Thanksgiving

That was a very nice Thanksgiving.  If not a little different than most years.

I woke up on the late side (as usual), and had breakfast outside with Mike and Elaine.  We talked about the Thanksgiving party they'd planned (catered and with hired help-- whew), how many guests were going to show (25), and how late people normally stay (late).  Now that I had finally rested up, I decided to take a little adventure down to the Mall of the Emirates before the party started.  From here I wrote a short blog post about indoor skiing.  No, I haven't been yet.

Getting back proved to be challenging.  The buses are not quite as reliable as they claim to be, and with the added bonus of bumper-to-bumper traffic and 45+ asian workers trying to get on the same bus at every stop, it makes it almost impossible to catch a bus during rush hour.  Like I'm sure most tourists do, I ended up buying my way out of it.  After waiting for about two hours, I got a taxi home (which was quite reasonable in US terms...6 dollars or so), which put me back at around 7:00pm.  A bit late to the party, but nobody seemed to mind.

The guests were an eclectic mix of Europeans, Americans, Canadians, Australians, and a few Middle Easterners.  It actually reminded me of being back in a hostel, except obviously that everyone spoke English and were all a bit older.  It was interesting to see the sorts of careers people had in Dubai-- Most of the people there were friends of the Hillards through Emirates, so there were a lot of engineers and pilots.  Some were entrepreneurs, some worked in H.R., one was a professional horse breeder.  It seemed like everyone had been there for at least three years.  One person had lived in Dubai for 14 years--  A "permanent expatriate".  Interestingly, it didn't seem like anyone really was ready to call it home.  Most of the people I talked to planned to stay for another year or two before moving somewhere else.  Even the people that had been in Dubai for a long time agreed.

Mike and Elaine put on a great party.  Like any proper Thanksgiving, there was too much food and drink per the number of guests.  We shared some good conversations and some good jokes (remind me to tell you the one about the rabbit on drugs), made a few new friends, and eventually got too tired to keep eating.  The last person left at about 1:30, which I consider a success.