Mayday, mayday we are lost in translation!

Today is the first day of the weekend and after a lazy morning we decided to head to the beach to spend the rest of the afternoon there.

I was at the bar to place an order for food and while waiting for a friend to come back from the restroom I decided to occupy my time studying a club membership card that happened to be in my hands. My eyes were caught by a puzzling rule at the back. The rule read as follows (exact words transliterated here):

Alcoholic from outside are not allowed to consume the premises

I could hardly contain the loud burst of laughter.

As I looked around alarmed (it always looks a bit odd if you laugh so animatedly on your own and for no apparent reason) I noticed the man on the phone behind me. I unintentionally (for once) found myself eavesdropping on a conversation that made him repeat the same sentence over and over to whoever refused to believe him at the other end of the line: “I’ve sank the boat.. (pause) … yes! I'm telling you, I’ve sunk the boat; I’m not kidding. It’s under the water, at the bottom of the sea”.

I turned around and glanced at the table a few meters away where his friends were sitting, all composed and seemingly unperturbed in front of their large beers. Their clothes had obviously already dried up under the warm midday sun although on a second look I could notice some random wet patches on one of the guys’ shorts, then my gaze moved over to the ground next to them: there they were a bunch of life jackets slightly dusted with sand and partially covered by a few scattered belongings.

My mind wondered wildly trying to imagine what the boat looked like, how it sank, where it sank, how the party bobbed around on the surface in their life jackets on the immediate aftermath and how on earth the party got back to the club. In my head they all landed on the beach from ashore in true shipwrecked style but most likely they were collected by a local fisherman passing by. I guess we'll never know the juicy details.

When my friend came back I was relieved that I could finally share the exciting gossip with someone who I knew would be burned by curiosity just as much as me. She joined me in the eavesdropping for a moment. For a short instant we were tempted to go and ask a few  investigative questions but then we thought better of it. Had you met this friend of mine you would probably be surprised that she did not engineer a ploy to actually stick her nose into the whole business...
 

I guess this time it just didn't seem appropriate so we returned our attention to the “lost in translation” sentence on the back of the membership card and we made our way back to the sun beds laughing out loudly.

My question remains unanswered: "how on earth do you sink a boat?". I guess there are many ways and it can't be that difficult for this is the second "home made" nautical disaster we witness/hear about in a short period of time.

Priceless anecdotes filling our lite expat beach bumming days!

Look who's here!

As we approached the entrance to the swanky 5 start establishment where, once again, we had decided to consume our Wednesday night dinner (equivalent to a Friday night in the “regular” world) we could not fail to notice the two police cars parked outside, the somewhat alert atmosphere and the main big door wide open. We made our way to the middle doors. After all they seemed to have been left invitingly spread open just for us. We were obviously mistaken: we were quickly ushered to the side entrance which forced us to go through a metal detector.


A metal detector? That’s unusual before dinner.


We started wondering what kind of personality may be hiding in the fortress. This venue is often used for political and high profile meetings. If it wasn’t for the unusual time (it was dinner time after all) I wouldn’t have been so surprised.


So we go through the metal detector and I let the lady search my bag. We walk into the opening not thinking too much of it any more. These things happen here. Yet a few more steps and our gaze is immediately captured by a subject walking with a steady step towards us (and the main exit) chatting fervently to a local man looking very official dressed in the usual formal attire.

The face looks incredibly familiar. In fact it’s so familiar that we both hesitate for a few seconds on whether we should butt in and say “Hello Tony, what are you doing here?” Then we think better of it.


There he was the cause of all the fuss.


Tony Blair, suited and booted and clearly on some kind of business visit.

Just the last person we would have thought of bumping into on our way to dinner.

Phone calls and more oddities

One thing at the time. First an update on the works out in the patio: so they came, with their shovels and their witch broom (only AZ here will know what I am talking about) and they dug a trench. On the doorstep there is a pile of soil and dirt is everywhere (as expected). A massive hole on the other side of the gate is now where once the driveway was. So they came...and they went (on their broom?). Puff! No trace of them today for the whole day. Only the flies are left wandering about my wrecked front patio. The weekend starts tomorrow so it can’t be that and anyway in this country labourers work 6 days per week. So where are they? Mystery. Possibly looking for material.. as you know, you always start digging and then check that nothing is missing…

On another note. This morning my phone rang and it rang and it rang; teaching me the invaluable lesson that switching the phone to vibrate to prevent it from disturbing everybody during a peaceful Yoga class is .. not as effective as switching it off (or at least silent and still).

Anyway at the end of the lesson, once far enough from the class so not to give away the fact that the phone that was vibrating was in fact mine I checked the missed call. It was a 24 number which here means a call from an office or a home. I tried to think hard about who might have wanted to talk to me so desperately (the phone went on and on for what seemed an eternity while I was trying to ignore it and concentrate on my contorted pose.. ending up in totally the wrong position.. but that’s another story). Anyway, I never do this usually (my idea is that if it’s important people will call back) but I was weak and curiosity got the better of me so I called back. As soon as the voice answered at the other end I knew I had made a mistake but for some reason I continued…

A man with a local accent answers.

-    Me: hello?
-    Man: Hello
-    Me: hello my name is xxx I have a missed call from this number. Can you help?
-    Man: where are you from?
-    Me: (a bit confused) uh? I’m from xxx (I give the country – in retrospective I think he wanted to know which company, but what did I know??)
-    Man: Very nice. Hello.
-    Me: (irritated) excuse me but who are you? You called my number earlier!
-    Man: we are bank xxx
(it’s my bank.. hmm I love their professional ways)
-    Me: OK. What did you call me for?
-    Man: We are bank xxx. What’s your name?
I give my name but I don’t think it makes any sense so he also asks for my telephone number. Thinking technology I give that out too… maybe he will finally type it into a system and understand who I am and tell why he called me.
Man: where is your branch?
(The technology image instantly dissipates replaced by him scribbling on a piece of scrap paper.)
I give him  the branch too. Then I start wondering if I am giving too much information.
Man: ah you work there? (the place near the bank)
Me: (still a little irritated) no, I don’t. My husband does.

So we go back and forth for another few minutes while I am still wondering why on earth they called me.
He asks me to hold for what feels like an eternity while I hear him fidgeting with the phone keypads (possibly trying to transfer a call?).

I hear all sorts of conversations behind and further attempts at keypad fidgeting until I give up and hang up. “He’ll call back” I think to myself.

So he does. While I am driving. So I park on the side of the road and answer (I am not going to say otherwise, am I?). The man is back, this time he makes amazing offers about this special account that provides the opportunity of a 1 million Rial draw*, every month or something like that.
He goes on for a while with a list of all the amazing draws I would be entered into if I open this account.
He asks me if I have this “super duper” account. I haven’t got the foggiest. He asks me for my existing account number so that he can check.
Me: sorry mate. Ain’t giving you any account number over the phone. I’ll pop into the branch when I have time to check this amazing offer. Thank you.
Man: OK!

End of the random conversation.

For the next half hour I drive home wondering whether I gave my few personal details to some fraudster who was trying to get to my bank account. But then thinking about it again I don’t think so. I think it was a genuinely professional marketing call from my bank.

Does your bank in the UK reward you with such delightful telephone exchanges? Next time you call them or they call you, they introduce themselves by name, read a script and force you to go through the ridiculously long security check questions be grateful!

* A note on the draw system for those who don’t know: here (by law) banks cannot pay interest on any account. Under Shariah Islamic law, making money from money, such as charging interest, is usury and therefore not permitted. But obviously the bank still needs to make money out of your dosh so it offers “saving” accounts. It wouldn’t be right if they didn’t share the profit and also why would you give them the money to play with in the first place anyway? So they have created this interesting draw system where one lucky winner each month (and sometimes on a weekly basis) ends up with an incredible amount of money in their account. Not sure what the odds are but somehow I think better than the UK Lotto. Brilliant! ;)
If you want to know a bit more on this just Google “bank interest and sharia law”. There is a lot to learn!

Sense of humour and wasterwater project

Today, as I was reading yet another extremely funny post from one of my friends’ blog it dawned on me that maybe, despite me thinking the contrary; I don’t really posses a particularly good sense of humour. I mean, yeah I laugh at other people’s jokes, I attempt to crack jokes too and sometimes I do make people laugh too (especially if it is at the expense of someone else - c'mon I'm joking ;)  but what I realized is that I am not so good at making fun of myself and let alone laugh at the vicissitudes of life.
The revelation came at once today. After reading my friend’s blog and then thinking about another friend’s (AZ) blog (another equally funny appointment, if you are fluent in Italian that is) the flow of thoughts went this way:

-    How ridiculously funny!
-    As usual.
-    Where did Eternally Distracted (ED) get that photo?
-    That’s not one of our hospitals… but sure it would be possible to find some equally odd departments.
-    Next time I happen to be at a hospital... I’ll pay more attention
-    So funny… how is it that all these funny things always seem to happen to ED and to AZ on a regular basis?
-    Hmmm actually…thinking about it...

That’s when it cracked. These things DO happen all the time, to me too… Yep!
The difference is that usually… as soon as I have to repeat myself a couple of times or I detect a wrong facial expression that betrays complete incompetence... my jaw drops, my face turns red and my ears start steaming. It’s just a chemical reaction that I am learning to live with but that’s it. The comical moment is instantly lost because of my homicidal instinct. By the time I'm over it, it's all too late to see the funny side because I'll have skillfully removed it from my mind while dealing with some other equally frustrating incident of the day.

Hold on someone’s ringing the bell. I’ll be back in a moment.

…. …. …. …. zzz..zzz…zzz

I peek from the bedroom window coze I can’t be bothered to go downstairs to the door or to the intercom. There are 3 labourers at the gate. So I shout from up here.

-    Me: . Yes?
-    Ma’m have you lead infolmation liflet?
-    Me: Uh?
-    This! Infolmation liflet (shaking a green piece of paper taken from the small front gate, the one that I hardly use)

-    Me: One moment I’ll come down.
-    Ma’m we staltin woks for waste watel. See (again shaking the leaflet in question).
-    We connect septic tank to main sewage system. See liflet explain. We need access to plopelty. Stalt date 18th but we stalt today.
-    Me: (trying to work out what day it is today). Hmmm, OK. What do you exactly need to do inside my property? (it’s not truly my property but it is the place where I live so it’s somewhat mine).
-    We going open glound, make small tlench, 1 metel, then put pipe in, then close tlench and put tiles back. Vely good. Connection to main sewage. Mole hygienic.
-    Me: imagining already the floor with missing tiles, a garden full of mess, stench and who knows what other surprise. I guess I have to co-operate… hhmm.

After a lengthy discussion on why I am not going to leave the electric gate permanently open for over a week We agree that they can start today and they can use the small gate.

And so they start: another guy turns up 5 minutes later with a bag of chalk, spreads it around along where I guess the “trench” is supposed to be dug and leaves…

End of the working day…

Yes. I am not immune to the oddities and comical events of a life lived in this corner of the world.

36 hours in Dooobai!

(for those who have read the Italian version... this is a slightly different post... to expand on the experience ;)

I jump off the car and hand the keys over; it’s valet parking here. I still need to get used to these ways. These boys have parked all sorts of cars, no matter how expensive. You can see them: Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin and the entire sort lined outside in the VIP area; our beloved Land Cruiser Prado is really just another car. I shrug off the hesitation and walk away with my parking receipt. We are off to Pierchic, one of the fancy restaurants in Dubai, where we have come to spend the weekend.

It’s going to be another of those plush meals we treat ourselves to every time we come to the Vegas of the Middle East.

We enter the hotel, glitz and blitz blinds us a bit in the big atrium still covered with Xmas decorations (don’t they know that it’s all over?) we follow the instructions, we walk through the corridor on the left, then the lift, then another corridor, then outside into a cart. Yes a cart is waiting for us outside so that they can whisk us to the restaurant through the huge grounds of the hotel.
It’s amazing. We go through lit up palm tree gardens, villas and bridges and over canals (everywhere everybody mimics our Venice..). Then we reach the beach side (the driver informs us that the beach of this hotel is 1.2 km long… I see). We turn left at the biggest pool in the Middle East (of course biggest and tallest are all to be found here!) and onto the boards of the pier; the cart driver leaves us half way through and we walk the rest. Our restaurant is at the end of the pier, the tables softly lit and blue lights illuminating the sea underneath, a funky bar changes colour every few seconds; there is a nice candle lit atmosphere and that level of detail that designates luxury.

Al fresco dining, which in the evenings at this time of the year is more "fresco" than I actually like. Good luck they have the good sense of spreading a few gas heaters around and yes  sorry, we are contributing to the global warming that is bringing such colder and colder winters up there in the UK).  But hey, it's just perfect!

Places like these inebriate you to the point that you temporarily forget what you are paying for the privilege of taking advantage of them.

It may not come as a surprise Pierchic is a fish restaurant and when the food comes is enhances all the senses. Time Out was right again. We loved it, so we may go back; as when we visit Dubai we never leave without having had at least one extravagant meal.

So you gather we’ve just come back from a weekend in Dubai. That’s what we Muscat dwellers do every now and then for a change. This time we did a bit of the tourist thing as opposed to just concentrating on the shopping.

We HAD to visit the recently opened Burj Dubai (or Burj Khalifa as it’s been recently renamed); the tallest skyscraper in the world. Apart from the annoying and understandable queues (it only opened 5 days ago) it was amazing. From the top you can see the unfinished World project with sand dotted around the turquoise sea (maybe that wasn’t in the plan..) and you can even make out The Palm in the distance.

At night the building stands tall like a huge Christmas tree while an incredible display of lights and flashes goes off illuminating the contours of the structure (exactly like a giant Christmas tree). Of course S. couldn’t spare a thought on whether the building is actually safe; a thought that cannot fail to insinuate one's mind once you’ve learned a thing or two by living in this corner of the world.

The Burj Dubai is next to one of Dubai’s biggest mall (maybe the biggest?), The Dubai Mall. A mall of epic proportions with a staggering +1200 shops that has earned me a painful backache trotting around who knows how many miles for hours! Ah the pains of shopping! ;)

Inside you can find an Olympic Size Ice Rink, the Dubai Aquarium and Underwater zoo (?!) which can also be “visited” in full scuba diving gear and cinemas while an outdoor promenade provides additional cafés and restaurants to the ones inside, some watery features with an amazing fountain that goes off like a cannon!

As you can imagine with all that Dubai has to offer we were not bored for one second, we took lots of pictures, slimmed our bank accounts and pleased a few senses. At the end of the weekend, on our 4-hours drive back home we were very happy and yet refreshed to know that we were coming back to the sanctuary of our home in beautiful Muscat.

New Year Resolutions? What for?

So another year has rolled out and another has begun. Again. I still have to understand what the fuss is all about. I used to get so excited about this special day when I was younger, so full of expectations; now it is almost like a second birthday… it reminds me that another year has gone, rather than another one is coming. This is the time of the year when most people go through the bother of making a load of resolutions. Stop drinking, stop smoking, detox, lose weight, sign up to the gym. Imagine the gym almost empty around the end of December and then a week later the same room is suddenly full of all new wannabe fit hopefuls trying to work out that last slice of Christmas pudding they feel so guilty about. Of course the majority will have miserably dropped out by mid February.

I am lucky I don’t have that problem of having to compulsively burn calories at least (my body seems to do a good job on its own anyway)  but I wonder if, despite all the resistance, in the end I’ve fallen for this craziness too.

Today inspired by chance and taken by a moment of revelation, I went running (and now I’m aching too). It sounds like a New Year resolution but I can assure you that:

1. Getting back into training has been in my mind for the last few months. I have just been extremely lazy
2. I really don’t like running but some friends do this regularly and I happened to meet two of them this morning who told me they were going tonight so I thought that this was my chance to dust the sofa off my bum once and for all.

So here we go, going running is definitely not my resolution for the New Year although I am determined to improve my stamina, beat the laziness, take on a few challenges and learn something new.

Oh cool I have plenty of time… another 12 months! Now where is my pillow?