… or: "CASTLES IN THE SAND" The adventures of DaddyBird and Kanga as they move to the United Arab Emirates and venture to explore the Eastern hemisphere from there.
First, what is Twestival? This is an annual event where Twitter users all over the world get together and raise money for charity. The 2009 Twestival in Dubai was one of the first Twitter related social events we attended. This year, DaddyBird attended “stag,” so to speak. You will see him and hear him in the video below, along with several of our friends. (The video was artfully shot and edited by our friend, Faisal.)
First, I should explain the origin of the “shawarma loiter” concept. It came from a dinner conversation with friends about shawarma – the quality, availability, etc. One friend asked the other his opinion, to which he replied “I’ve never loitered at shawarma stands.” The word “loiter” hit the funny bone of the first friend, so it became the running joke of the evening and by the end the concept of a shawarma loiter had solidified.
So, June 16th we had our first real shawarma loiter (or stroll) which consisted of meeting at the mall across the street from our apartment and then DaddyBird led us on a tour of some of the shawarma stands in our neighborhood. We paced ourselves by just buying 1/2-1 shawarmas per person per stand.
Shawarmas consist of pita bread rolled around shaved meat that has been cooked on an upright spit. Exact contents vary from stand to stand. There is often a sauce added and some put in veggies. Shawarmas in restaurants often have soggy fries added, but this is not convenient at the stands, thankfully. Stand shawarmas range from 3.50 AED to 5.00 AED (that’s $0.95 to $1.36). The 3.50 ones usually have veggies in them and the 5.00 ones are usually a little larger.
The spit/roaster is usually an electric device producing radiant heat on one side while the spit is rotated slowly. One near our apartment has a bank of coals instead of electric heat.
DaddyBird also included a historical landmark in our tour, the Burj Nahar.
This is one of the watchtowers that used to be on the outskirts of town. It has been preserved and there is a little park area around it.
Next stop was a bread bakery on a back street.
These men are sitting on top of the oven. Two are rolling out the dough and the third is putting it into and taking it out of the oven.
We ended our shawarma stroll at Al Mallah restaurant on Al Muteena street. One of our favorites. We sat inside for the very first time due to the summer heat and the fact that we were pretty sweaty by this point. The air conditioning was quite nice. Shawarma loitering should be a winter activity.
I’ve been quoted in the article at the link above talking about Twitter. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. We are having an atypical experience because we are able to socially connect with wonderful people that we would not have crossed paths with otherwise. We know more Emiratis than Americans (in Dubai). We know WAY more Indians, Pakistanis and Syrians, than Americans. And, we mustn’t overlook our dear Maltese. (If I’ve left out your nationality, please don’t take it personally. We love you all.)
Saturday we met with our Twitter friends at one of our favorite restaurants – Al Baghdadi on Al Muteena Street. The very first time Daddybird and I ate at this restaurant, my purse was stolen. You can read the detailed account of that experience here.
Anyway, back to the Tweetup. There were 26 people, according to my count, not all pictured here. They are a marvelous group of people from a wide range of countries, ages, professions, etc. Rami showed up late, but that’s the beauty of a tweetup. People come and go as they please or their schedule allows. Now a word about Twitter. It seems that my friends and acquaintances back home haven’t figured out what to do with Twitter. They prefer Facebook. For me, Facebook is fine for keeping in touch with people you met and made friends with “in the flesh.” I have never made a new friend through Facebook. For me, the beauty of Twitter is making new friends. We are having an atypical expat experience because of this. We would never have met these people through “normal channels.” I once described Twitter as: “like being in a room full of people who are all talking, but you can hear and understand what everyone is saying and join or ignore any conversation.” This got “retweeted” a few times, so there may be some truth in it. The people (mostly stupid journalists) who say they aren’t interested in Twitter because they don’t care what other people had for lunch, really don’t comprehend what is happening in Twitter. There was a study that randomly sampled tweets and determined that 40% is “pointless babble.” This study was deeply flawed, because you can’t pull tweets out of context without turning them into pointless babble. Twitter is a conversation. Why did I take a picture of this bystander who was not part of our group? Because he’s wearing a leather coat over his kandura BECAUSE IT’S SO COLD! The low that night was 63F. Since the people back home are complaining about rain, wind and sometimes snow, the thought that people think Dubai is cold is amusing to me.
Last night’s social activity was a Tweet-up at the Belgian Beer Cafe for all-the-mussels-you-can-eat in 2 hours dinner. And, even though we are out with people, Daddybird is on the internet. He is, however, tweeting about the dinner and since we are at a table of fellow tweeters, no one thinks this is rude or odd. Here is the main attraction – scrumptious mussels. They were tender and tasty. The walls are decorated with a variety of things including old portraits. I like looking at them, but I usually get a little sad when I think that this is someone’s great uncle Joe or grandpa Henry. How do these things get disconnected from the family?
Here is a podcast of Daddybird on the radio last night. He’s only in the second hour, so you may have to fast forward to the middle part.
Kristina, Daddybird, Sanjive on Nightline, Dubai Eye radio
How did he come to be on the radio, you ask? Just another unexpected event in our Dubai lives. A few weeks ago, at the “tweet up” with the shisha, Melanie mentioned “barcamp” and suggested we do one here in Dubai. Kedar took it to heart and started the process of planning one. Daddybird volunteered to help. Masarat, the producer of this radio show, is also a Twitterer and read about this event which inspired her to suggest the planners be interviewed on the radio. This is how he ended up on the radio being interviewed with Kedar, Kristina, and Sanjive, the other bar camp planners.
What is a tweet up? A casual meeting of people who know each other through Twitter and communicate arrangements for the meet up via Twitter.
What is Twitter? It usually sounds dumb when described, so just go to http://search.twitter.com/search?q=kangayayaroo and read what I’ve been tweeting to get an idea. It’s just short communications which sometimes turn into conversations.
What is barcamp? Basically, it is an impromptu “unconference” where people just show up and talk about what they are interested in a fairly unstructured setting.
Just another ugly place in Dubai. In case you are interested in the current state of the world’s tallest building, here it is as of Friday. Here we are in all our glory. Yes, Donna, we are eating yet again. Notice the blur in the center of the picture. The waitstaff are really fast here. Paul and Rami discussing Shufflegazine. PK and Abha above, Rami and Kedar below. We left this restaurant and headed across the street to a place where those who wanted it could smoke shisha.
Here’s a little snippet of conversation. Just a short panorama of our group (minus me, the benefit of being behind the camera!)
Paul smoking shisha. Sexy, huh!?!
Here’s Rami and Jamie just kicking back.
A brief explanation for those of you reading this blog - the original purpose of this blog was for us to keep in touch with our family and friends back in the U.S.A. who are unlikely to ever set foot in the U.A.E. That is why there are so many pictures and why we explain things in detail as if we are talking to people who don’t experience these things on a daily basis. However, we have gained readers who are currently living in the U.A.E. and may have even been born here. Even though the country isn't new to you, we hope you will enjoy seeing it through our eyes.
We spent our first three years "in country" in Dubai. We have now moved to Fujairah and are experiencing a slightly different culture and environment.
You will find that there is a definite positive tone to our blog because we really DO love it here. We came here by choice and have not regretted it for a minute. If you don’t like living here because it isn't just like back home, you won’t like our blog either.
kangayayaroo
DaddyBird
