Dubai Life: Marriage and teamwork, Dubai-style

Of all the things Sven and I are learning in Dubai, one of the best things has been increased teamwork.  When things go awry it's often really confusing and involves communicating with a LOT of people at the same time.  And most of the time, it's in English that is either very limited or very different - spoken extremely fast in syntax we're not familiar with.  And to navigate the volume and complexity, we've learned it works best when we do it together. 

When I consider how connected our life is now, I realize how separate we've been up until this 'adventure.'  Back home most of our time together was spent sharing meals, doing recreational activities (hobbies and fun stuff), and sleeping.  We did almost everything else by ourselves, and it was cool (mostly).  Perhaps because we'd become accustomed to doing it alone in our single lives, or because it could be accomplished with little to no effort, or because we don't have children, or because we like being strong, independent women (haha, yes Sven too).

Now that we're in Dubai, we're becoming much more dependent on each other and it's a really surprising (and sometimes frustrating) experience.  To put it simply, I think it's because 1) two heads are better than one, and 2) we want to have and give support while we trying these new and flabbergasting tasks that we might not get right.  But I've always prided myself on being fairly independent (or fiercely, depending on who you ask) and this is far out of my "I can do it all by myself" comfort zone.  It's hard learning/allowing yourself to rely on someone in this way, and there's definitely a weight/sense of obligation in being relied on in return.  But what I'm learning, very slowly, is that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing.  The weight of obligation/dependency doesn't have to be heavy.  Building and having this kind of trust can be a powerful thing; a beautiful thing.

And it's weeeeeeeird.  But in a good way.

So today, as we tag-team to try and get the water back on in the villa (day #3 without water) get Steve's car towed to the shop, have a rental car delivered, take Phoebe to the vet, etc - I can't help but smile at how far we've come.

Except while driving.  We cannot, for the life of us, figure out how to drive harmoniously. 

Mostly, we settle for good GPS and very few passenger comments

Dubai Life: The constant battle for AC and water

A few months ago, we bought Sven a used Volvo S80 from a neighbor (remember?).  So far we've been pretty satisfied and it's done a great job ferrying Sven on his long commute.  But the AC has been finicky and this week it stopped cooling entirely (which basically means death during a Dubai summer).  We just got an estimate for fixing all the broken parts and the quote was equal to 40% of the car's total purchase price.

Aaaaand to make everything more *awesome* the water in our villa stopped working yesterday.  Again.  For the 3rd time in less than 5 months.  We applied all the tricks we learned (and the gardener checked too) but this time it seems like a motor malfunction instead of "we're new and dumb."

This is exactly what it looks like

Which is whatever.  Mostly, it ruins my plans to do this.  

And flushing. It ruins flushing.

Naturally, I decided to deal with it by avoiding it for a whole day.  Steven and I went to the gym, took showers, ate a healthy lunch, and then came home to this.

And now on day #2 I am waiting for the maintenance team to come look at the water pump.  I expected them 2-3 hours ago, which is pretty normal here.

But in other tidbits of Dubai life - I have these fantastic new Palazzo pants that I loooooove.  They are so comfortable it feels like a trick; I can't believe they're acceptable in public.

Lately: I got a bad haircut

Oh hair.  With great hair I can conquer the world, but bad hair means I want to hide under a rock.  And I don't think it's just me - so many of my friends have used their hair as a means to recover from some of life's disappointments (like a breakup).  Sometimes that means cutting off 6 inches and sometimes it means dying it purple.  What is it about hair that helps make it feel better?  Eh, I won't go too far down this rabbit hole, but here's a fun little story about my recent hair struggles in Dubai...

As most of you know by know, I've had more free time since we've moved to Dubai.  Which really just means I have extra time to admire these glorious bangs (or fringe, or whatever).

And about a month ago I decided to give myself some bangs while Steve was at work...with office scissors.  It was totally fine (really).

When Steven came home he immediately and very sensitively asked "...is everything...OKAY?"

He's savvy.  He knows that sometimes new hair = fragile

But my new do was born out of courage and not instability. AND I LOVED IT.  I went to a Japanese salon downtown a few days later to clean the bangs up properly.  And afterwards my hair was perfect.

A month later, it was time for a trim.  And because I figured 'it's just a bang trim' (i.e. I'm stupid and sometimes forget all the bad haircuts), I went to a regular salon.  I mean, it's just trimming a little bit of hair and I brought lots of photos to show what I wanted - what could possibly go wrong?

Well my friends, the answer is everything.  ALL THE BANGS COULD GO WRONG.

Aaaaaaaand now I have hair like this.

But of course, I'm way less cool.

*sigh*  So naturally (or is it just me?) I felt this way for the rest of the day.

But really, it's my own fault because I know better.

Ugh, so I'm doing this while I wait for them to grow out.

The end.

Lately: Home Again

We are back in Dubai after a week in London and it feels surprisingly good (heavy emphasis on the surprised part).  Our trip was a lot of fun but at 9 days it was also fairly long.  Towards the end I was pretty tired and really looking forward to just coming home and snuggling with Phoebe.  

Yep.  Technically, I longed to be back in Dubai. 

WHAT.  IS.  HAPPENING.

In less surprising news, Phoebe is also pleased to be home.

Yes. I bought a new couch for the color, then covered it with an ugly sheet.

Booked: Sofia, Bulgaria AND London, United Kingdom

In the UAE, next week is Eid Al Fitr (the end of Ramadan).  It's a big deal.  Such a big deal that the government announced yesterday that everyone gets the entire week off work.

YESSSSS!

So naturally, Sven and I booked another trip.  This time we're going to London, via Bulgaria.  Steven and I went to London together 10+ years ago, and we've wanted to return ever since.  And with the recent Brexit upheaval, we realized that London is probably the most affordable it's ever been in our lifetimes.

In London together in 2005. So young and cute.

I'm especially proud of the airline tickets on this one.  While the markets immediately reacted to the Brexit vote, the airline prices haven't budged yet.  When I checked yesterday, it was still ~$1,200 USD to fly from Dubai to London.  But now that I'm getting better at travel hacking, I was able to hack together a route for 1/3 the price.  It means we stop in Sofia, Bulgaria for a day on each end, but we're totally fine with that.

I WIN!

End of story.

Dubai Life: Culture Shock - 3 Months

Yep, we still live in the Middle East. 

Sometimes I catch myself repeating that phrase in my head.  There's a complex mix of emotions tied to it, some of which I'll try and divulge here.  Again, this post is incredibly long.

First off -- I'm fiiiine.  My first post on culture shock was blunt, and sad, and probably written at the lowest point of this journey thus far.  It's been about 8 weeks since then, and I can honestly say it's gotten a little bit better with every passing week.  It's still all very true, but much less tragic than it felt 8 weeks ago.

And second, I want to clarify from my last post that the source of all my workaholic angst is me.  It's not the job, it's me.  No one at work told me I had to devote my entire life to it, or that I should abandon my hobbies, or stop making friends, or anything like that.  (Especially not my most recent company, which was incredibly social.)  What I've always *known* about myself but pushed to the back of my mind at various times of my life, was how susceptible I am to the concept of striving to be great at something.  Even if that something isn't what makes me happy, I still want to be good at it.  So yeah, it's complicated.

But back to the topic of culture shock.  For me, there are two components: 
1)  not understanding how to "do life" out here, and 
2)  having LOTS of free time and not knowing what to do with it (which was mostly what the previous post was about).

How to "do life" in Dubai
Honestly, we're still figuring this out but I feel like we've come a long way.  Far enough that we're just starting to really enjoy ourselves...finally.  Everything (and I mean everything) works differently here and the only thing you can do is learn via trial and error, every single day.  And I'm not even talking about culture -- just the physical acts of taking care of your house, buying the things you need, and getting through the day.  
It can be little things like going to 5 different stores to find one permanent marker - so simple but so hard! Or, learning that most stores have rotating inventories so the food, household item, dog toy, etc. that you bought last month is by no means guaranteed to be found this month (or ever again).  Or, my recent favorite - that Ziploc brand bags really are the best, and worth driving all the way across town for.  Especially if you're like me and you like to put stuff in them and shake shake shake.  So many meals have exploded all over my shirt, counter top, and kitchen floor.  
But we're also learning bigger things like that our giant water holding tank is supposed to be disinfected every 6-12 months (who knew?), and that when we hire someone to do it they bring a small and wiry person who crawls inside and scrubs every inch by hand (a very humbling thing to witness).  Or, that the Dubai police can give you a traffic ticket without pulling your over.  You get a nifty little text message that tells you all about it.  (It's fine, we totally deserved it.)  Or, that our water pressure pump can mysteriously be turned off by who knows what/whom because it's in your open-to-the-public carport (this happened today), and then your water doesn't work and you have no idea why so you spend all afternoon and call 4-5 people and schedule 2 appointments to figure it out.  After you resign yourself to getting through the next 24 hours without water, your gardener comes over (carrying a lawnmower on his bicycle no less), flips a switch and 'voila!' it works again.  

Sometimes (i.e. oftentimes), the things we don't know leave us feeling really stupid.  There isn't anything wrong with Dubai, we just never learned this stuff in the 30+ years of being Americans.  But with each new experience/lesson we're trying to remember everything so that next time, we'll know.  And so far, that's been good; easier.  I've also noticed that we're getting better at the whole marriage-teamwork-communication thing, because we have to in order to accomplish the simplest tasks here.  It's a good thing, a silver-lining.

How to fill all that "free time"
The universe has a funny way of coming full circle.  Not even a year ago, I was complaining to Steve about my lack of free time.  With all the hours I put into work, and cooking, and cleaning, and running errands, and other blah tasks to keep our life up and running, I felt bereft of any free time.  And now, here I sit with so much free time that it's driving me insane.  How appropriate.
My last culture shock post danced around it, but the real heart of the issue is this - I've spent a decade building only one part of my life.  And now that part is not enough.  I'm ready to cultivate the rest of my life and in doing so I'm asking myself hard questions about who I really am, what I want in life, and what I'm willing to sacrifice.  Those are questions I'm still working through, and I expect will consume some part of my thoughts for the remainder of my life.  

But for now - over the course of the last 8 weeks and today - I have been remembering how to be something other than an office-bot.  I continue to take pleasure in the kitchen, and have learned a couple new tricks.  I can now ferment my own kimchi, make English muffins from scratch, create a plethora of fusion tacos, and send Steven to work with delicious onigirazu for lunch. I've also perfected making margaritas from scratch (even the sweet and sour mix!), and learned that I should never ever have more than 2 big ones.  I'm still trying to master our favorite Thai dishes and Tom Kha Gai and Yum Nua are at the top of the list.  

This is exactly how we do it.  I'm the one in black.

I've also spent a ton of time reading.  It's an old friend that I haven't paid attention to for a while, mostly because I couldn't handle any more screen time/staring at more text.  But now that my day includes a lot less data-staring, I've been soaking up all the glorious words.  In the last 8 weeks I've embraced the site Goodreads as a source of new book leads (please tell me if you have other sites/sources for book leads) and have become an active user of my various library memberships.  I've read nearly a dozen books so far and rekindled my love for the Economist.  It feels good.  

And of course, for us there is always travel.  Steven and I are embracing travel as a means of coping.  And really, it's one of the best perks of being over here - everything is so much closer than it was before.  And yes, we could just be distracting ourselves by introducing new and fresh places, but right now we're okay with this.  We're having a blast.

In all, getting over culture shock is still an ongoing (but much smoother) process.  I think I'll adjust to the nuances of Dubai and the culture far sooner than I'll be able to answer the "what is your life worth" question.  But several years ago I read a graduation speech by Anna Quindlen, and the words have stayed with (i.e. haunted) me ever since. These snippets in particular seem especially relevant today:

"You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.  So I suppose the best piece of advice I could give anyone is pretty simple: get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you developed an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast while in the shower?"

"It is so easy to waste our lives: our days, our hours, our minutes." 
"It is so easy to exist instead of live. Unless you know there is a clock ticking."

"You are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on the bus, or in the car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul."

"All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough."

So that's the deal.  I'm aware of the ticking clock and the fact that I won't live - much less be young - forever.  (Calm down, nothing is wrong.  I'm just getting old.)  These thoughts have been brewing for a while, but moving to Dubai has pushed me into this headspace sooner than I would have meandered in my old life.  Now that I'm here, I'm taking a good hard look at myself and what I've created as my adult life.  There are areas I'd like to change, so I'm working on it.  And, thank goodness, there are also plenty of areas I'm exceptionally happy with and proud of, for which I'm grateful.

Sven's camera skills.

Travel: Prague, Czech Republic - The Good, the Weird, and the Shopping

This last post is a round-up of the other things we did that aren't related to food, drinks, or staring at buildings.  We did quite a bit of walking on our trip, and these photos are from the miles we put on my new sneakers (which we bought there because I didn't bring any).

THE GOOD

One of my very favorite moments was at the top of Vysehrad Fortress.  Just after you enter the walls, there is a little hill on the right side.  We walked to the top to see the view, but the shady walk down was even better.  It made us both miss living in/near the forest.

Prague was also a really dog-friendly city - there were dogs everywhere we went, and all of them were so well behaved.  We were pleasantly surprised by the large number of off-leash dogs, casually walking beside their owners throughout the city.  It made me miss Phoebe.  And Washington, for how freely she was allowed to accompany me there.

A heavily petted consolation prize

One of the fun novelties was the Paternoster (open elevator) in the YMCA building.  There are only a handful of these left in the world.

THE WEIRD

There were a couple of really bizarre things, which I loved for their strangeness.  First, I dragged Steven into the Prague City Gallery where we saw their Cronenberg Evolution exhibit.  Neither one of us are very familiar with Cronenberg, so we had no idea what to expect.  

Definitely the coolest part of the exhibit.  Photo credit: Cronenberg Evolution website

Second, on our way to BeerGeeks (good selection, but we were ~10 years older than everyone there) we stumbled upon the Biserica Preasfânta Inimă a lui Isus (ie the Church of the Most Sacred Heart of our Lord).  The church itself was unlike any I've ever seen, and the nighttime lighting added extra drama.  But the Zizkov Television Tower (ie the Baby Tower) looming in the background made it feel downright ominous.  Unfortunately, we didn't get close enough to see the creepy babies climbing the tower in the dark, but just knowing they were there was enough to feel eerie.

THE SHOPPING

We found the custom stationery shop, Papelote, shop using one of Jan and Zuzi's guides and I was pretty pleased.  I've been searching for a moleskin alternative for quite some time, and these were just what I wanted.  They're well made, attractive, and super affordable.  I bought 1/2 a dozen things here.

And this florist shop. Most quaint florist ever? Movie set? Hobbit shop?

Perhaps our favorite shop, though, was the Cihelna Concept Store.  It's practically underneath the Charles bridge, but tucked away from the heavy traffic.  The store features Czech designers - both new comers and seasoned experts - and we fell in love.  Jan and Zuzi's note said we would most certainly buy things here...and they were right.  We couldn't resist.

Tucked away

One for me, one for Sven.  Can you guess which one I picked?

And that's a wrap on Prague...for now.