Friday, January 16, 2009

Fruits of the Sea and Apples of the Earth!

Location: Dubai International Airport
Currently Listening: Daily Routine by Animal Collective
Weather: 63F Partly Cloudy 

I'm sitting around in the airport....for a SEVEN HOUR LAYOVER. Oh God, not again! So that means I'm not really enjoying the warmer weather. I'm all cuddled up in my peacoat in the freezing airport. I will be in the sun soon enough. Apparently it's in the nineties in Mumbai. I am way too excited for the wedding. I have never been to a wedding in India!! I wish my sisters were coming.

Fun Finds in the United Arab Emirates

1) A Lindt chocolatier has a permanent stand where you can watch him make chocolates. I nearly drooled at the sight of churning the melted chocolate. If that wasn't heaven enough, I had a little taste of some of the dark chocolate. Cheered me up quite a bit!

2) Best hummus known to mankind. I got here at what 6:30AM? Thank you, Dad! And I'm here till 1:20pm. Good Lord! Anyway starved out of my mind, but of course the dollar sucks and every food item was like what the heck expensive. After walking around for a few hours I finally found some hummus and toasted italian bread for 13 Dirhams!!!! That's about $3.50. Boy, was it fantastic, and the paprika was the most beautiful red I've ever seen. I also walked by some Spanish saffron in a duty-free shop that was nearly intoxicating. 

3) Emirates Airlines has over 200 movies to choose from on their airplanes in Economy. What the heck? American Airlines, you need to step it upppp. 

4) In the airport bathrooms I found a little surprise near the toilet. A spray faucet. In case your bum is missing the comforts of Charmin, feel free to use the hand held spray faucet. I guess that's better than the water buckets they use in India. Good thing I packed Charmin-To-Go!

So I got my first ounce of being homesick. . France really isn't the place to be if you don't speak French. Don't expect any police officer, information desk worker, or really anyone to know English. It was a disaster trying to figure out if I had boarded the right train (the trains are much more confusing then the Metro - I can handle the Metro). Getting on the wrong train is no good 'cause you can't just get off and pick up another 2 seconds later going back to where you came from. The trains hit the suburbs and go off into the darkness outside the city. As far as struggling with no one knowing even a little bit of English, I have travelled to many countries and never encountered such difficulty. I know I shouldn't expect the public to, but really can't the Information desk in a main train station or airport know a word or two!? I guess when I go to India there are places where no one knows English, but I know plenty of Hindi to survive. Honestly, I wanted to go to a Spanish-speaking country, but I didn't feel ready to take market coursework in spanish, which was they only option. I am practicing French every day now though. I hope I can stuff whatever I read in my phrasebook in my head well enough for recall. I am also trying to take an extra class in French on top of my regular schedule, which actually got changed up considerably. ESCP offers a lot of team and individual sports. I think I might pick up fencing, yoga or whatever "rock" dancing entails. .. 

Tuesday:
Marketing Communication
Brand Management

Thursday:
International Business Management
Does the European construction lead to a European Model?

Friday:
(Hopefully) French for Beginners




What-the-French! (I plan to make this a regular column like Fun Finds)
I was reading a menu the other day and was remarkably confused by the crepe selection. Tip: Fruits de la mer ... I interpreted this as fruits of the sea, but I'll have you know this is NOT tropical fruit. It's seafood! Haha, what a disaster. I also started to get confused because I noticed "pommes" was used interchangeably for both apples and potatoes. Fun fact: "Pommes" means apples, and to say potatoes, you say "pommes de la tierre." Apples of the Earth.


5 comments:

Rachel said...

Haha fruit of the sea, just like chicken of the sea! Is it fruit or is it tuna? :) Oh Jessica Simpson..

I'm jealous of your crepe intake, seriously cant WAIT to get to paris and gobble some down!!

traveler's pen said...

Hahah I love Jessica Simpson.

Haha I only had crepes the one timeee. I need to look in a swimsuit in Greece. Good thing you've got that one in the bag.

harvey said...

i love me some animal collective.

traveler's pen said...

ryan! your blogs are empty. haha.

traveler's pen said...

p.s. help your mom make a blogger account so she can leave comments when she reads my blog