Travel was long (12 hours from Dulles to Kuwait City on United -- bad food, okay service, limited movie selection, but an Ambien from the guy next to me helped me sleep through most of it. 2 hours from Kuwait to Dubai. Both flights full.) but not unbearable. It's a nine-hour difference here -- highly unlikely I'll recover from jet lag before I leave though, so I'm just making the most of it.
First impressions: Many, and my thoughts are a bit jumbled so sorry for that.
- So far, everything feels very modern and western. Buildings and streets feel about the same, the supermarket/mall felt the same, the crowds haven't felt too different.
- English: Is everywhere -- almost every sign, building, etc is translated in both English and Arabic.
- Airport: Dubai's airport was incredibly crowded, especially considering that my flight arrived 12:50am! The lines in passport control reminded me of US control at peak times. Several women on my Kuwait-Dubai flight were covered up to their eyes, though they interestingly did seem to be co-mingling with men. Perhaps the men were family members though.
- "Natives": I've seen very few native Emiratians so far. Of course, they are only 20% of the population here, but it still feels odd. There is not a lot of intermingling, primarily I gather for the cultural reasons that the native population is far more conservative in their Islamic traditions than the greater population, though a good portion of the 80% expatriots are indeed Arabs.
- Westerners: Are everywhere. My impression has been biased of course, as I am staying in a Spanish-Syrian household and last night his mother held a dinner party for friends -- probably 2/3 Spaniards and the rest a mixed crowd of expatriots. His mother works at the Spanish embassy, so in turn much of the crowd was Foreign Service related. It was interesting to meet a related ambassador, but even more interesting to meet people ~my age who were the children of embassy workers. The three daughters of the ambassador were 19, 21, 22, were very close, were obviously privileged though also grounded, and had lived a variety of places -- Cameroon, Guatamala, China, the Netherlands, Spain, US, no where more than 4 years at a time. I met a man who works at the Canadian embassy and has moved his children to Ghana, Cairo, and more. In addition to foreign service workers, I met families associated with the energy industry (I tried not to make a face) -- moving throughout Middle East, UK, Spain, Netherlands, etc.
- Status of Women: Again, so it doesn't feel much different here than at home. There are many mixed messages --at the grocery store for example there are checkout lines "Reserved for Ladies and the Disabled" (this is apparently bc many native women are not comfortable sharing a line with men). Culturally here women not only stay veiled -- everything but face and hands covered and no pants allowed -- but also cover all of their face but their eyes when in public. As I mentioned, I've seen little of this though.
On the other hand, manequins in the mall had hard nipples sticking out, and American TV of all sorts is broadcast here -- my bf's 14 year old sister is a devoted follower of "So You Think You Can Dance", which somehow felt a bit risque. :-) Also, I went to a bar last night, where "natives" and westerns were both around and my bf told me it was very new that natives would even feel comfortable to be seen drinking in public. Note that we only saw men, no native women.
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