Drowning in chocolate
Dec. 14th, 2004 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
i_kenderApologies for the long overdue post. I have been knocked out of commission for a while by Bahrain and a cold, respectively.
Dubai, a warm and cloudless night. A thousand bright stars and a fat contented moon beam down on the sprawl of affluence. Outside in the hotel gardens, well-dressed guests mingled on floodlit grass while waiters hovered with glasses of champagne and fruit juice, and skewers of fresh fruit with chocolate dipping sauce. My mother and sister settled at a table on the edges, along with my Aunt Najma and other family members who wanted to stay far away from the champagne-sipping crowds for religious reasons.
I found my cousin Myrna surrounded by guests, and congratulated her. It was then that I got my first look at her husband Jean Paul... he’s Swiss. [edit: actually, I've since been corrected on this. He's half-German, half-Argentinian but has lived in the US, UK and Switzerland. Oops, my bad!] I wouldn’t say he’s good looking, but he’s very friendly and warm, and very clearly mad in love with my cousin. So he’ll do. It wasn’t til later on, during the speeches, that I discovered they were already married and this was an after-the-fact party. I like Myrna, always have... she’s one of my more westernised cousins. Like me, she came over here to go to university. Unlike me, she went back. She introduced me to Winona Ryder when I was too young to have heard of her. Myrna rocks. And she is stunningly beautiful... when I have photos, I’ll put them up. Somehow. Maybe. If I work out how.
In the early stages of mingling, I met many of JP’s friends and family. Swiss, German, French, and some English too... he went to an international school at some point. Also lots of Myrna’s friends, and JP’s friends, from Bahrain and Dubai... I recognised a few vaguely, by face, but most were a mystery. There were three ‘bridesmaids’, all very young... I think the youngest was three and the oldest was six or seven. While talking to Myrna’s dad, my Uncle Ali (divorced, lives in Dubai, has a younger girlfriend, looks a little like Al Pacino’s Persian cousin) I noticed one of the tray-laden waiters talking to the eldest bridesmaid (seven, I’m guessing), and as I watched, she reached up, took a glass of champagne, drank some, and put it back on the tray. I was incredulous and laughing too... this is Not Done, but then if Myrna were having a conventional wedding there wouldn’t be any alcohol present anyway.
Dinner was a buffet, with a feeble sound system fighting to be heard. Just to the right of the dinner area behind a line of bushes was the beach. Heaven. Myrna’s two brothers were there too... Anas, the eldest, works in the financial sector in London and has a Japanese wife and two kids. Jihad, the youngest, is the only one who still lives at home with my Auntie Naima and will likely be trapped there for some time. My brother was there, but hardly with me... while I was busy mingling and meeting people, he was being anti-social, hanging around with my Uncle Khalid, the other Black Sheep... actually my family is full of them, it surprises me when I stumble across any fair sheep. My brother has hideously inadequate social skills, he’s shy and covers it with bombast and fast-talking, but has no listening skills at all. He was hiding in a corner for most of the wedding, posing and sulky but afraid to talk to anyone.
No... there wasn’t anyone ‘worth talking to’ in that sense, you filthy beast, reader, you! There were a lot of couples there, married or otherwise, and a scarcity of single girls. The only girl I fancied at all, I asked about her, and it turns out she was 17 and there with her dad! So, regardless of what the press might be saying about me, that scratched her off the list. Bizarrely enough, at the dinner table (eight men and two women, all the singles I think... what were they thinking?) I ended up sitting across from Dana Jawaherry. This is bizarre because she is the younger sister of Ali Jawaherry, who was my first best friend... from the ages of 6 to 10, before I moved schools and lost touch. Also probably the last time I saw her. So I had fun telling her who she was, and asking about her brother, before revealing who I was to her... yes, I really have been away from Bahrain for that long. Always fun, there are some kicks to be gotten out of being a ghost. (It was less fun at my grandmother’s funeral two years ago when lots of family didn’t recognise me...)
The buffet? Oh, a salad bar with hommous, mataboul, etc, a sushi bar, roast mutton with flavoured rice, chicken tikka, grilled hammour (fish)... you don’t really care what the food was like, do you? It was very good. Drinks were good too... I started with champagne, followed by champagne with whole strawberries dropped in (very nice), followed by water, then white wine, then double vodka and cranberry until they ran out of cranberry... The hotel bar they’d set up outside was open til two...I’m sorry, I’m rambling on a little, aren’t I? Right, highlights: dinner was followed by speeches, by which point my dark brother had already slunk off on the pretence of being ill to go out clubbing by himself. Anas gave a speech... something about indulging him in pulling his sister’s hair one more time, and how proud he was, blah blah... and then JP himself, listing the top ten reasons why he loved Myrna. Very sweet, if a little sickening, especially when he kept dropping in some of his pet couple names for her. But very appropriate, and accompanied by loud applause, and the PA occasionally cutting out. During the speeches I found out, thanks to a very drunk close friend of JP’s at our table, how the happy couple had met 18 months previous. Despite someone else at the table repeatedly reminding this guy that the cousin (c’est moi) was sitting at the table, he told us in loud and drunken fashion how him and JP had had a bet on that night for $100 on who could pull Myrna, and JP had won. I don’t care how they met, it’s obvious they’re very happy together. It was amusing finding out the truth behind the romantic fiction though.
[edit: Oh so wrong! There is me, there is a stick, and I am unaccountably attached to the wrong end of it. No, sadly the truth is much more innocent and tame, I have since discovered. It's just that on JP and Myrna's first date, this guy told JP that if he could get a kiss out of her, he'd buy him dinner. And if JP didn't manage it, he'd buy this guy dinner instead. I'm pleased to report that JP ate well that week. Apologies for the confusion, this is what comes of not getting your information direct from the horses' mouth!]
After the speeches, my mum and sister went back to the hotel ( a hard day’s shopping at Dubai’s malls the next day, don’t you know) but I stayed. And then much drinking and mingling with the remaining loosened-up guests. One drunk fatuous toad had the audacity to comment on my ankh necklace, advising me it was bad luck and to remove it so my life would improve. Please... like I’m going to listen to the Islamic party line coming from some drunk forty-something playboy. Whatever dude... there’s more to this world than you and your philosophy. Small-minded twat. The party continued til the hotel bar closed, and then continued back at the happy couple’s suite. There were many complaints from other guests, and the hotel staff kept coming to the door to beg us to keep it down, but what are they going to do? Throw out the newlyweds? In the end, they opened one of the banquet rooms downstairs, and the party carried on there. I finally got to have a proper chat with Myrna... she was being supportive and giving me advice, including that I should move to Dubai and get a job there. And if I wanted to I could stay with her and JP until I found a job or a place to live. Aww... sweet. And JP gave another speech and toasted his departed Dad. Cheers all round. Ok, bedtime. 6 am. I crawled into a cab, shooting citywards for half an hour, then stumbled up to the room I was sharing with my brother. There was a sock on the door, but that’s another story for another time. Bed. Sleep.
Bring bring! Ung. Telephone. Daylight. It’s Jihad... I vaguely remember making him promise to wake me up, and come and get me, so I could go on the dhow lunch cruise down the river. Boat trip? Oh god I’m so drunk. Very well... getting ready when he calls and tells me that he can’t pick me up after all because JP needs the car. Cue comedy sequence which involves taking a taxi (half an hour) to Jumeira to catch the bus which is gathering people from their hotels for the boat cruise, only to find the bus has been cancelled, quickly buying water bottle and paracetemol from one of the most expensive hotels in Dubai (well, I can say I’ve been there now!), cue another taxi (half an hour) back to the city and river, talking to German husband and wife sharing the cab with me, then the boat, glaring sunshine, definitely a sunglasses and painkillers day, hangover kicking in, orange juice. Gah. I admit it’s a very romantic idea, but I’d still like to strangle the sadist who thought that inviting people onto a boat for lunch the day after an alcohol-fuelled wedding was a good idea. I hate you, whoever you are. Needless to say, I didn’t drink on the hour and a half long cruise, but managed to stave off the hangover with juice and some quality good rich food. Dubai is beautiful, glittering skyscrapers reflected in the clean blue river, and everywhere you look signs of construction and growth. Very unlike stagnant Bahrain. While I was basking on the stern, wind ruffling my hair, a large fish somersaulted out of the water and winked at me. Ah, content.
The groom’s mother gave a speech after dinner, and then the couple unveiled a portrait which a friend of theirs had painted, which was very good but he looked better in it than she did. Obviously done from photographs. Getting a little tired of the ‘oh sweet, aren’t they cute together, romance, romance, blech, drowning in chocolate saccharine sweetness overdose’ by now. I took the time to say my goodbyes... my mum called during the cruise to tell me she had no idea where I was, but I had to rush back to the hotel at once so we could check out and race to the airport. Lovely. I take it she missed the invite then. Dutifully, I raced off as soon as we docked, after a last quick kiss for Myrna, and a ‘nice to meet you’ for JP. Hotel, packing flurry, cab to airport, etc etc, and then back to Bahrain. Which is where things went only slightly the shape of a pear, but more on that later.
Sorry that was a little long and rambling, but it was an overdue post. I can heartily recommend Dubai to anyone, for a visit, or even to live and work in for a while. It is one of the better places to go to in the Gulf, nay, I’ll take a chance and say it is *the* best place. Fantastic weather, very well developed city on a river, with a wide and (more importantly) integrated mix of nationalities. Some of them very good looking, might I add! And remember kids, it’s entirely tax free... Sigh. Yes. I am tempted.
Dubai, a warm and cloudless night. A thousand bright stars and a fat contented moon beam down on the sprawl of affluence. Outside in the hotel gardens, well-dressed guests mingled on floodlit grass while waiters hovered with glasses of champagne and fruit juice, and skewers of fresh fruit with chocolate dipping sauce. My mother and sister settled at a table on the edges, along with my Aunt Najma and other family members who wanted to stay far away from the champagne-sipping crowds for religious reasons.
I found my cousin Myrna surrounded by guests, and congratulated her. It was then that I got my first look at her husband Jean Paul... he’s Swiss. [edit: actually, I've since been corrected on this. He's half-German, half-Argentinian but has lived in the US, UK and Switzerland. Oops, my bad!] I wouldn’t say he’s good looking, but he’s very friendly and warm, and very clearly mad in love with my cousin. So he’ll do. It wasn’t til later on, during the speeches, that I discovered they were already married and this was an after-the-fact party. I like Myrna, always have... she’s one of my more westernised cousins. Like me, she came over here to go to university. Unlike me, she went back. She introduced me to Winona Ryder when I was too young to have heard of her. Myrna rocks. And she is stunningly beautiful... when I have photos, I’ll put them up. Somehow. Maybe. If I work out how.
In the early stages of mingling, I met many of JP’s friends and family. Swiss, German, French, and some English too... he went to an international school at some point. Also lots of Myrna’s friends, and JP’s friends, from Bahrain and Dubai... I recognised a few vaguely, by face, but most were a mystery. There were three ‘bridesmaids’, all very young... I think the youngest was three and the oldest was six or seven. While talking to Myrna’s dad, my Uncle Ali (divorced, lives in Dubai, has a younger girlfriend, looks a little like Al Pacino’s Persian cousin) I noticed one of the tray-laden waiters talking to the eldest bridesmaid (seven, I’m guessing), and as I watched, she reached up, took a glass of champagne, drank some, and put it back on the tray. I was incredulous and laughing too... this is Not Done, but then if Myrna were having a conventional wedding there wouldn’t be any alcohol present anyway.
Dinner was a buffet, with a feeble sound system fighting to be heard. Just to the right of the dinner area behind a line of bushes was the beach. Heaven. Myrna’s two brothers were there too... Anas, the eldest, works in the financial sector in London and has a Japanese wife and two kids. Jihad, the youngest, is the only one who still lives at home with my Auntie Naima and will likely be trapped there for some time. My brother was there, but hardly with me... while I was busy mingling and meeting people, he was being anti-social, hanging around with my Uncle Khalid, the other Black Sheep... actually my family is full of them, it surprises me when I stumble across any fair sheep. My brother has hideously inadequate social skills, he’s shy and covers it with bombast and fast-talking, but has no listening skills at all. He was hiding in a corner for most of the wedding, posing and sulky but afraid to talk to anyone.
No... there wasn’t anyone ‘worth talking to’ in that sense, you filthy beast, reader, you! There were a lot of couples there, married or otherwise, and a scarcity of single girls. The only girl I fancied at all, I asked about her, and it turns out she was 17 and there with her dad! So, regardless of what the press might be saying about me, that scratched her off the list. Bizarrely enough, at the dinner table (eight men and two women, all the singles I think... what were they thinking?) I ended up sitting across from Dana Jawaherry. This is bizarre because she is the younger sister of Ali Jawaherry, who was my first best friend... from the ages of 6 to 10, before I moved schools and lost touch. Also probably the last time I saw her. So I had fun telling her who she was, and asking about her brother, before revealing who I was to her... yes, I really have been away from Bahrain for that long. Always fun, there are some kicks to be gotten out of being a ghost. (It was less fun at my grandmother’s funeral two years ago when lots of family didn’t recognise me...)
The buffet? Oh, a salad bar with hommous, mataboul, etc, a sushi bar, roast mutton with flavoured rice, chicken tikka, grilled hammour (fish)... you don’t really care what the food was like, do you? It was very good. Drinks were good too... I started with champagne, followed by champagne with whole strawberries dropped in (very nice), followed by water, then white wine, then double vodka and cranberry until they ran out of cranberry... The hotel bar they’d set up outside was open til two...I’m sorry, I’m rambling on a little, aren’t I? Right, highlights: dinner was followed by speeches, by which point my dark brother had already slunk off on the pretence of being ill to go out clubbing by himself. Anas gave a speech... something about indulging him in pulling his sister’s hair one more time, and how proud he was, blah blah... and then JP himself, listing the top ten reasons why he loved Myrna. Very sweet, if a little sickening, especially when he kept dropping in some of his pet couple names for her. But very appropriate, and accompanied by loud applause, and the PA occasionally cutting out. During the speeches I found out, thanks to a very drunk close friend of JP’s at our table, how the happy couple had met 18 months previous. Despite someone else at the table repeatedly reminding this guy that the cousin (c’est moi) was sitting at the table, he told us in loud and drunken fashion how him and JP had had a bet on that night for $100 on who could pull Myrna, and JP had won. I don’t care how they met, it’s obvious they’re very happy together. It was amusing finding out the truth behind the romantic fiction though.
[edit: Oh so wrong! There is me, there is a stick, and I am unaccountably attached to the wrong end of it. No, sadly the truth is much more innocent and tame, I have since discovered. It's just that on JP and Myrna's first date, this guy told JP that if he could get a kiss out of her, he'd buy him dinner. And if JP didn't manage it, he'd buy this guy dinner instead. I'm pleased to report that JP ate well that week. Apologies for the confusion, this is what comes of not getting your information direct from the horses' mouth!]
After the speeches, my mum and sister went back to the hotel ( a hard day’s shopping at Dubai’s malls the next day, don’t you know) but I stayed. And then much drinking and mingling with the remaining loosened-up guests. One drunk fatuous toad had the audacity to comment on my ankh necklace, advising me it was bad luck and to remove it so my life would improve. Please... like I’m going to listen to the Islamic party line coming from some drunk forty-something playboy. Whatever dude... there’s more to this world than you and your philosophy. Small-minded twat. The party continued til the hotel bar closed, and then continued back at the happy couple’s suite. There were many complaints from other guests, and the hotel staff kept coming to the door to beg us to keep it down, but what are they going to do? Throw out the newlyweds? In the end, they opened one of the banquet rooms downstairs, and the party carried on there. I finally got to have a proper chat with Myrna... she was being supportive and giving me advice, including that I should move to Dubai and get a job there. And if I wanted to I could stay with her and JP until I found a job or a place to live. Aww... sweet. And JP gave another speech and toasted his departed Dad. Cheers all round. Ok, bedtime. 6 am. I crawled into a cab, shooting citywards for half an hour, then stumbled up to the room I was sharing with my brother. There was a sock on the door, but that’s another story for another time. Bed. Sleep.
Bring bring! Ung. Telephone. Daylight. It’s Jihad... I vaguely remember making him promise to wake me up, and come and get me, so I could go on the dhow lunch cruise down the river. Boat trip? Oh god I’m so drunk. Very well... getting ready when he calls and tells me that he can’t pick me up after all because JP needs the car. Cue comedy sequence which involves taking a taxi (half an hour) to Jumeira to catch the bus which is gathering people from their hotels for the boat cruise, only to find the bus has been cancelled, quickly buying water bottle and paracetemol from one of the most expensive hotels in Dubai (well, I can say I’ve been there now!), cue another taxi (half an hour) back to the city and river, talking to German husband and wife sharing the cab with me, then the boat, glaring sunshine, definitely a sunglasses and painkillers day, hangover kicking in, orange juice. Gah. I admit it’s a very romantic idea, but I’d still like to strangle the sadist who thought that inviting people onto a boat for lunch the day after an alcohol-fuelled wedding was a good idea. I hate you, whoever you are. Needless to say, I didn’t drink on the hour and a half long cruise, but managed to stave off the hangover with juice and some quality good rich food. Dubai is beautiful, glittering skyscrapers reflected in the clean blue river, and everywhere you look signs of construction and growth. Very unlike stagnant Bahrain. While I was basking on the stern, wind ruffling my hair, a large fish somersaulted out of the water and winked at me. Ah, content.
The groom’s mother gave a speech after dinner, and then the couple unveiled a portrait which a friend of theirs had painted, which was very good but he looked better in it than she did. Obviously done from photographs. Getting a little tired of the ‘oh sweet, aren’t they cute together, romance, romance, blech, drowning in chocolate saccharine sweetness overdose’ by now. I took the time to say my goodbyes... my mum called during the cruise to tell me she had no idea where I was, but I had to rush back to the hotel at once so we could check out and race to the airport. Lovely. I take it she missed the invite then. Dutifully, I raced off as soon as we docked, after a last quick kiss for Myrna, and a ‘nice to meet you’ for JP. Hotel, packing flurry, cab to airport, etc etc, and then back to Bahrain. Which is where things went only slightly the shape of a pear, but more on that later.
Sorry that was a little long and rambling, but it was an overdue post. I can heartily recommend Dubai to anyone, for a visit, or even to live and work in for a while. It is one of the better places to go to in the Gulf, nay, I’ll take a chance and say it is *the* best place. Fantastic weather, very well developed city on a river, with a wide and (more importantly) integrated mix of nationalities. Some of them very good looking, might I add! And remember kids, it’s entirely tax free... Sigh. Yes. I am tempted.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 04:49 am (UTC)how are they on homosexuality? tax free living, good. dying under a rock at the bottom of a cliff, bad.
can't wait to see you tomorrow. though I have my period. be warned. currently I'm feeding off a half-dead undergrad'.
mwah! x
no subject
Date: 2004-12-14 06:18 am (UTC)Personally, I won't go clubbing in Bahrain again unless direly pressed because all the clubs are shit...