State of the Alex

I've been pretty busy recently, with the holidays and moving to
Portland and all, so I haven't had time to do much writing on here.
Just wanted to tap the mic a few times and let everyone know I'm still
here.

Since I'm done travelling (for now), I'll be using this space for
posting random updates to my personal life and my thoughts about
high-profile celebrity breakups.

Temp Agency

kelly services

Comin' on Home

The Dubai airport is half shopping mall, half hotel, and half airport.

Thanks to the miracle of aviation, I'll be getting in to Seattle in
about 26 hours. That includes a seven hour layover in London (anyone
interested in a morning pint?). I've never been one to sleep on
planes, but this will have to be an exception. At least it's not
Hungarian.

I'm not sure how I feel about my trip coming to an end. On one hand,
I won't have the same feeling of personal freedom and self-reliance,
or the excitement of seeing new places and cultures on a daily basis.
On the other hand, I can buy Reces' Peanut Butter Cups whenever I want.

So it's absolutely time to come home for a while.

Once I get home, I'll make some longer posts and draw some conclusions
and post pictures and all that. After I sleep for two days straight,
of course. I have tons to write about Dubai (about my final day in
particular), so stay tuned.

National Day

I took the bus to Abu Dhabi today (only 15 dirhams for a slightly
unconfortable 2-hour drive). My plan was to get in at noon and spend
some time at the beach-- after Dubai traffic/bus overhead, I didn't
end up leaving until noon.

But it all worker out fine. I got in with enough time to walk around
the city and eat some delicious curry. For low-end restaurants, Abu
Dhabi is about half the price of Dubai. An entree, naan, and a lassi
came to around five dollars.

It's National Day in the UAE, which is a sort of fourth-of-july-on-
crack style celebration in all seven emirates. Everyone has the day
off (the weekend here is typically Friday-Saturday), and there are
various state sponsored festivites and marriment across the land.

It's a lot like the fourth actually, with the same kind of crazy flag-
waving and music-blasting that is probably confusing to foreigners.
Except instead of sharing the American obsession with fireworks, the
Emiratis decorate their cars in UAE colors and cruise back and forth
revving their engines and honking their horns. There's so much
revving at times that people's cars either backfire or erupt in a
cloud of black smoke. I saw a guy in an old Golf throw a rod while
barely moving. His hood was exploded out as if an angry bear were
trying to escape from the inside of his engine compartment.

So aside from that puzzling display of national pride, I'm a big fan.
More reasonable people take the day just to sit around, barbeque, and
smoke shisha in the park.

Whoa, I just saw someone wearing a burqa made out of a UAE flag.
That's a first (for me, anyway).

Also, it's pretty cool when two (or more) cars join forces and play a
song with their differently tuned horns. I've been hearing it off and
on all day, and I think I may have managed to grab a recording of it.

It's about 7:30 now, and I'm drinking coffee in the Marina Mall. I
walked all the way from the Al Wadi mall, mostly because the girl at
the Indian restaurant said it couldn't be done. Now I have to figure
out whether I'm going to try to stay in the Abu Dhabi hostel or take a
late bus back to Dubai.

Internet blogosphere update

Hello!

I'm writing this from the Rugby Sevens, a rugby tournament that Dubai
hosts every year. It's seven-man rugby, so it's not quite as
prestigious as the more traditional 15-man version (think Arena
Football versus NFL). It still draws a huge crowd, though-- mostly
expatriates who come to cheer for their home team. Scotland is very
well represented.

I've left the Hillards' house after my extended stay (thank you both
so much!). Now I'm staying with Jan in his apartment near Festival
City. So far, there haven't been any festivals. Unless you call
another massive, brand-new shopping center a "festival", in which case
there's one. I spent the day there yesterday.

I finally got my hands on a real Dubai bus map-- evidently a rarity
since I had to ask about five different offices before I found one.
It's two montha out of date, but it seems accurate enough. Either
way, it should ease my problems with limited mobility like an electric
scooter.

I've spent the majority of my free time just walking around the older
parts of the city. I've been amazed by how segregated it is.
Obviously, it's along economic lines, but since there are no
westerners in the lower classes, I can walk around some of these
neighboorhoods and not see another white guy. And now that I'm at this
rugby game, I can _only_ see white guys.

Since I've been here, I've seen exactly one white person on the bus
besides me, and I think he may have been an official for RTA.

Underlying it all, though, is that with a few exceptions everyone is
making more money than they're used to making. There's very little
structural violence (anthro alert) because the structure is relatively
generous versus the global market.

Anyway, I figure I have 5 more nights in Dubai before I leave for
Seattle. Any suggestions of what to do?

Gold Souk

I adventured down to the Gold Souk area today.  It's the older part of town where every other store is selling gold and silver jewelry.   It's neat to see some real stores, though, especially ones that could have been there for more than 5 years.

Right now I'm at an Internet Cafe that's a subsidiary of the restaurant I ate at called GOLDEN BURGER.  It's not the best quality, but for 80 cents an hour, who can complain?  On that note, the space bar is not workingverywellso I'mgoingtohave to finish thisuplater.

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.

Update

I haven't written much recently due to a combination of no Internet/computer/battery life/time, but I promise to catch up on my missed entries.

Right now I'm sitting in one of the restaurants overlooking Ski Dubai. There are people sliding down the hill on long, flat appendages attached to their feet. There are actually quite a few good skiers out there, considering it's in the desert.

Ski Dubai is just part of the massive shopping mall that is Mall of the Emirates. It's about four times the size of Bellevue Square by the looks of things.

Getting here via public transportation is interesting. A bus drops you on the opposite side of a 6-lane freeway, which doesn't have an overpass for miles. So, apparently you have to either jaywalk or take a taxi to the other side. I don't really recommend jaywalking across 6 lanes of Dubai traffic, but it can be done.

I've never seen a city that's less friendly to pedestrians than Dubai.

Istanbul: The Funicular

I came across a type of transportation I'd never seen before in Istanbul called a funicular.  The concept is simple:  It's basically an elevator with a counterweight, except that instead of an elevator with a counterweight it's two equally sized cars on rails going up/down a steep hill.  The cars are connected by a single cable, and at the top of the hill there's a very large wheel that hoists them back and forth.  It's not used in many places, since you can only have two cars (one up, one down) and that usually only means two stops.  Moreover, it's only efficient on very steep hills, so they don't show up in many large cities.

That being said, the funicular in Istanbul was by far the best part of their public transit system.  It cost about $1.30 to ride it one stop, and it was worth every penny.

Comic Signs

You know that whimsical, curvy, sans-serif font that's just perfect for captioning photos of your cats? The one that distinguishes between team-building exercises and items of import? I'm sure you've seen it-- The font called Comic Sans. Like influenza, Comic Sans is ubiquitously common and despised. Some have even gone as far as to call for its complete banishment from planet Earth.

Fortunately, in North America, Comic Sans' popularity has faded along with Windows 95. Of course, the high standard of living that we enjoy in the US and Canada does not exist everywhere on earth. For example, I'd estimate that Dubai is about 10 years behind in Roman font technology.

On that note, please enjoy these shining examples of Comic Sans usage and hilarious English:

Istanbul: Scams

It's no secret that Istanbul is full of scam artists, especially in
the old town/museum districts. It's a city of 16 million people with
huge wage discrepancies and an endless supply of naive tourists-- and
while the police do their best to keep things orderly, there just
aren't enough of them to babysit every visitor. So while I loved
seeing Istanbul, it's not a good place to just sit around and relax.
It's very difficult to blend in with the locals, so you're constantly
a walking target.

Mostly, Turkish vendors will be unusually forceful in trying to sell
you their goods. They realize that tourists are easily intimidated
into spending money, and are polite enough to easily keep on the line.
If you seem particularly naive, you'll be hassled even more. The
best way to avoid this is as follows:

-If you want to just look at something, don't stop. If you stop, the
storekeeper will come out and hassle you.
-Don't point at anything. If you point, the storekeeper will come out
and hassle you.
-If someone shouts at you, don't acknowledge them.
-If someone asks you a question, don't answer them.
-If someone grabs your arm, shake them off and keep walking.
-If something doesn't add up, just keep walking.
-Don't be afraid of hurting anyone's feelings.

I was physically pulled into booths several times before I realized
how obvious of a target I was, with my backpack, sunglasses, stopping
and looking at everything. Once I wizened up a little bit, going to
the markets was much more pleasant.

But the vendors are only part of the problem. The most famous and
well-orchestrated scams have to do with price disputes. For example,
a girl (or sometimes a couple) will take up a conversation with you,
pretending to be tourists. They'll go to great lengths to show you
that they're "authentic", including taking you out to dinner or buying
you a drink somewhere. At some point, they'll suggest that you go to
this cool local club they found, which will be a ways out of the main
drag (away from the police), and unusually empty inside. You'll buy
one or two drinks, and the bill will come back with something like a
two thousand dollar sum. When you complain, they'll force you to the
nearest ATM to withdraw as much money as you can so you can pay their
bill.

Why not just straight up kidnap you? Because this way, it can go down
on paper as being a pricing dispute, which I guess is a lot easier to
defend than a kidnapping.

Some people from my hostel were involved in a similar scam, but they
were able to recognize what was going on before it was too late, so
they escaped on foot back to a more crowded area.

I was fortunate enough not to end up in the middle of any scams. The
nearest I came was when a food vendor offered to give me my sandwich
for free if I came back and bought another one tomorrow. It seems
reasonable enough, since the sandwich was only like 50 cents anyway--
but when it's the only place open in a 100 yard radius, you have to
wonder. I didn't accept (I was leaving the next day anyway), but what
I assume would have happened would be that I'd take the free sandwich,
and as soon as I walked around the corner a "police officer" would
have demanded that I pay a fine of some arbitrary amount because I
stole from the restaurant.

It's really not as bad as I'm making it out to be. The vast majority
of tourists don't end up getting scammed. Nevertheless, you will
enjoy Istanbul a lot more if you can avoid these situations.

Bucharest

I just noticed that I never wrote about Bucharest.

Bucharest is a big, gross, soviet-looking city with a lot of stray dogs. There's something charming about it, though. Maybe it's the fact that they don't seem to have any regulations for anything. Or that they sell 2.5 liter bottles of beer at the grocery store for $1.50.

All the Romanians I met were really funny and sarcastic. You'd expect a city made of grey and brown to be full of sad, quiet people, but that's not the case at all.

The hostel I was at was full of Americans. The two brothers from Utah I met on the train decided to stay there for a night as well. They actually are brothers-- 25 and 28-- who decided to travel together for two weeks because they have a friend that works for Delta. There were also a group of about 8 guys from Missouri that included a Mississipi transplant who had his house destroyed during Katrina, and one of Billy Idol's road managers.

I didn't end up seeing much of the city, because the one sunny day I ended up getting horribly lost and climbing on a random tram line (the 44) that took me into who-knows-where before I gave up and took it all the way back to the city center.

Istanbul

One interesting thing about the night train to Istanbul is that it gets to Turkish customs at about 4:00am. Even if you're capable of getting a good night's sleep, it's impossible-- by law. You have to get off the train, wait outside in the cold, spend 15 euro for a tourist visa, then wait in line before they stamp your visa.

On the plus side, I have some really cool stamps now.

I got into the main station at around 10:00, parted ways with my travel partners, and struck out to find the hostel. Sultanahmet, the old part of town, is relatively small, so the hostel would be been about 20 minutes by foot. I got a little bit sidetracked, though. I ended up going through the Grand Bazaar, seeing some cool mosques, and going through some weird old neighborhoods.

I think Istanbul has an unfairly bad reputation for being dirty. From what I've seen so far, the city's totally immaculate.

Night train part 5

I've experienced a strong regression towards the mean with the last two night trains. After tonight, my overall experience might actually be _above_ average.

Since I was late to the station, I didn't have enough time to stop at the grocery store (travel essentials #4: always carry food and water with you) and ended up getting on the train with nothing to eat. There's no restaurant on the train itself-- it's just a bunch of sleeper cars and an engine-- so buying food on the train isn't an option. Combined with skipping breakfast, it could have very easily turned into an unintentional hunger strike.

Fortunately, my roommates on the train (two Romanian-speaking French girls, a Bulgarian woman, and an actual Romanian woman) had planned ahead much more effectively and ended up making me an awesome sandwich, giving me water, and translating all of the conductor's
announcements. All this happened as if it were totally normal. They were just happy they could help. Meanwhile, I was so astonished that a random group of strangers would go out of their way to help me (without even having to ask) that I was trying to think of ways to repay them. They didn't listen, though.

I've accepted a fair bit of charity in the last few weeks. It's never a good feeling to be in some stranger's debt, but it's very cool to know that even if you find yourself in a bad situation in another country, there are people that will help you unconditionally.

Anyhoo, the train I'm on reminds me of a large, wheeled tin can. From the top bunk, I can actually hear the rain against the roof. Also, I'm not completely sure about this, but I think the WC just empties directly onto the tracks below.

The good news is, there's only about a dozen people on the whole train. I have a room to myself that I've taken over. The door even locks from the inside. I'm leaving it unlocked though because I don't want a confrontation with the border patrol.

I'm starting to see things written in Cyrillic, which means I must be in Bulgaria. I'll write more later!

Blogger in Training

I'm writing this from my comfy, 5-foot-long couchette on the 371 Ister.  It's about 7:30 AM Romanian time.  I slept pretty well considering what I was up against--  Well enough anyway to reverse my position on night trains for the time being.

I shared a room with five Romanian teachers who were coming back from a  conference in Budapest.  So I can cross that off my list.  

Fortunately for me, one of them was an English teacher, who despite never living in the US or the UK spoke perfectly with a slight trace of a british accent.  I asked her about Romanian (it's a romance language, very closely related to Italian), and it turned out that her daughter had worked in Dubai for about three years, so we talked about that.  Anyway, it was really nice to finally get to talk to a local in depth about something.  She was probably a little too old for me (60?), but...

There are a couple of American bros (literally brothers) who have friends in the airlines so they're taking a two-week backpacking trip through Hungary and Romania.  They work in a resort town in Utah as airport shuttle drivers, I think.  They're a little older than me, but very similar in their motivations for getting travelling.

Their room only has one other person in it, but I actually got the better end of the deal because that one person happens to be a Romanian guy that can't stop talking about religion.  I actually had to bail out of that room after about thirty minutes, even though the brothers seemed cool.

Anyway, It's been a much better experience than my previous three train rides.  

The Romanian countryside is lurching past at 30 miles per hour or so.  We're starting to come out of the mountains now, so the snow is starting to give way to that wonderful eastern Europe brown.  It looks a little like Borat's village, but raining.

If you catch my [genetic] drift

One thing I noticed about Hungary: Cleft chins are very popular
here. Definitely in style.

With how many humans there are in the world these days, It's weird to
think of a time where little unadaptive traits like that could
randomly show up. Why wasn't it something else? Like cleft lips?

Budapest

Last day in Budapest!

I went to the train station today at around noon and bought a ticket
for Bucharest. It's another long train ride tonight, but at least
this time I'm confident I know what I'm doing. I'm looking forward to
getting into Bucharest. It's supposed to still have a lot of Soviet
influence. Also, I've got a nice hostel booked. And I'm just that
much closer to Dubai.

My Australian friends, Hugh and Lucy, left for Vienna, so I'll have to
find some other englIsh-speakers to harass. Maybe I'll find some on
the train! Who knows.

After they left, I went around the city and took pictures of
buildings. As far as buildings go, Budapest has some pretty amazing
ones. The parlament buildings make the ones in London look silly by
comparison.

Amerilounge (tm)

For some reason, everyone either went to sleep or left the hostel.
It's about 9:30 PM, and Monday Night Football is on television for
some reason. I'm watching the Seahawks steamroll the 49ers. It's
dubbed in Hungarian, but that doesn't matter-- the game speaks the
international language of "zero first downs in the first half".

Too bad the other Seattlites are out, they might like to see this.

Blogapest

I took a walk up "Castle Hill" today. It's either taller than it
looks, or I am not in very good shape. Getting to the top was worth
the effort, though-- There's lots of ridiculous statues wrestling
dragons and showing off their new crosses to the whole city. The very
tippy-top has a castle on it. Except, it's a fake castle that's never
had any royalty living in it. Presumably it was used for defensive
purposes but I think they might have just made that up so it wouldn't
seem so fake.

I think I managed to be outside in the only two cloudy hours of the
whole day. It also managed to snow on my a little bit.

As for now, I'm back in the hostel getting warm and contemplating a nap.

Tired in Hungary: Part 2: A Photojournal

Getting from the train station to the hostel was another unwelcome
adventure. This time, I think, it is probably best explained through
pictures:

It took me over three hours to find the entrance to the hostel even
though I'd found the cross streets in less than ten minutes. It
didn't help that the written directions ended at "Walk five minutes
towards the river," and didn't include a photo of the building, or
that the borderline microscopic sign they had posted was only visible
from three feet away. Once inside the main courtyard, there's another
small sign (not visible in the dark) that points you to the "second"
floor, which apparently means the "fourth" floor, up a dark staircase.

I'm not bitter, I swear.