Yabo Sabona

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There was a time there in the Dubai airport that I really didn't think I was ever going to finish that trip.  Up at 2:30 in the morning in Perth on 2 hours sleep, arrived in Dubai after 11 hours on the plane, had a 15-hour marathon trip around the city, then another 8 and a half hours to "Jozi."  I hope to read that itinerary in like 50 years when my back hurts in the mornings and I can't get up a flight of stairs without two Bayer and think to myself, "I was out of my mind to do that."  Actually, I'm thinking it already.

So yeah, Dubai was a lot of fun, after customs that is.  The prevailing rumor is that the UAE won't accept anyone with an Israeli stamp in their passport (without a major corporation backing them), and as the proud owner of two Israeli stamps and zero major corporate assistance, I thought I was in for a struggle.  On the plane, I took a Post-It note off one of my travel brochures and rubbed the sticky side against the edge of the "non-kosher" passport page so that it stuck to the next one.  The woman at customs flipped through and missed it, so I was good to go.  Chag sameach, United Arab Emirates.

I got out of the airport and almost fell over from the humidity.  Seriously.  It was like trying to breathe underwater.  It's what people from Florida would call "a little muggy."  But I got a taxi and asked to be taken to the city center, thinking that whatever needed to be seen in 15 hours in Dubai could be seen from there.  What I got was a fifteen-minute cab ride through heavy traffic to a shopping mall, which I later discovered was called "City Center Shopping Plaza" but which was in fact nowhere near the center of the city.  As amused as I normally am by irony like this, I was working on two hours of sleep and schlepping my carry-on around on my schvitzy back and just not in the mood.  Another taxi and another 20 dirhams later (like six bucks) and I was at the Mall of the Emirates, home of Ski Dubai, the Middle East's only indoor ski field (I don't actually know if that's true, but it probably is.).  So after the oppressive Dubai heat, I found myself on a huge, domed mountain, freezing my ass off on a ski lift.  The run itself only took about 38 seconds from top to bottom, but if you do it a few hundred times, it's a pretty good few hours of skiing.

I defrosted in about two seconds and went to wander the world-renowned shopping that Dubai has to offer.  Every second or third store sold digital cameras, laptops, iPods, and electronics that I couldn't even identify, so I shopped around and walked around the Mall of the Emirates, trying to combat my fatigue.  I eventually found my way into TGI Fridays at like 5:45, only to be told that they wouldn't be serving food until 6:06.  And so, having not eaten since I got off the plane that morning, I involuntarily observed my first day of Ramadan fasting.  Mazel tov to me.  The muezzin came on over the loudspeaker, did his thing for fifteen minutes, and then the doors to TGI Fridays parted like Moses and the Red Sea.  Imagine being in the Westchester Mall, hearing a priest or a rabbi on the intercom PA system, and then the food court suddenly buzzing to life. That's about how weird it was.  Coupled with the fact that I was approaching 48 hours with 2 hours sleep, I was having a hard time separating all the different bizarre events that were taking place around me.

With that in mind, I went and bought a ticket to the movie theater inside the mall.  I think I went to "You, Me, and Dupree," but I can't really say.  All I know is that I put my head against my hand and woke up when it was over.  If anyone wants to e-mail me and tell me what I missed so I don't have to shell out another 20 dirhams, that'd be awesome.  Thanks.

So I smacked myself in the face a few times, jumped in a cab, and went to the Burj al Arab, the world's only seven-star hotel.  Got about as far as the front gate, took some pictures, made the appropriate gestures of "Ooohhh...", "Wow," "So it's really that tall?", and got out of there.  The cabbie took me to a bridge to show me all the construction going on around Dubai (met with, "Jeez...", "Gosh," and "And all of this is new?  Amazing..."), then finally back to the airport.  If ever you want to do Dubai in 15 hours, that's the way to do it.  Sweat, ski, sauteed-onion-and -barbecue-sauce burger, seventy-dirham cab ride around the city, and then salaam aleikem UAE. 

Eight hours later, I was in Johannesburg ("Joburg" to the uninitiated, "Jozi" to the locals) and in a pleasant little suburb called Glenhazel.  I've been hanging out the last day or so, shaking off the jet lag and going around with the Hurwitzes (the family I'm staying with).  The society here is just bizarre: they have a full-time maid and gardener, a compound with four houses in it surrounded by electrified fence, a guard down the street, and a variety of panic buttons, locks, activators, de-activators, loud alarms, silent alarms, passwords, secret passwords, double-secret passwords, and fake passwords.  The mother in each house I've been to has proudly shown me their servants quarters and pointed out the accessories and conveniences that they've "given" their live-in maids.  One even said to me, "See?  We treat them like they're normal people." 

But other than that, "Jozi" has been really, really interesting.  Blacks carry your bags to your car, blacks answer phones in offices manned by whites.  They wash cars, peddle on the streets, and work as security guards.  If anyone's ever read The Time Machine by Wells, you have a pretty good idea of what it's like.  I got a cell phone number, so you're all welcome to give me a call and say "Sabona" (hello in Zulu).  It's 072 041 5907.  Go nuts.