Today marks my third full week in Dubai, and tonight is the first night I\’m not having some delectable combo of hummus, tabbouleh, baba ghanouj (called \”moutable\” here), olives, and the freshest, most heavenly pita bread imaginable for dinner. There is no food I love more than middle eastern, but back in the U.S., my budget\’s too tight to have this whole spread every night, so it\’s more often than not I opt for a good old turkey sandwich (with mayo and grey poupon, and spinach, if there is any). I think it\’s a sign I\’m settled in that the sliced turkey at Spinney\’s (supermarket outside my door) looked so appetizing tonight.
As I start this new paragraph, I fear I\’m violating some blogger etiquette already in my first entry (second if you count Sameer\’s aptly corny impersonation that is my intro). I am much obliged to him for gifting me the prime blog space you see now before you as well as the much-coveted by Jen Simons everywhere www.jensimon.com, which will motivate me to create a web presence distinguishing myself as THE *Jen Simon* (among far, far too many)! So now that I\’ve my acknowledgments out of the way, I shall apologize for my mixed up logic – this because I do intend to write about more substantial things than my dinner menu – AND for the lengthiness of this and probably every entry I will ever enter here. I may not write often, but when I do, it will be more than probably most will want to read. unless you really like me (or just my stories) as my Aunt Deb does. If you are not Aunt Deb, and you do read my streams of consciousness and tangential anecdotes, please let me know what you\’d like to know about via the handy little comment function at the end of each entry. I\’ll gladly take subject requests 🙂 I got a late start on this updates to the friends and fam thing… unlike on most of my previous adventures, I live in a city (no offense, Zhuji – you might be 10x the size of my hometown, but in China you\’re very rarely even mapworthy!) (and Kaka, you too – while I don\’t consider you as shitty as your name implies to anyone who knows a little Spanish, your only attraction is a manti restaurant and lots of dukanlar on every corner for me to buy Fanta). So Dubai is a city with too much luring me away from my computer. The ever-sunny skies and hot temps, miles of beaches, the sites and sounds, an art scene with shocking and provocative work like I\’ve never seen, the wild and the weird of a region bursting out of its britches while trying to maintain its culture and heritage…икони