El Dorado

The City of Gold. Something Conquistadors from Spain traveled across continents searching for... also, an unattainable goal. Like good Mexican food half a globe away from Mexico.

In Tunisia, we found a nice Cuban cafe where all the food LOOKED right, but tasted wrong. It was like someone had pictures of popular Mexican and Spanish dishes but no recipes to follow. Or more likely, couldn't get the ingredients that made the food taste authentic. Either way, we ate there because it was good, it just wasn't right.

Today, we walked into Casa Maria in the Green Community in Dubai. It's a small place with just a few tables inside and out. When we first approached the door, it was 1230 and the signage outside said "Open Daily 11:00 am to 10:00 pm". We tugged on the doors, but they were locked. As we walked away scratching our heads, a waitress unlocked the doors and called us back. Apparently, they just forgot to open the doors.

An inauspicious beginning. I'll give you that.

The place was decorated like every Mexican restaurant everywhere, except maybe in Mexico. Exposed wood beams, adobe walls, bright colored paint and lots of hand carved wood furniture. It called to my Texan soul.

We perused the menu, poking excited fingers at our favorites and mulling our choices. Pages of the menu were devoted to explaining the 'terminology' for the unfamiliar. It gave descriptions of all the different types of chiles, the regional foods in Mexico and a biography on the two Mexican chefs who own and run the store. That's right. Authentic food. Right here in our neighborhood.

It was GREAT. I had chicken enchiladas with verde sauce and DH had a beef fajita burrito. Both were tremendous. The guacamole was a little shy of actual avocados, but I'm guessing they are imported just for that dish. All in all, my new favorite restaurant. I give it two thumbs up.

I can't wait to try their fish tacos. Umm... I don't really feel like I've found a lost city of gold, but I do feel like I've found a treasure.

--Sandee Wagner

So Shiny!!

We ran a few errands today. We have a five day weekend to celebrate the end of Ramadan, so Eid Mubarak everyone!

First we went to IKEA for more bookcases, then we went to the DragonMart to see if we could find a step down converter for the electronics. We struck out on the converter, but oh boy did we see some shiny things!

First, we found a temporary display of garden art. Most of these were cast resin, but some were actual marble carvings. DH wanted to buy a pair of these lions to flank our driveway. We don't really have a drive worth flanking, but boy would these be fun to have in South Texas.

Next we happened upon a 'traditional' furniture store. Since I wasn't sure what that meant, I went in with camera raised. Traditional furniture is shiny. Very, VERY shiny. Let me draw your attention to the velvety fabric covering and the shiny buttons. Also, do you see the seat back is in the shape of a heart? And what home decor is not enhanced by precious metals?

But wait, there's more! If gold and blue is not your style, they had all colors and finishes. Maybe you fancy purple velvet and you're the queen of giraffes? They've got it all in this shop. One of the sets had a swan table and the legs of the chair looked feathered. It was oh, so classy.

Perhaps you're in the market for something dignified like a grandfather clock? Six feet of shiny, overblown ornate frou-frou? With ladies strumming lutes seated on the base? Oh, yes. They've got just the ticket for you. Now, as you might imagine, these were high priced decor items. The guy manning the shop was very proud of his glamorous wares. When I pulled out my camera to take pictures, he preened. Like a peacock. Like the lamps flanking the exit. Giant peacock lamps in two finishes. I kid you not. Seven feet tall and finished in living color.

The next shop that caught my eye was selling costume jewelry for that dressy occasion. I'm trying to imagine the dress that allows these necklaces to be pulled off appropriately and all I've got is 'basic black turtleneck'. There were four full windows filled with at least six or eight of these waterfall collars of faux gemstones. All colors and designs. The overriding similarity was the over the top size and scale of the neckwear. It was stunning. DH was not even tempted to go inside and buy me one. Even when I promised to wear it to the USMC ball. Of course, even with my ample bosom, these would have reached my waist. But with a necklace like this, you don't even have to worry about your gown! Who'd notice it anyway?

I know where to go for my shiny stuff. DragonMart.

--Sandee Wagner

Breakage and Bustedness

After moving to Tunisia, staying four months and then packing up and moving to Dubai, I am probably lucky to have any household goods arrive at all. That container could have fallen off the ship. All my stuff could have been lost or stolen while it sat in storage for four months. But it didn't. Last week, it arrived here.

As the movers helped us unpack, we uncovered a lot of broken things. A LOT.

We had more breakage with this move than with any other move in our lives. It was frustrating. Each time I picked up a wad of paper and could tell that what was inside was rattling and sounding like shards of glass, I knew that some other piece of what I owned was busted.

It was kind of interesting in a sad, sad way. The majority of things that were broken were 25th wedding anniversary presents. I should preface this by saying that DH and I eloped. So we didn't have any elaborate china or crystal at the beginning of our marriage. We had a big 25th wedding anniversary party and folks gave us a lot of the lovely serving pieces and decorative pieces that you think of as wedding gifts. Cut glass candle holders, hand painted serving bowls. Lots of lovely things.

And the breakage tally included a high volume of those anniversary gifts. For some reason, it really made me sad. Each time I opened or was handed a busted piece so I could take digital photos of the item and the box number it came out of, a little piece of me grieved. It's not like losing the stuff negates 25 years of marriage, right? It's just stuff. Nice gifts that I truly enjoyed for the past seven years. Now they're gone. Basically irreplaceable--not the stuff, the memory of the gift. I can buy another one, close to the original but it won't be the gifted item anymore, will it?

It's a little strange but I'm so thankful that we didn't have MORE damage than we did. We moved clear around the globe. I'm thankful that we got ANY of our stuff. For a while, I didn't think it would ever be cleared out of Tunisia.

So breakage and bustedness is documented and will be claimed for insurance purposes. Life goes on. I've found a place for most of this stuff. Now I'm close to being completely settled. Just a couple more boxes.

--Sandee Wagner

Settling In

Well, we got the container on Sunday and began unpacking. The movers came back on Monday and gave us a full day assembling and unpacking. They also took away all the trash. At this point, all we could think was, "they're going to need a bigger truck!" We are collecting up more paper and boxes and they'll come back by to pick up the rest.

It's surprised how much you can get done with a group of people helping you. We got all the large furniture placed. We even shifted a few after changing our minds and the guys never complained. With them pulling stuff out of the packaging, all I had to do was find places for it. In the kitchen, it worked great. With the books and decorative stuff, not so much. We did have a bit of breakage, more than any other move, but I'm not complaining. I kept my camera out and took a picture of anything broken or damaged and the label off the box it came in. It should make it a little easier to file the claim with the moving company.

The next day, DH and I hit it pretty hard. We found places for the books and glassware and hung up organizers for the brooms and stuff. Today we began hanging curtains and putting out the knickknacks. It's beginning to look a lot like HOME!

I tried to take pictures of places where there were just stacks of boxes before so you could share my joy in the unpacking... but it's hard to imagine how good it feels to finally settle in.

Once again, my biggest issue is more books than bookcases. DH has spoiled me with lots of built ins wherever we've lived, and now, I have to buy furniture to take with me! I'm trying to be judicious and eliminate some of the tomes I no longer need, but it's hard to part with books that I love.

I figure a couple more days of hard work and we'll be done! I'll post some more pictures when it's all clean and tidy.

--Sandee Wagner

Feathering my Nest

After five long months of waiting, our stuff finally arrived in Dubai. It really only took two months for the goods to transit, three months of that time it was sitting in storage while the company worked diligently to produce a one page letter stating that we didn't owe any taxes to Tunisia before they'd let our stuff ship out. That's right. We waited three months for a one page letter. I'm not sure who's in charge of that department, but I personally would like to make them suffer.

Today, the container arrived. The moving crew actually arrived about twenty minutes before the truck got here. The company told us they would arrive between 1300 and 1500 today. The crew arrived at 1245 and the truck was here at 1301. Nothing wrong with that time estimate!

The guys were all hard workers and got the entire container emptied by 1600. Two of the guys stayed inside that oven moving the stuff to the edge of the bed, while the others hustled it into the house and put it in the right rooms. The guys working inside the container had the worst end of the deal. At one point, a guy got dizzy and had to come inside and sit down in the cool air for a while. I slapped a ziplock bag full of ice onto the back of his neck to help him cool down a little. Other than that, we had no accidents or injuries.

Except my pot. Of course, you never know what all is broken until you've opened all the boxes. There could be more. But this extremely fragile pot had some kind of issue because the carton showed the crushing. I slit it open and found my mirror mosaic project pot one third smaller than expected. DH thinks he can piece it together and glue or plaster it from the inside of the pot. The outside is already broken, so it won't show--at least it shouldn't.

The crew will be back in the morning to help us assemble and place the larger furniture. Then we'll spend the rest of the week unpacking boxes and finding homes for all our stuff. It's a good feeling, feathering my nest.

--Sandee Wagner

Labor Saving Devices

I have moved into a part of the world where having a dishwasher is a luxury and having a dryer is very strange. The vast majority of the people here hang their clothes to dry and wash dishes by hand.

I didn't really give it a lot of thought, I just wanted my lifestyle to remain the same as I had in the US. I want a dryer. I'm not really willing to hang my clothes up to dry in the triple digit heat. I get that I'm using energy above the norm, but if I'm willing to pay for it, I should be able to do it, right?

So, when we rigged the house (and you have to buy ALL your own appliances here) we bought a Gorenje dishwasher. I understand that this is a brand made in the UK and we bought a middle line product, not top of the line.

I read the manual, figured out the controls and set it up to run. This unit is a self proclaimed 'energy efficient' model. When I set it to run, it runs for 2 hours and 33 minutes for regular, not heavy duty, cleaning. It does not do much of a heated dry cycle. The dishes are still completely wet when it's done running.

I had a GE dishwasher before. I've had a Maytag and I'm pretty sure my old house had a Kenmore. I don't think I've ever had a cycle go more than 90 minutes. So how 'energy efficient' can this be if it goes for a full hour longer??

Before you get the idea that I'm denigrating the BRAND of dishwasher, let me state for the record that the LG brand washing machine I have has the same issues. A load of laundry takes nearly three hours to run. And that's set for the normal, synthetic cycle.

I'm not sure what happens electrically. All these appliances run at 220v instead of 110v like in the states. But it seems to me that everything takes a lot longer. All the cycles take a longer time to run.

Maybe I'm just fooling myself, maybe it took this long in the states, but I don't think so. I've always thought that someone needed to make washers and dryers take the same amount of time to run, because it always seemed like the dryer took twice as long as the washer. Here, it's the exact opposite. My dryer loads come out in half the time the washer loads do. And the dishwasher takes forever.

How energy efficient can this be? If it's running for twice the length of time and twice the voltage?

--Sandee Wagner

The Power of Three

I've recently read some "Weather Warden" books by Rachel Caine. One of the characters in the novels is a Djinn. During the exposition of this character, the author paints a reality where in order to get a true answer from a Djinn, you have to ask it three times. They have to tell you the truth if you persist in asking the question three times, but they will deflect and try to distract you from asking it. Interesting setup, really. It made for some good dialog in these books.

As I sit here in Dubai trying to acclimate to my new country, I'm reading a Culture Smart! guidebook on the customs and cultures of the UAE. Again, fascinating reading. But imagine my shock when it started talking about effusive praise and how to act when invited into an Emirati home.

One of the bits of advice given was that the host will demure, so thanks and praise should be restated (honestly) over and over again. The advice was to give at least three offers before giving in. The same type of suggestion was made for accepting or declining food during a large meal. If an Emirati declines, you need to continue to offer... you got it. Three times.

I am really amused by this. The fact that there is actual cultural background for conversational insistence that requires three repetitions is based in Arabic folklore. Or the folklore just represented the customs which are still in use today. Either way, I love it. I love it. I love it.

--Sandee Wagner