The Post-Dubai Chronicles

We have been living in Dubai for about four days now and have already experienced many exciting new firsts. For example, yesterday was the first time I have ever showered with a gecko. The whole time we were in there together, those Geico commercials (you know, the ones where the gecko gets out of the shower to answer the phone) kept running through my head. I guess the marketers at Geico really did do their research.

We live in a neighborhood of villas with a community pool and our very own community mosque. So Christian has had new experiences listening to prayer call every four hours every day of the week. At first he didn't really know how to respond to the call, which basically consists of a man singing (on the Sabbath he gets really overcome with religious zeal and participates in a duet), but on the second day when the man concluded Christian applauded him and shouted "yay!" like he was at a concert or something. Truly hilarious. So Rich sat him down and explained to him that the man was telling all the Muslims it was time to pray. The next time Christian heard the prayer call, he immediately folded his arms and started his own prayer: "Heavenly Father, have a good day." This is how he starts all his prayers now -- we think he means, "thank you for this day" or "bless us to have a good day," or he may really be concerned about the way God's day will be shaping up.

Henry has had lots of new opportunities to crawl around a marble floor, thus keeping himself cool while simultaneously becoming filthy dirty. He has also had the chance to try some very interesting baby food like mandarin, pear, pineapple fruit mix, and some yogurt banana frappe stuff.

While we're on the subject of groceries, the shopping is great here because you can get almost all of the American stuff you want and tons of European stuff as well. Truly the best of both worlds. Groceries are about the same price as they were in DC, except for the occasional random item that is inexplicably expensive like cleaning sponges and aluminum foil. Talk about new experiences, I don't think I've ever paid $5.00 for a SMALL roll of aluminum foil before.

Rich is also having new experiences here as well. His first day on the visa line his diabetic applicant passed out while standing in front of the window having his interview. As he was lying on the floor near death, his wife kept asking, "Do we get ten years? Do we get the ten year visa?!" A woman whose priorities are obviously in order. Hopefully this experience also conveys to you how desperate people are to get visas to the United States. So the Consulate called an ambulance and I guess everything turned out okay. Not many people get to see that everyday at work. No wonder he loves his job.

Yesterday we got a chance to drive around the city which is beautiful and clean and new and bustling and diverse. Everything is extravagant and opulent, but in a classy, non Las Vegas-esq kind of way. That said, however, we also passed a small amusement park which was deserted except for this one big, fast spinning wheel ride filled only with women dressed in full burkas. I'm confident that those black-clad women doing revolutions in a cheezy amusement park will always be one of the most hilarious and paradoxical things I will ever see. Try to picture it in your mind, and you will see what I mean.

We also drove out into the desert in search of the camel race stadium (we'll tell you how that is when they run in the fall), and on the way we decided to check out the largest public park in Dubai. Now remember that at this point, we are driving through the most God-forsaken, inhospitable landscape I have ever seen. Any minute I expected our car to break down and vultures to have our bones picked clean in less than an hour and a half. So we drove into this park and there were no trees, no water, no life. We finally stumbled across a couple of barbeque pits, which I assumed were for the vultures' use, and in the end decided it was more of a BYOPT kind of park: "bring your own picnic tables." I must admit there was a basketball court there as well, but I can't think of many things worse than trying to do a lay-up in 130 degree heat. There were also two swimming pools there, one for males and one for females.

Well, that's about it for this week. We will try to mass email at least once a week, whether you like it or not, but we would be more than happy to respond to any personal responses we get to this email. Thanks for trying to keep in touch in advance to all of you except those of you who have no intention of keeping in touch.

P.S. In order to keep our ability to quote lines from American movies razor sharp (and therefore be able to communicate with Amy's family on our return), we have decided to include a favorite movie quote with each email.
"Sixty percent of the time, it works every time." Brian Fantana on the efficacy of his new cologne. Ron Burgundy: News Anchor

Posted by Amy & Rich Bangerter at 8:25 PM | Permalink

July 27th marks our two-week anniversary here in Dubai. Rich had a chance to practice his belly dancing skills on a boat tour we took last weekend. Of all the unlucky schmucks the belly dancer forced to come up and dance with her, Rich was by far the best (and best looking, I might add). We got a couple of great shots of it as well, so the whole family can enjoy the action. At least we know there is a career after the foreign service.

Christian has been having fun visiting various indoor playgrounds. It is so hot outside that a small child in our neighborhood ran outside on a metal grate without shoes on and suffered 2nd degree burns on the bottoms of her feet. So, Dubai has lots of indoor places where kids can play. We went to one last week in a little grocery store with little carts the kids could push around and a little cash register for checking out. Christian loved it. He stood there ringing up the food for almost half an hour, saying “beep” whenever he rolled the food across the scanner. He also slid down this really steep, scary slide into a huge ball pit. He did it once, and then he insisted that I slide down with him. Fair enough; that kid’s no dummy. Then we went down together, but I doubt if he will ever go again. The staff was impressed he even went once.

Henry is having a good time here as well, as far as we can tell. I guess if he isn’t crying a lot, that means he’s having a good time. He is crawling all over the place, and whenever he sees something he wants, he races at breakneck speed to grab it before Christian can yell, “No, Henny; you can’t have that.” If Christian had his way, Henry would only be allowed to play with dust bunnies and old, stale Cheerios. We’re still working on the whole concept of sharing (not bad, however, considering most of us could count on two hands the number of adults we know that have this concept down), but to his credit, Christian makes Henry laugh a lot, and Henry just adores Christian.

I have been staying busy trying to get our house in order. It’s really hard here when accounts for things like telephone service, internet service, and cable service cannot be joint accounts, but can only be issued to the ‘man of the house,’ if you will. The nice thing is that most of these service places have split days; they work from 8 am until noon or one, close up shop for a few hours and then reopen for a few hours in the late afternoon/early evening. Restaurants don’t even start serving dinner until around 7 pm. No wonder you don’t ever see any older Emiratis; most of them probably perish by 4:30. We’re still in the market for a second car, and as soon as I get that, it’s off to the MALLS to spend whatever money Rich can weasel out of the federal payroll office. I’ll have to try really hard not to spend it all in one place. . . .

We’ll email again next week and try to send some pics of this lovely place and the grand ol’ time we’re having when Rich isn’t at work from sun-up to sun-down. We love and miss you all.

“Vahm milk, peh-haps?
“No, thank you. I’m quite TIRED!
“. . . Ovaltine?”

Posted by Amy & Rich Bangerter at 8:30 PM | Permalink