"Filet Mignon" on a Dhow
Around the time of my sister's wedding (I believe it was just before, i.e. early October) a couple of veteran teachers who also lived in my building invited me to go to the beach with them. Jim and Suzy had been there almost since the beginning of BUEC (now UGRU) and when their son, Todd, graduated from college, he joined them, hiring on as some sort of adjunct instructor while he tried to decide what to do with his life.
They were into all kinds of activities. Jim gave a talk during orientation about all the things there were to do there, and he began it by stating that "If you define a beach as a sandy area next to the water, then we all live at the beach. It's just a really, really wide one." This is absolutely true. The UAE is about the size of Maine, and 98% sand (most of the rest being salt marsh). So I lived at the beach, except I was about 120 km from the water.
One of Suzy's favorite activities was shopping for carpets. What's fun about that you might ask? Well, these were Oriental (Persian) carpets. They had small ones on their walls, and large ones on their floors, and she was constantly buying more to ship home to friends and relatives.
Estimating the value of an antique Persian rug and haggling with the rug merchant over price is a fine art, one I never mastered (probably due to lack of interest), but Suzy was an expert at it. She could spend hours in the rug shop going over the latest acquisitions. I found it pretty boring myself, but then I don't like to shop or haggle. That put me at somewhat of a disadvantage over there, as the price of *everything* is negotiable. The cost of living is low, and my income was high and almost completely disposable, so when I saw something I wanted, it almost always was already priced much less than what it would cost in the States, so I bought it.
There were no price tags on anything except in the supermarkets. I would ask "How much is this?" The merchant would usually respond "DH x, but for *you* DH (x-10%)." I'd say, "Sounds like a deal. here's my money. wrap it up." I probably deprived merchants all over Al Ain of the pleasure of a good haggle, but they were undoubtedly satisfied with the extra profit.
Another interesting thing over there is the change situation. Nobody could make change for anything! I'd go into an electrical shop to buy a plug for DH 5 (about $1). I'd give the guy a DH 10 bill. He'd have to run next door to get change for me. Only the gas stations and supermarkets were able to make change. Even then, they'd often round to the nearest quarter-dirham, (or 25 fils) even though there were some 1, 5, and 10 fils coins in circulation. There was only one store in the entire city that ever used those. I saw a 1 fil coin once. It was copper, and about the the size of your pinky nail, if you have small hands.
But I digress. This is supposed to be about a trip to the beach. The "Gulf" is a relatively small body of water. In the States, it's known as the Persian Gulf, but over there, they called it the Arabian Gulf, being on the Arabian side of it. The typical American's sense of geography being what it is, I suppose if they called it that here, people would confuse it with the Arabian Sea, a totally different body, although they're connected by the Straits of Hormuz.
Being small, and shallow, and almost completely land-locked (except for the aforementioned Straits) and located in a hot part of the world, by October the waters of the Gulf took on the consistency of bathwater. I never though it possible to sweat while immersed up to your neck in the ocean, but since the air temperature in October had only moderated to about 100 or so, and the humidity out on the water was, of course, 100%, I found that it was indeed possible.
Al Ain, being much farther inland, and hence dry as a bone, was generally more comfortable. In fact, 100 degrees there was almost pleasant. As they say: "But it's a *dry* heat." That really is true, until it gets over 115 or so. I've been in saunas that weren't as hot as August in Al Ain. It gets so hot there, if you leave your car in the sun all day, when you get into it, you can't tell any difference.
The hotel we stayed at was in Sharjah, just north of Dubai. There are a total of 7 Emirates in the UAE: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al-Qaiwain, Ras Al-Khaimah, and Fujairah. Abu Dhabi is the richest, and by far the largest. Dubai is a close second in terms of wealth, being the commercial center, but the rest depend on subsidies from the Federal Government. Sharjah is the most conservative. As I think I mentioned, women aren't even allowed to make hotel reservations there, and no alcohol is allowed anywhere. All of the northern Emirates were quite popular with Russian tourists (mostly black-marketeers buying up cheap electronics and small appliances for the Russian mafia) so signs there were all in 3 languages, using 3 completely different alphabets!
The Russians would generally come every weekend, accompanied by a prostitute (hence the prohibition on women reserving hotel rooms). I overheard one arguing with the desk clerk (in English) about how he came to that hotel every weekend, "why can't you cut me a deal."
We were only a about a half-hour drive from Dubai, so the conservatism didn't really matter much. One of Jim and Suzy's favorite restaurants is located on a dhow. A dhow is one of the traditional Arab boats that they used for fishing, pearl diving, and piracy (their main sources of revenue before oil was discovered). They range in size from about 20 feet or so, up to over 100. The restaurant was on one of the larger ones. I doubt it was actually seaworthy anymore, but it did still float. The decor was interesting, although not too different from what you might find in a floating restaurant here; lots of nautical-themed stuff, but with an Arab flavor.
I don't really care for finfish, and I don't think I had had any red meat at all since I had arrived, so when I saw steak on the menu, I immediately focused on that. Jim and Suzy warned me that it wasn't going to be like the steaks I was used to in the States, but hey, how bad can you fuck up a filet mignon, right? So that's what I ordered.
Oops! I knew I was in trouble right away when the waiter didn't ask me how I wanted it done. I had to call him back and say to cook it medium rare. Then it arrived. The waiter placed this big plate in front of me with a huge pile of mushroom gravy. Underneath was something that I will charitably describe as a Salisbury Steak. Was it medium rare? Hah! To cook something that thin medium rare you would have to just wave it over a *picture* of fire.
Later on, I was able to find decent steaks though. The restaurant in the Intercon had a very interesting dish called "steak-on-a-stone." They took a big cube of some really dense rock (basalt?) about 6-8 inches on a side and heated it to around 500 degrees. Then they put it in front of you and gave you a raw steak. You put the steak on the stone and seasoned and cooked it to your taste. Very scrumptious. The only other place I've ever seen anything like that was when I lived in Edinboro, PA, and they had a restaurant there with a 12 foot charcoal grill in the dining room. Cook it yourself, or have them cook it for you for $1 extra. I still can't figure out how their insurance company let them get away with it though.
Damn. Even when I tell myself I'm going to keep this short, I still wind up rambling on.
Next Installment: duning in the desert.