Entertaining

So much to say about the past two weeks!  Nephew Tony arrived and immediately got acclimated to Middle East life with his Aunt Nicole and Uncle Bill.  He joined me in my English 204 class on a day when students were workshopping essay drafts, observed the proceedings, and even chatted up a few students afterward.  We swam on campus and worked out (good way to recover from that long flight), and, not wanting to waste any time, went on desert safari his first day here.

The safaris are great fun, if somewhat corny.  You go out "dune bashing" in the middle of the desert.  That means, riding around in Land Rovers at ridiculous speeds and coming perilously close to flipping.  This is one of Nicole's favorite things to do in the Mideast, which is funny given how safety conscious she always is.  After dune bashing, the jeeps drop you off at a camp where you can enjoy bbq, camel rides, and sand skiing.  We did all of the above, aside from Nicole taking a pass on the camel.  Great pictures, but the sand killed our camera.  Rest in peace.  Did I mention how sandy the desert is in Dubai?  When the wind kicks up, you can barely see in front of you.  It's hell on camera lenses.

We kicked around Sharjah City the next day, taking in the Sheikh's special Egypt exhibit at the Art Museum in town and attending Heritage Days, a neat bedouin/emirati festival in the old section of the city.  Highlight (you know it's going to be food, right?) had to be the flat saj on which an emirati woman was making a very flat bread, almost like crepe.  She spread the batter on the hot surface for a minute, then cracked an egg on top and spread/scrambled the egg over the batter, then dropped a few dollops of yogurt and spread that over the now mostly scrambled egg.  Fold it up, and there you go.  Really delicious.

And then, my brother Steve arrived.  Since we had to go to Dubai to meet up with Steve, Tony and I left early and went to the Jumeirah Mosque, the only Mosque in town that welcomes non-Muslims.  They do an educational program there each morning (except for Fridays, the most important day of prayer) that's super informative.  Kind of an Islam 101, sponsored by the ruling families who want the many non-Muslims in the Emirates to have at least a sense of the faith.  With a little more knowledge than we had before, we headed to the airport and met up with Steve, who arrived safe, sound, and wanting Starbucks.


Coming up next: And then there were four (Nicole, Steve, Tony, yours truly)...