See Me Squeegee

Typing as I gaze out on the Persian Gulf, thoughts from my first partial day in Dubai:

*First off, I’m here to teach a GMAT class for Veritas Prep.  If you had told me in 1991, while I was learning Algebra at East Middle School during the midst of the first Iraq war, that in 20 years I’d be flying over Baghdad to talk about Algebra on the shores of the gulf…well, I’d probably have called it Stranger Danger.  What a world.

*While eating shwarma and tabbouleh outside here an hour ago, I listened to a good amount of Jay-Z and Nelly from the speakers of the Escalades driving by.  So, um, it’s not really that much different from Dearborn.

*Phenomenal cabbie from the airport – dude from Egypt who talked about every landmark on the way to the hotel, only his English isn’t all that much better than my Arabic so all we really agreed on was “much, much beautiful” for everything we saw.  I also gathered that he’s a huge fan of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, is still gathering his opinions about Barack Obama, and can’t stand anyone named George Bush.  “Too much touch” is the reason.

*Line of the day by a jet-lagged me: the political discussions started when he showed off a poster of their president (or king, prime minister…I’ll research this) saying “Barack Obama”.  Now, it clearly wasn’t Obama but then I realized he was showing me that that’s their leader.  That was his other thing – he’d point to a tall building and say “Empire State Building”, then I’d look confused, and he’d say “it is like…”.  Interesting dude.  Anyway, after identifying their Obama he says his name, which is something Khalifa. And I say – wait for it – oh, we have a Wiz Khalifa.  Dead silence for 20 seconds.  Emirate cabbies are like American women when it comes to getting my humor.

*More universal than just Dubai, but what is it about expensive hotels and the way they nickel and dime you for things like internet, coffee, and newspapers.  Not a Travelodge in the world comes without a complimentary USA Today, WiFi password, and in-room coffee maker.  But you stay at a really nice joint and they’re telling you about how to charge that stuff to your room, and tempting you with multiple minibars.  I really don’t get it.  For $59 a night I live like a king, albeit surrounded by abject poverty and probably a few meth labs.  For whatever this place costs I can go into massive debt really quickly just trying to wake up in the morning.

*The phrase “Sir, may I interest you in some hookah” is misleading.

That may do it for tonight…I don’t really know what time or day it is here but I know that “tomorrow” I need to be on stage teaching at 9am so I’d better figure this out.  More adventures to come…