Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Away in Dubai, Continued

WHOOPS!!!!

I realized that all the posts I wrote while on Dubai weren't published! Thanks to my limited-but-increasing-knowledge of -Mac OSX!! Anyway, here is they are. WARNING: Long Post!

Day 3 (April 18)
1-Class review:
Interesting opening lecture this morning, the recap of yesterday's subject was enough to consider yesterday's lecture as a waste of time! (10 minutes' summary was all it took!). We had an interesting speaking come in from NCR to talk about banking services & technologies & how people respond to both, yadda yadda yadda..Collected more business cards from a couple of bankers from Yemen. Apparently, in that country, people actually feel safer if they see as man with an AK47 in his hands standing outside the bank!

2-Movie review: Didn't go to the movies today, decided to stay in the room & catch up on my reading. Watched continuous coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting on CNN & BBC. Thank God they've started to ease off on the coverage. I suppose someone decided that CNN International doesn't have the same Demographics as CNN America!

3-Food Review: Burger King!!! It still rocks!

4-Reflections of the Day: To quote one of my one-liners: The difference between a dumb person and an idiot: An idiot doesn't realize that he's stupid!
Day 4 (April 18)
1-Class Review:
Was physically in class, and that was it!! The afternoon session was OK, just can't remember what happened to the guy next to me, simply disappeared.

2-Movie review: I bumped into on of my cousins at the Mall, and we decided to go watch Christian Slater's The Deal. I'm always amazed at how Hollywood seems to re-invent stuff!!

3-Food review: Had McDonald's for lunch today. I've become attached to the fast-food chain, it seems, because I've become impartial to a double-cheeseburger (or a couple of them) with fries! During the evening, i went out withe a friend of mine & had a quiet shisha at the Business Bay, not more than 10 minutes away.

4-Reflections of the Day: People tend to check you out from head to toe, to size you up & see whether you fit a pre-set profile they've encapsulated within their minds from past experiences. In short, a person stands out simply from the way he dresses himself while outside his country. Proof: The next time you see some Middle-Easterners wearing Designer brand t-shirts over designer brand jeans, 9 times out of 10 they're tourists from another GCC country, and if they're wearing a baseball cap, they're almost always Kuwaiti! Try it out for yourselves the next time you're in Bahrain or Dubai.

Day 5 (April 19)
1-Class review:
After a bit of arguing with the reception over my check-out time, I walked into class a 1/2 hour late. Wasn't a total loss, as there was a breing argument over the usefulness of the course and people's perceptions of it's contents upon signing up. (About time!) Towards the end of the day, we all said our goodbyes, made sure we had each others' business cards & set off on our own separate paths.

2-Movie Review: Spend a couple of hours at the closest Starbuck's at the mall, waiting for my friend to pick me up & drive to the airport. I decided to check in at the airport earlier than usual, since I had some last-minute shopping to do.

3-Food Review: Didn't have time to do much more than pack & check out. Didn't even have any meal on-board the flight. Just wasn't hungry all day. I was anticipating the home-made club sandwiches that my family's cook makes. They contain three slices of white bread, filled with cream cheese, fried eggs, chicken strips and lettuce. Simple but effective!
4-Travel review: Emirates is THE BEST! A hostess & bellboy welcomed me while I was still in the car, separate check-in lounge, smoothe-as-silk check in procedures, a couple of security checkpoints and I'm on my way shopping at the Dubai Duty-Free, all within 20 minutes of getting out of the car, and that's with other travellers in various queues before me!

5-Reflections of the Day: Nice to be back home. Ever notice that the color palates used at Kuwait Airport suspiciously include Pink?? Who else, but a complete poof would regard Pink as a viable corporate color?? Thankfully, I noticed that the logo on Kuwait Airport's Control Tower is now colored Blue...WAY much better!!

1 comment:

muscati said...

Ah, you were traveling in the front of the plane. That's why you love Emirates. I was like you too until I traveled once on in Economy and my God do they suck. They treat you like dirt. I've actually heard one of their stewardesses tell a passenger that she shouldn't be asking for stuff because she's traveling in coach.

After that experience I chose to never travel Emirates again, even if I was traveling Business or First. (OK, on my last trip to Dubai for a conference I went on Emirates business class, but I couldn't control that since the bank arranged it).