Ramadan in the City

Well, another Ramadan has come and (thankfully) almost gone. I'm always indecisive as an expat in Dubai this time of year, torn between loving the celebratory spirit around the city, and hating the fact that leisure opportunities are practically nonexistent before 7:15 every night. No eating or drinking allowed outside, which means all restaurants are closed, bars are most certainly closed, and with temperatures soaring above 100 degrees with 60 or 70% humidity, weekends are a social dead zone until sunset.

Just to set the stage, here's our shopping cart at the liquor store right before Ramadan started:

It's solely thanks to the contents of this shopping cart that we've maintained our sanity for the past three weeks (for the record, we were shopping for friends, so not all of this is ours. Just so you know.)

Undoubtebly, the best thing about this time of year is watching Muslim friends and colleagues during their most holy month, through the discipline of fasting to striving to be better people every day. I love learning more and more about a religion that seemed so scary when we first arrived, and remains maligned, ever deepened by increasingly scary political unrest around the Middle East.

This year we had an incredible Iftar (the meal where the fast is broken) at a nonprofit in historic Dubai dedicated to teaching Emirati culture and Islam. We broke fast side by side with strangers from around the world and Emirati volunteers. We went to a mosque where we were allowed to stay during the evening call to prayer, a rare opportunity for non-Muslims. The evening ended with an open forum for asking questions. Questions were asked about women's rights, national dress, crazy driving habits and everything in between. An amazingly enlightening experience, even after living here for almost two years.

We don't know if we'll be in Dubai for another Ramadan, so for now, I remain thankful that we've been given the chance to experience it, and have our hearts and minds forever changed in the process.

Back From a Four-Month Hiatus

I'm just lazy. No excuses here.

Anyway, a big change since my last post four months ago (again, sorry I'm so negligent) is that the weather is back into the triple digits. To think that I was complaining about temps in the 90s!

I went to the beach today, knowing that it could be the last chance I had to spend an extended period of time outside for the next five months. The thought of being inside for the next half year kept me sitting on that beach against my better judgment and comfort, despite the scorching heat and humidity. The ocean-which once again feels like a bathtub-provides little respite, and I stayed until it was just too miserable to stay any longer. Obviously, I now look like a lobster.

But the biggest change since my last post is our move! For the past month, we've been living in a fabulous neighborhood called the Marina, full of creature comforts like Starbucks and bars and less full of things like mutton and the smell of garam masala wafting through the corridors. This is our new hood. Our building is one of those tall ones, but I'm not tech savvy enough to figure out how to draw an arrow pointing to it.

It's close to the beach and has great walking paths all around. Rob can walk to work and I hit zero traffic on my way to work (a welcome change from my traffic-driven hour commute from our old place.) We have a huge balcony that after my initial terror of being on the 29th floor, we're out on most of the time. The construction sound around us, which some might find annoying as we did in the beginning, is now hardly noticeable (since Dubai won bid for the 2020 Expo, construction has been even crazier than it already was.)

And we're a short walk away from the city's main concert venue. Last weekend I proudly knocked another thing off my bucket list. Yep, you guessed it: a Lionel Richie concert. It was awesome and no blog post could ever do it justice.

We still like living in this weird little corner of the world. We learn new things from new people from new places every single day and stay as open and accepting as we can in the process!