn't get much goofier than this.

Christmas Day in the desert seemed to call for something a little different, so that's what we did. It started with a spot of "dune-bashing" -- a ride in a four-wheel drive going up, down and around every hill in the desert -- and ended with a cookout that managed to mangle two cultures beyond the point of recognition.

The dune-bashing was fun, and about what we expected. Our driver, Abdullah, picked us up and headed out of the city, found some sand dunes and took off. Abdullah didn't talk much, but he seemed to know his way around the dunes. He gave us a few thrills, and stopped several times for photo ops while he stepped off to the side and grumbled into his cell phone.

It got a little old after about an hour, and I think we were all a little queasy, so everyone was glad when we took a break to visit to a camel ranch. It was pretty cool. I never realized how cute camels are, especially the young ones. The smell, however, is awful.

Then it was back in the truck and off to the campsite, which promised camel rides, "an authentic Arab barbecue" and a chance to "try the hubbly bubbly" (shisha).

The camp was larger than we expected, big enough for a couple of hundred people, and I couldn't vouch for how authentic it was -- the full bar certainly didn't fit in, nor the gift shop that sold dishdashes and abayas for only a few dirhams. You could get your photo taken dressed up in native costume or with a forlorn looking pet falcon. The three-minute camel rides were kind of silly, but hey, at least we could say we'd been on a camel.

It all seemed to be a typical, cheesy, touristy desert experience, maybe not all that authentic, but still fun in a harmless sort of way. Then the music switched from Arabic to Jingle Bells, and Santa magically appeared on his camel. We definitely were not expecting this.

He came down from the dune and into the campground, swaying on his camel, a skinny local guy with a fake beard and a couple of pillows stuffed into his Santa suit. About all he ever said was "Ho, ho, Merry Christmas!" and "Queue up, children, queue up!"

I guess no one told him there are three ho's in "Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas!" Even some Japanese in the crowd shouted "Ho, ho, HO!" back at him, hoping he would get the hint. But when he hopped from his camel with a bag of cheap toys, he was surrounded by kids (and adults) who didn't seem to mind. After a mad scramble, they scampered back to their seats, happy, and finally the show moved on.

(An aside: This was the only place we heard "religious" Christmas songs. There were carolers in the malls, but they stuck to Rudolph and Jingle Bells and similar tunes.)

The barbecue lines opened and the music switched back to Arabic, and traditional dancers replaced Santa on the big carpet in the middle of the campground. The food was good, and plentiful, with everything from hummus to barbecue chicken, with fresh fruit for dessert.

We finished dinner and watched the dancers and tried the shisha, About 9 o'clock Abdullah was there to drive us back to the city, where we went off to bed with visions of a very different Christmas dancing in our heads.

Here I am, Santa! Turn right!

2009-12-23T18:17:00.013+04:00

Christmas is nearly here, and I'm a little concerned. How will Santa find my house?

You see, there are no street addresses in Abu Dhabi. Not for big businesses, not for individual homes.

The official address of my bank, for example, is "In the Omeir Bin Yousuf building, opposite the Etisalat building, Old Airport Road." Considering that Airport Road runs the length of the city, about 12 kilometers or more, unless you already know where the Etisalat building is, you're not going to find it.

Finding an individual home is even more difficult. My flat address is, basically, "Al Bateen, 12th Street, between 32nd and Bainunah streets." The villa itself has no number, the apartment within the villa has no number, and the street is only marked at one end. There must be more than a hundred 12th Streets all over the city; my only hope is that someone can find the one tucked in between 32nd and Bainunah, and I can go outside and flag them down.

This is especially frustrating when you try to call for a taxi, or have something delivered or installed. You end up standing in the street, cell phone to your ear, watching for a glimpse of the cab or delivery van at the far end of the street, so you can yell "Turn now!" at just the right moment.

Somehow, I don't see that working with Santa. I may be out of luck this year.

I saw it on the road to Dubai

2009-12-22T20:52:00.019+04:00

The early morning mist was hanging low over Abu Dhabi when we left the Corniche and battled through the grinding gears and exhaust fumes of trucks leaving Mina Port. At the first chance, we ramped onto the new Sheikh Zayed Highway that skirts the city, a virtually deserted six-lane speedway running through a barren landscape past Saadiyat Island, soon-to-be-home of the new cultural center, and Yas Island, home of Yas Marina and the new Formula One track.

Both are, or will be, spectacular developments, and I'm sure the city will find its way to them. But seen from the expressway, through the mist and slanting sunshine, they sat off in the distance, oddly-shaped futuristic structures isolated in a wasteland of sand and scrub interspersed with pools of water and mangroves. It made me think of an old sci-fi film, of what the producers imagined the surface of Planet Krygon12 should look like. I half expected hovercrafts to emerge from some hidden silo and zip across the empty land to the next pod.

In the far distance, across the flats, were the hazy outlines of the city and suburbs, and more buildings that made you ask in wonder, "What's that?" Like the almost-finished hotel billed as the most leaning tower on earth - it cants 18 degrees to the west, 14 degrees more than the famous Tower of Pisa - far away but hard to miss as it winked in the sunlight.

The new road connected to the Abu Dhabi-Dubai highway, infamous for its high speeds and deadly accidents, and we raced through the suburban developments. Slicing through the desert, the road running on a straight line for about 120 kilometers between the two cities, the buildings became smaller and less futuristic, but no less perplexing: boxy and windowless structures dropped in the sand with no obvious purpose; a large mosque being built directly beside a convenience store with no other buildings nearby; a cluster of villas in the distance with no clear way to get from here to there.

There was a road sign that said "Camel Race Track," although as much as I strained I couldn't spot a grandstand or track. I can't wait to find out more and perhaps come back and see if they have a paddock and a parade ring and a call to post. I know they have camel beauty contests here; I wonder if the prettiest camels are also the fastest.

The desert seemed to stretch endlessly, but sooner than you would think, larger buildings appeared in the distance, and we sped through the industrial area of Jebal Ali and the unexpectedly shiny Metro station, the last stop on the new commuter rail line than runs the length of Dubai city.

As we passed the huge plant that provides power and water to the emirate, the sand and scrub gave way to the high-rises around Dubai Marina, and then the Burj Al Arab Hotel, the iconic sail-shaped building off to the left, the world's only seven star hotel, with light panels that change the color of the sail every 30 minutes, and where Agassi and Federer squared off on a rooftop tennis court that extends out over the water.

The towers faded briefly before picking up again, and soon I was craning left and right to see them all, like a rube in New York City for the first time, but I really didn't care because so much of it was just so remarkable. Most striking of all is the Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world at 165 floors, looming over the other skyscrapers like a big brother who plays on the basketball team.

People make this commute every day, I'm told, living in Dubai, where the rents are cheaper, and working in Abu Dhabi. I assume that over time, the visual impact diminishes and the sights disappear into the landscape, but after only two trips, that's hard for me to imagine.

From the update desk

2009-12-20T19:49:00.004+04:00

It's a quiet Sunday in Abu Dhabi -- a good time to catch up on some earlier posts.

Travelin' blues: My son finally arrived at 2 o'clock this morning, completing an 80-hour odyssey from Atlanta to New York to Amman, Jordan to Abu Dhabi.

Sounds like he had quite an adventure. If I didn't know better, I'd think he had the whole thing planned all along.

His highlights: A visit to MOMA in New York, where he had never been, and smoking a cigarette on the roof of the Amman airport with the captain of the airport police, watching the sun set over the city. (He doesn't really smoke, but when a police captain in a foreign country growls "Come with me" it's probably best to go along for the ride.)

And the lowlight: Trying to buy a ticket on Gulf Air, which will not allow you to buy a ticket less than four hours before a flight, even though their Amman ticket counter opens just two hours before the flight to Abu Dhabi. He finally came in on Royal Jordanian Airways (at about twice the cost).

* * * *

It's raining, it's pouring: That predicted 20mm of rain I scoffed at? It turned into almost 120mm in a single day, drenching the city and causing 10 deaths in traffic accidents across the country.

Storm drains were overwhelmed, and the rising water flooded most streets and many ground-floor apartments and businesses. Cars and buses were stalled everywhere.

My street stayed relatively dry, but a block away the water was well over a foot deep. The city had to send out pumper trucks to remove the backup; the drainage system just wasn't built to handle that much water.

When it was over, we had received almost an entire year's average rainfall in 72 hours.

* * * *

The taxi drivers: I knew I had good reason for keeping Rafiq around. Razon is peeved (somewhat justifiably so) and has been "too busy" to pick me up the past few days.

Here's what happened: When I called Razon for a 6.30 am ride to Dubai, I was certain he said he could not do it because it was too early. So I arranged for Rafiq to do it.

But as we were pulling away from the villa, I spotted Razon's car coming our way. I watched in the mirror as he stopped in front of the villa and called me, as he always does. He was not too pleased when I told him I had made other arrangements. I think he had gotten up extra early to accommodate me.

I've been trying to patch things up, but so far, he's not buying it.

And down the stretch they come ...

2009-12-19T18:33:00.014+04:00

If you can't bet on it, is it still horse racing?

Well, sure it is, technically. At the Abu Dhabi Equestrian Club, the horses still come out of the gate and thunder around the track and the fans cheer and the winning jockey pumps his fist as he crosses the finish line. For those two minutes, you might as well be at Churchill Downs. Okay, maybe Tampa Bay Downs.

But I must say, the chance to win a microwave oven just isn't as exciting as trying to cash a big trifecta ticket for cold hard cash.

Gambling is illegal in the UAE, but the several hundred people who come out for the weekly six-race card can win prizes for picking the top three horses in each contest. Microwaves, dishwashers, air conditioners and the like are on display in front of the grandstand, ready to go home with the lucky winners.

One of the first things you notice when walking into the track is that there's no tote board. In its place is a large video screen, which comes in handy. The 10-furlong track is so big -- there's a nine-hole golf course in the infield -- it's impossible to see the first half of races with the naked eye because the horses start so far away.

The only information on display is on a wooden results board beside the parade ring, where the numbers of the top four finishers in each race are hung by a worker climbing atop a riser. The Green Monster scoreboard at Fenway Park is a technological marvel compared to this thing.

It's a small grandstand, made smaller by the fact that the center section and upper levels arereserved for owners and trainers and their guests. Everyone else sits off to the sides; there is two sections with hard plastic seats and another with simple concrete risers.

Admission is free, and so are the programs. The crowd is almost all male, but there are a few women and children. There's an open grassy area where people picnic and small kids boot around a soccer ball. People watch the races intently and cheer loudly for their favorites, even without wagering. It's almost as if we're all there as extras in a movie, providing background color and noise so the sheikhs don't have to watch their horses race in silence.

The travelin' blues take a detour

2009-12-17T16:35:00.010+04:00

Well, that didn't work out so well.

I completed the 90-minute trip to Dubai early this morning just in time to learn my son got bumped from his flight again, this time in New York. So he's getting an extra day in the big city, and I spent five hours checking out Dubai. I don't think I could describe my first impressions of the place in one word, but two will do: chaotic playground.

Abu Dhabi had been described to me as Dubai's somewhat dowdy older sister, and now I know what that means. Abu Dhabi has its share of glitz and glamour, but compared to Dubai, it's practically a spinster aunt.

It's as if someone decided to build a cross between L.A. and New York, and do it all in 10 years. And they're not quite done yet. Dubai is a jumble of the most incredible buildings you've ever seen, many of them half finished. It's also the home of the tallest building in the world, which is truly beyond description. I've attached a photo of the Burj Dubai so you can see for yourself. Keep in mind that those buildings around it are high-rises in their own right, and this photo is several months old, before the Burj was topped out at 165 stories.

Dubai is the most pedestrian-unfriendly place I've ever seen. You just can't get from here to there on foot. Sidewalks disappear into constructions zones; your only choices are to turn back or walk in a street filled with lorries and cement trucks.

But the harbor area looks promising, and the Jumeirah Beach Walk is a world-class cobblestoned stretch of shops, cafes and residence towers alongside a sparkling shoreline. I saw more westerners in five hours today than I have in four months in Abu Dhabi, for what that's worth. And not many of them seemed to be working too hard.

I'll definitely be back when I can stay for a while and learn my way around. In the meantime, I'm back in Dowdy Abu Dhabi (how's that for a chamber of commerce tagline?), grateful for the relative peace and quiet. I must be getting old ...

We got the travelin' blues

2009-12-16T21:06:00.011+04:00

Murphy's Law seems to hold true no matter where in the world you are, or where you're going.

I was eagerly awaiting my son's arrival today, but he was flying on a Delta buddy pass and got bumped yesterday in Atlanta. They told him there's not much hope of making it onto another direct flight for at least 3-4 days; they're all full to overflowing.

But hey, we don't give up easily. Right now he's on his way to the airport for a flight to New York, and from there to Amman, Jordan, where he will have to spend a night before continuing on to Dubai.

Being the caring and protective dad that I am, I'm trying to catch a flight to meet him in Amman. I'll probably never have another reason to go to Jordan, so why not? We'll explore the city, find a place to stay, then head back this way the next day.

But I'm having problems on my end, too. Something's wrong with the online reservation system at Fly Dubai Airlines and it won't process my booking. No matter how much I yell at the computer screen, it keeps telling me I entered "incorrect information."

People in the reservations center say it's a mystery. (They were friendly enough, but of no help whatsoever.) And because it's less than 24 hours until flight time, they won't take a phone reservation. Argh!

So Plan B (or is it Plan C? Plan D?): I'll get up at 5 am and get to the Dubai airport and try persuade someone to put me on a plane to Amman. If all goes well, I can arrive about 1 hour before he does.

Wish me luck!

Shave and a haircut, Abu Dhabi style

2009-12-15T16:02:00.006+04:00

There's nothing quite like having a man who doesn't seem to understand a word you're saying holding a straight-edge razor to your neck, waiting for you to answer a question that you couldn't understand either.

Even a haircut can be an adventure in this town.

It's been a long time since I've given much thought to a haircut. I went to the same chain salon for years, and my regular "stylist" had my simple cut down to a five-minute job. Clippers, scissors, quick beard trim, here's $15, see you again in three weeks.

When it came time for my first haircut here, I was intimidated by the salons in the malls; they looked far too hip and involved for the likes of me. So I found a street-corner barber shop, figuring that's where I'd have the best chance of finding the quick and easy cut I was accustomed to.

Not so much.

At even the most simple-looking shop, a shave and a haircut can be a 30 minute experience. It starts with a scalp massage, and proceeds to scissors, clippers, trimmers and yes, the old-fashioned straight-edge razor, which the barber wields like an artist as he neatens the edges of your beard, the nape of your neck and around your ears. Even your eyebrows and nose hairs are clipped and trimmed to perfection.

All the while your head is swaddled in soothing lotions and balms and powders, all with a manly Old Spice kind of smell, each carefully cleaned away before proceeding to the next step.

This finesse and pampering goes on mostly in silence, the barber going about his work with impressive concentration. He pauses only to seek your approval for what you can only guess he's going to do next. (My first haircut here, I almost got out of the chair four times, thinking it was over. The barber seemed hurt, perhaps thinking I was unhappy with his work, but I quickly figured out that there was more to come.)

The cost for all this lavish attention that leaves you feeling like a car just out of the detail shop? About 30 or 40 dirhams ($8-11). Quite a bargain.

It's raining, it's pouring

2009-12-12T14:10:00.026+04:00

It's raining!

Not one of the brief drizzles that sometimes passes for rain here, where you have to run around in circles to get hit by a drop, but an honest-to-goodness, day-long drenching. Not hard, but steady.

It's fabulous. The streets are wet. There are puddles on the sidewalks. Storm drains are backed up. People are wearing raincoats and dashing about with umbrellas.

This is my first Arabian rain, and it's a pretty big deal. The newspapers do stories when it rains. Weather forecasters warn the public to "brace themselves" for the deluge, and the authorities caution drivers to take extra care on the slippery roads.

There's more rain in the forecast for tomorrow -- up to 20 millimeters (about three-quarters of an inch). Not much by Florida or Georgia standards, but enough to cause quite a stir in a place that gets less than 5 inches of rain all year.

When people ask what I miss about home, one of the first things that comes to mind is rain. The way it sounds through an open window or on the roof of your car. The way it bounces off sidewalks and pavement and glistens on the grass. The way a storm moves across open water. The way you sleep on a rainy night.

Of course, when Atlanta was drowning under daily downpours this fall, no one wanted to hear about my wistful feelings for the wet stuff. Maybe now I won't have to trouble you with that one any more.

A crime reporter's dream

2009-12-11T16:32:00.011+04:00

Someone who read the "Price of Justice" item posted earlier -- about two bothers who got only three years for murder after they paid blood money to the victim's family -- asked what would have happened if the brothers had been sisters?

I must say, I have no idea. I've never heard of a female being involved in a violent crime here.

In fact, there's very little violent crime. This is by far the safest place I've ever lived. You can walk the streets at 2 in the morning with no fear of being mugged or accosted. You can get money from an ATM without looking over your shoulder.

Bad things do happen, of course -- murder, drugs, prostitution. It's just that they don't seem to happen nearly as often as in the States. And stranger-on-stranger crimes are rare.

Most of the crime is of the white-collar variety. There are lots of bribery and embezzlement trials, sensational cases involving millions of dollars. Businessmen and government officials are always trying to work an angle, it seems, especially in Dubai.

Other crimes often have interesting twists that would make a crime reporter salivate. Imagine what Edna Buchanan would have done with these stories:

-- Two men stole 2 million dirhams from another man after blowing chili powder in his face and pushing him out of their car.

-- A gang of five stole a suitcase filled with gold, shipped it to Costa Rica disguised as car parts, and hopped a plane to Hong Kong. The inept criminals left so many clues, police solved the crime before their plane landed.

-- A Jordanian man stole a Russian tourist’s passport and held it for ransom.

-- Two men were caught selling $1 million in counterfeit bills for only $19,000. Why so cheap? Someone had spilled black paint on the fake money.

-- A Nepalese gang armed with swords and knives jumped from the back of a pickup truck and attacked police who were raiding a brothel.

-- A salesman faced up to 10 years in jail for doctoring a parking permit so he could avoid a $40 fine.

-- And a man who was stabbed repeatedly, robbed and left for dead was sentenced to six months in prison because when police took him to the hospital, he presented a fake ID card.

Now that is being tough on crime!

It's like being 18, all over again

2009-12-09T00:11:00.014+04:00

I bought my first legal bottle of wine yesterday.

The law says, once you have your resident visa, you have to have an alcohol license to buy or consume alcohol. In a bar, at a liquor store, at your neighbor's house ... doesn't matter, technically, you have to have a license.

Of course, everyone ignores this law. No one cares if you drink in a bar. No one cares if you drink at your neighbor's house. And there are a couple of liquor stores that openly flaunt the law and sell to anyone, licensed or not, as long as you pay cash.

But ... a guy from the office told me he once spent a night in jail here after getting into a car accident on his way back from one of those "look the other way" liquor stores. The police searched the car and found the beer and wine in the trunk, and he didn't have a license, so he went to jail.

(Sidebar: He swears they had Tea Boys in the jail, going from cell to cell offering lattes and oolong tea. And they gave him extra pillows and made everyone be quiet after 10 p.m. Just like Attica!)

He got out of it okay; he had the receipt showing he had just purchased the stuff and was on his way home, so they let it go. But other people have warned there are plenty of things that could happen, out of your control, that could get you into trouble for not having a license. So just to be safe, I decided to get one.

It's a process. You have to provide three passport photos. Copies of your passport and visa. And a "letter of no objection" from your employer, which also shows how much you make. They use that to determine how much you are allowed to spend each month.

So I gave all that -- plus 200 dirhams -- to the nice folks at my local Spinney's, and three weeks later, I had my license.

It's cute. It looks like a miniature passport, with my photo and a government stamp and everything. It even has a blue cover embossed with gold lettering. On each page, they keep a record of what you buy each month.

So, you pull out your passport and show off your tourist visa stamp from Istanbul. I'll produce my alcohol license and show you where I bought three bottles of Italian red for only 85 dirhams!

A day at the beach

2009-12-07T20:07:00.020+04:00

I've lived on Miami Beach. I've lived in Fort Walton Beach. I've lived in Tampa and spent every day off at St. Pete Beach. I've vacationed in Grayton and Cancun and Grand Cayman. I've hung out in Redondo Beach and Hermosa Beach. I've been to San Diego's Torey Pines Beach and seen things you wouldn't believe. I've ridden out a hurricane on Panama City Beach. I've rented houses and condos on Hilton Head Beach. I've walked the shore at Manly Beach in Sydney, Australia. I've driven south on A1A and eaten conch fritters on Marathon Beach, then stood on Key West Beach and strained for a glimpse of the beach in Cuba, just 90 miles away.

What I'm saying is, I know my beaches.

Today, for the first time, I checked out the Corniche beach in Abu Dhabi. It's not the best beach I've been to. But it's far from the worst.

The beach was closed when I first got here, undergoing renovations in preparation for the Formula One race last month. They built boardwalks. They imported sand. (The local sand was not "fine" enough.) They built cafes and coffee shops. They set up bandstands and bicycle stands and ice cream stands.

It's clean and sparkling. The water is an incredibly clear, Caribbean-like blue green. It's inviting and comfortable. And like no beach I've ever seen, it's divided into three sections.

The Family Section, which costs 10 dirhams to enter, is the largest. It has parks and playgrounds and bouncy castles and slides and free lounge chairs. But you must be a woman, a child, or a man with a woman and child to enter.

Then there's the "Open to Everyone With 10 Dirhams" section, which is similar, but smaller and without the playgrounds. The theory seems to be, the cover charge will keep out the laborers, who have been known to hang out at the beach (and the malls) and ogle women, which makes everyone here very unhappy.

I'm not sure where I stand on this particular issue: these guys are building the country with their sweat, they're far away from their wives and families and sending every spare dirham home. They work six or seven days a week for a pittance and live in labor camps with thousands of other sweaty guys, and there are parts of town where they are just not welcomed. I don't think women should be ogled, of course, but if I were in their shoes ... I don't know.

In the middle is the free, open beach, which is where I went. It has coffee shops and cafes and about 300 yards of beachfront, tucked in between the other two. There are thatched barriers that run from the boardwalk to the surf line between each section, to keep anyone (heaven forbid) from peeking into another section. This is where the most people were -- men and women, mostly women, which was surprising, and mostly westerners. (It was Monday afternoon. The laborers were busy laboring.)

There were guards stationed at the surf line where the thatched walls ended. I saw two Pakistani guys get near the border and turn back. I went for a walk, and as I approached the barrier and the guard, I gestured ahead and asked, "That's the pay beach, right?" "Yes, yes," he said, waving me through, inviting me to continue my walk, free of charge. Apparently I was no risk as an ogler.

Feeling like I was striking a blow for laborers everywhere, I just said "No thanks," and turned and walked back down the stretch of free beach.

That's not cricket! (Thank goodness)

2009-12-05T17:33:00.010+04:00

Just in case anyone thinks it's all fun and games over here in the land of sand, you should know there ARE hardships.

Like trying to follow college and pro football, American-style, from nine time zones away in a place overrun by cricket and soccer fans.

(Want to get a rise out of a Brit? Tell him the reason you're leaving the pub at 9:30 on a Sunday night is so you can hurry home and watch some "real" football.)

The 1 o'clock NFL games kick off at 10 pm here, and the late games at 1:15 a.m. And you can forget about Sunday and Monday Night Football; they don't even bother.

I've yet to find a pub that shows the games. But with a satellite package at my flat, I get three or four NFL games each week. It's a seemingly random draw, although tomorrow night the Falcons will be on for the fourth time this season.

They do strange things on the broadcasts. Many times, the crowd noise is muted, so as you watch the action it sounds like Kenny Albert and Daryl Johnston are talking in an empty room. When the network cuts away to the studio -- "Let's go to Curt Menefee for an update" -- the camera stays on the field and all you get is silence.

Sometimes they block the scores ticker, sometimes they don't. Same with the halftime show. And there are no commercials -- that time is filled with promo spots from Showtime, the satellite provider.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I like soccer just fine, and I'm slowly beginning to figure out cricket. But this is my kind of football. It even inspired me to make my first Abu Dhabi chili last Sunday. Who cares if it was 3 a.m. and the only game on was the Jaguars and 49ers?

True confessions: I'm a two-timer

2009-12-04T14:20:00.009+04:00

It's really awful, how I string them along. It's not right the way I lie, telling one I'm at home when I'm really out riding around with the other. They don't know about each other, of course. I hate to think what would happen if they ever found out.

I'm talking about taxi drivers, of course. The only thing more valuable than having one loyal driver in Abu Dhabi is having two. And I'll do whatever it takes to keep them both around.

It's almost impossible to describe how utterly frustrating it is to stand in 110-degree midday heat looking for a cab, sometimes for 30 or 45 minutes or more. It saps your soul. It sends you back to your room to change into a dry shirt. It makes you late for work. It makes you cranky. It makes you think about getting on the next plane home.

And when you find a way around it, you never want to go back.

Razon was my first regular driver. He picked me up on an especially frustrating day, and I promised to pay him double the meter if he would pick me up again the next day, same place and time. A beautiful relationship was born.

I've continued to pay him double the meter, which amounts to about $5 American -- a small price to pay for the peace of mind that comes from knowing you have a ride. The weather has since cooled off; some days now, it doesn't even reach 90. But you get spoiled. It's cool having a driver.

A few weeks ago, Razon was assigned to three days at Yas Island for the Formula One race. I found another driver, and right away I knew Rafiq was someone I could depend on. Like a savvy veteran, I lavishly overtipped when he dropped me at work, and offered him double the meter to pick me up the next day.

Now I have two faithful drivers. Razon is still my main guy, taking me to work most days, but I keep Rafiq around, too. I have him drive me to the grocery store or laundry or mall whenever I can. You never know when Razon might decide to head home to Bangladesh.

If that makes me a two-timing cheat, so be it. What would you do in my shoes?

A bounty on Ceiling Cat?

2009-12-02T00:24:00.024+04:00

A handful of feral cats live on the grounds of Abu Dhabi Media Company, and some of them slip into the newsroom from time to time looking for food and attention.

The boldest of the group is called Ceiling Cat. He got his nickname because he jumps to the ceiling -- actually, onto the large air ducts that are suspended from the ceiling -- whenever he senses a threat. It seems to be the Tea Boys' job to harass him and chase him out of the building.

Ceiling Cat stays inside more than the others, roaming the air ducts, keeping an eye on things. It's not unusual to be working at your desk at night and suddenly hear a mewing from above. Look up, and there's Ceiling Cat staring down at you.

He is particularly despised by The Management, perhaps because, as legend has it, one night he used the floor under the editor's desk as a litter box. There was even talk of bringing in birds of prey (falconry is big around here) to eliminate the "cat problem."

Things had quieted down, but now we fear there may be a bounty on Ceiling Cat. The Tea Boys have been especially aggressive in trying to capture him lately. One even climbed into an air vent trying to nab him; another chased him across the newsroom with a mop.

But CC is a wily old cat, and he can make the leap from floor to desk to vending machine to ceiling in a split second. That's usually when he's mewing the loudest, perhaps out of indignation at being harassed.

Or maybe he's just talking trash to the Tea Boys.

Thanksgiving in Abu Dhabi

2009-12-02T00:24:00.022+04:00

I was a little worried about Thanksgiving. It has always been a big family holiday for our clan, with as many as 15 or 20 of us gathering under one roof for turkey and talk and good times. The meal always includes turkey and ham -- my dad never ate poultry, for reasons that were never fully explained, and we have continued the tradition after his death.

After the meal, we choose up sides and play touch football in the yard or at a park, then come back inside for more food. At night we break out games like Pictionary and BuzzWords, and the sweetest, calmest family you've ever met suddenly becomes competitive, trash-talking crazies.

It’s the kind of day mirrored by thousands or maybe millions of families, nothing special really, until you realize you’re not going to be there for the first time in as long as you can remember.

So here I was in Abu Dhabi, 7,500 miles from home, wondering just how lonesome I would be, and how long it would take me to eat all the leftovers if I cooked a turkey for myself.

Turns out I had nothing to worry about, at least on the food and festivities front.

First came an invitation from a recently arrived American couple, who put out an unbelievable spread on Wednesday night – a delicious turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy (why is it that everyone can make good gravy except me?), two kinds of stuffing, fresh green beans, cranberry relish, warm rolls … all my favorites. After the meal, five Americans and a British interloper sat around drinking wine, talking shop and, for the most part, being quite thankful.

On Thursday, it was an international Thanksgiving party – Canadians, Americans, Brits, Australians and a Jamaican who had just received his U.S. citizenship. The food was once again superb (yes, the gravy, too), the wine flowed freely, someone’s iPod was displaying excellent taste ... it was almost enough to make me forget about what I was missing.

At both gatherings, the non-Americans were openly curious about our holiday – Do we give presents? Is there a Thanksgiving Eve? Is it a religious holiday? They seemed pleased to learn that it really is all about family and food and being thankful, not commercialized or divided by religious differences.

When I came home, sated and tired, I thought more about what I was missing back in the States. The first Thanksgiving in more than two decades without your family is a sad thing. But I realized I have much to be thankful for – a lifetime of Thanksgiving memories made only dearer by being away, and new friends who may not know everything about The Fourth Thursday in November, but who know a heck of a lot about making the most of what we have and being thankful for it.

The Queen of Sheba is in the house

2009-12-02T00:22:00.012+04:00

In Atlanta, a building is considered ancient if it has been around for ... what, maybe 50 years? Certainly anything still standing that was not burned by General Sherman would be given reverential treatment as an historic structure.

In some ways, the city of Abu Dhabi is the same. Pretty much every building has been built since the 1970s and 1980s. Side by side with the new, glittering, futuristic towers are loads of run-down mid-rises, the equivalent of bad hair days for architects. Truly ugly buildings that deserve to be torn down.

But out in the desert in Sharjah are the remains of a castle that some people believe was the home of the Queen of Sheba.

As in, the woman who's mentioned in the Bible and the Quran, going to visit King Solomon to test his famous wisdom. She was presumably the ruler of the region somewhere around the 10th century BC.

Now, some experts claim the site could not be more than a thousand years old, and maybe they're right. But even still ... that it's even possible to consider these are the remains of a castle that belonged to the Queen of Sheba is just mind boggling.

The price of justice

2009-12-02T00:22:00.011+04:00

Color me naïve. I had heard of the concept of blood money, of course, but thought of it as an ancient custom, something half-remembered from a long ago Bible story or history book.

But the concept is alive and well in the UAE, even if the victims aren’t.

In a recent case in Dubai, two 19-year-old brothers from a local family were found guilty of killing their Pakistani driver and burning his body to conceal the evidence.

Before sentencing, the judge set aside a one-month window for the family of the accused killers to negotiate with the family of the victim. If they could not agree, the brothers faced life in prison.

But money talks. Five million dirhams (about $1.4 million U.S.) to the victim’s family spared the bothers’ lives, and they will be released after serving three years.

An ode to the iPod

2009-12-02T00:14:00.008+04:00

When you're feeling like a stranger in a strange land, when you feel alone in the middle of city of a million and a half people -- and it seems not one of them is anything at all like you -- there's nothing that brings you home like music from home.

Not the popular classics from rock and roll or country or pop legends -- you might hear those anywhere here. There's something a little unsettling about catching a ride from a toothless Pakistani cab driver who's tapping his fingers to Sweet Home Alabama as he barrels down Sheikh Zayed The First Street. (Nothing against toothless Pakistanis, of course, or even Lynrd Skynrd, but ... well, you know what I'm saying.)

But what really takes you home, what really calms your fears and soothes your nerves, is the music that's on your iPod, the music you believe belongs only to you and that tight circle of friends, both known and unknown, who share the same slightly-off-the-beaten-path tastes.

Put the iPod on shuffle and let it flow, from Lucinda Williams to Steve Earle to Fred Eaglesmith to James McMurtry ... I swear, when Pieta Brown launches into Sonic Boom, I don't know whether to curl up and cry or jump up and dance ... to Blue Mountain to Shawn Mullins to Albert King to Susan Tedeschi.

There's not much here to remind a lonely expat of home. But music travels easy these days. Board a plane in Atlanta with an iPod nano tucked into a shirt pocket and a Logitech player in the corner of a suitcase, and that's all it takes to bring a couple of thousand or so of your favorite tunes halfway around the world. Thank heaven for that.

Watch out, the Scots are coming!

2009-12-02T00:13:00.003+04:00

I met a group of three Scottish guys the other night at the Novotel. Oil guys, very friendly bunch. Bought me a beer and invited me to sit with them.

When one of them heard I used to live in Florida, he became very animated. Wanted to tell me all about this great little town he had discovered where he wants to retire.

The spot? Pass-A-Grille Beach!

It seems his wife had forced him to take the family to Disney World a few years ago, and after 4 or 5 days he'd had enough of the central part of the state. So he loaded up the rental car and went off in search of some water.

Not quite sure why he went west instead of east, but he ended up in the St. Pete area and immediately fell in love with the place. Says he's working on a 10-year plan to get back to the west coast of Florida again, for good, and that's why he's in Abu Dhabi. Sounds kinda familiar ...

In the near future, however, he wants to engage me in a drinking contest. Says Americans don't know diddly about drinking. Based on what I saw from him and his buddies that night, he's right. I wouldn't stand a chance.

Customer service, and then some

2009-12-02T00:12:00.005+04:00

Customer service here is odd. At times, they don’t seem the least bit interested in you or your problem. Others times, they bend over backward to get your business.

Banking seems to be one of the latter.

To open an account, you must have a letter from your employer stating your salary and giving approval for you to have an account. Your paycheck goes directly to your account on the last Thursday of each month.

I finally received my letter after about three weeks, and hustled over to HSBC to open an account.

A very helpful fellow took all my information, then started giving me things to sign, including the checking account documents and forms for a free credit card.

Then he pulled out a form for a second credit card, and another one for auto insurance.

Me: I don't need a second credit card. And I don't even have a car.
Him: Oh but sir, you do not want only one card.
Me: Um, why not?
Him: Because, sir, if you pay 250 dirhams for the second credit card, and 250 dirhams for the car insurance, you checking account is free.
Me: I thought it was free anyway.
Him: Yes sir, but with free checking you must pay 100 dirhams every time you transfer money to the US. But if you pay 100 dirhams a month for checking, you can transfer money to the US for free.
Me: Ummmm ....
Him: But sir, what you want to do is take the second credit card and the auto insurance and then the checking and the transfers are free.
Me: Ummmm ... OK, gimme some car insurance!

So he went to the vault, came back with an ATM card and secret envelopes containing pin codes and I was done!

Oh, and they were so eager to get the credit cards in my hands, they had a courier hand-deliver them to me at work two days later.

First impressions: Hot sun, cool people

2009-12-02T00:08:00.016+04:00

It's been hectic and fun and hot and more than a little crazy.

Getting here was an adventure in itself. Two delays in Atlanta (on the plane, off the plane, back on again), a mad rush to make my connection in New York, which was a waste of time because we sat on the runway for almost 2 hours, then a 13-hour flight ... and when I arrived here one of my bags was lost.

I couldn't sleep when I got here, even though it was close to midnight and I had been traveling for more than 20 hours. I ventured out into the heat (it cools off to about 90-95 at night) to find a cold drink and a bite to eat. And immediately started running into characters.

The first night, I met a guy who left Detroit 25 years ago to work in Singapore, then bounced around from Miami to Bahrain to somewhere in the islands and back to Singapore. He just finished sailing around the world with his wife and a stray cat named Sinbad -- and claims they had never sailed before they left the harbor in Singapore. He showed up in town the same day as I did, to manage a construction job.

My first couple of weeks here, it rarely failed to reach 110-115 degrees each day. And forget the idea that it's a dry heat; it's as humid as Georgia or Florida have ever been. More than once I had to go back upstairs and change into a dry shirt after standing on the street for 20 minutes trying to hail a cab.

I must admit, when I heard the city was only 20 percent locals and rest ex-patriates, I was thinking Western ex-pats. But we are a definite minority, probably less than the locals, even. The vast majority of ex-pats are from Asia, and almost all are men. They come here for jobs as construction workers and taxi drivers and the like. Oil money built this country, but not without the sweat of Indians and Pakistanis trying make a few dirhams to send back home.

A few more interesting people I've met so far:

* An Egyptian pilot from Etihad Airways, who moved here last year with his wife and new baby. Fascinating guy. He's from Cairo, but says he'll never go back because of the "craziness" there.(If Abu Dhabi is sane by comparison, I'm not sure I want to see Cairo.) He knows the town inside and out. He had two pieces of advice: rent a flashy car, and consider switching to Islam. I haven't gotten around to either of those yet.

* An Englishman and an Irishman who are flat out crazy. They fancy themselves the unofficial mayors of the ex-pat population, I think. I don't even know what they do, but at least the Irishman has tons of money. Huge penthouse apartment in a high-rise overlooking the Corniche, with a fully stocked bar, which is a rare thing here. The English guy invited me to run with their Hashers club, which I may do when things cool down a little.

* I didn't get to talk to them much, but I met a cover band from Bulgaria at a place called The Cellar. Everything from John Denver tto the Stones, cranking 'em out one after the other just like a jukebox. The guitar player was bummed the night I was there; it was the day Les Paul died.