Eid at last

Holly molly, is it finally time to eat Eid? August was a one long month of seclusion while the Muslims fasted and the non-Muslims took their food and liquids in public bathrooms and behind closed doors. Such is life in Dubai during Ramadan.

I always wondered how does this country manage to sustain itself when it virtually shuts down for a whole month? I tried to renew my car registration last week and realized that the department of transport in Abu Dhabi doesn't even stay open long enough for me to make it down there from Dubai. Then I imagined how there is probably just one person left on duty and a line wrapping around the building. That person is angry to be the only one made to work and is taking an hour-long break every 15 minutes. So by my calculations if I camped out in the parking lot every night I could maybe get my car registered in a week. But then there was the danger of not making it before everyone left on a 5-day holiday. I decided to instead pay a fine for late registration and postpone my needs until the country becomes normal again.

The other day I came down to our pool and noticed a family of about 8 splashing around, kids screaming along with their mother in her burkini and several grown-up men chasing each other in a kiddy pool. Now this was around 10 at night, the time when most kids in the States are sound asleep, but time has a different meaning here in Dubai. Not to mention that I've never seen these guys here before, but I figured they must be a new family in the building.

Then more people started coming, a line formed around the tennis court and those waiting for their turn started jumping into the pool in their underwear. Gross! Apparently our building security also had a 5-day holiday so there was no one on duty and the entire neighborhood got a free pass. I sat on the edge of the pool waiting for some space to clear out so I could do a few laps, but thirty minutes later a strange looking film appeared on the surface of the water. I gave up and went back home, making a mental note to keep my mouth closed next time I get to swim.

Move Up

One of the biggest events this year was our move from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. Frenchie and I stayed in our little beach shack in Abu Dhabi for 9 months, all the while counting days until we could move somewhere else. Anywhere, really, but there. Technically we should have stayed in AD for a year, given that we paid our rent in advance, but for sure I would have lost my mind if we did. Now I know that the line between sanity and insanity is a whooping 18,000 dirhams.

I totally get why everyone I know in Dubai doesn't want to leave and why we should have come here in the first place. For one, there is never a lack of entertainment in Dubai Marina: beach, numerous cafes and restaurants, bars and clubs, the breeze marina.. Even grocery shopping can be done on foot!

In comparison (no, there is no comparison), all we could do in Abu Dhabi was stay cooped in the house, completely voluntarily. A meal out in Abu Dhabi requires serious mental preparation to want to sit in traffic, then look for virtually non-existent parking in the city just to finally give up and leave the car far away, then take a smelly and crazy Peshawar-style cab to our date - sounds exotic the first 3 times!

Surprisingly, at times this seemed like a  better option than to stay in the shack that was filled with aroma of our Indian and Arabic neighbors' dinners. One at a time perhaps would have smelled nice, but a combo deal that we had going? No, thank you.

Oh, the big upgrade - we actually have a stove in our new apartment, adios microwave dinners! (Courtesy of our subdivided villa that didn't have wiring for a stove. Such fond memories.)

From this..

to this!

Abu Dhabi recently decided to ban dogs in (most) public places. So my dear pooches will soon get their very own bike basket to cruise in on the Corniche.

Of course I'll secretly keep bringing them with me to restaurants and let them sit in a bag under the table, feeding them little bites of my meals. 

At night, when no one can tell a difference between my dogs and stray cats, I'll keep bringing them to parks and let them run around the playground.
Now, I consider myself a responsible dog owner and I always pick up their poop, but with so many strays around, really, what's the point of banning them? At least the domesticated ones are mostly clean and have their shots..

The day I discovered Indian Street Food

I was roaming the busy streets of Tourist Club Area in search of a more "authentic yoga experience", flip-flopping away through garbage and lunch leftovers scattered all over sidewalks (really, something you never get used to even after living for a year in the UAE - here people generally '"litter" where they eat'), when I came upon a window display of the kind of food I've never seen before: they were mostly pastries, but not the common pastries of Abu Dhabi. Intrigued, I decided to give it a try after my yoga class, which, by the way, was a bit too authentic for my liking. But when I came up to the window again, I realized that I didn't even know what to order: there wasn't a word of English, either written or spoken.

Luckily, I saw an Indian woman smiling at me (and probably wondering if I'm mentally challenged) so I asked her to help me order something. First thing she asked was whether I like spicy or not. I immediately remembered the spicy tom yom soup that I once had on a street in Thailand that was so spicy that my eyes watered.
"A little spicy is okay", I told her.

She was there with her husband and three kids having a "street food night" and her youngest son, sitting on top of a table, helped translate for me. First, the chef behind the window handed me a small metal bowl with a ball of pastry swimming in some kind of vegetable soup. It turned out to be a "panipuri", "pani" for water and "puri" for a hollowed out fried crisp.

Surprisingly it was very light and so delicious! It's filling consisted of tamarind water, onions, chickpeas and something spicy: a distant relative of salsa on a tortilla chip (and a perfect post-workout snack!). The chef handed me another one with his bare hand (my American germaphobic mind freaked out a little) that was stuffed with similar ingredients but without the water, which made it somewhat bland. Then he passed on a plate of chaat to the lady and she handed me a spoon, inviting her family to join too. I took a few bites and decided it was rude of me to dig into their dinner like that, so I asked them to order something else for me to take home. Once the chef handed me a paper bag of samosas for the Frenchie and I paid my 7 dirhams (less than $2) I thanked the family and flip-flopped back home. Oh, the samosas were a thousand times better than Lulu's! ;)