We flew on Qatar Airways to Dubai early Thursday morning to attend GITEX. I think that stands for "Gulf IT Expo" or some such. It's a large trade show for the computer industry; in the States we have one called COMDEX. Qatar Airways was very nice, even though they use a bunch of French-made aircraft. We figured the airplanes would automatically run away from any trouble, though, so that was a plus. Dubai is a very large city...we figure Doha may be like it in another 15 years, but I hope the Qatar government can manage it properly. The people in Doha are friendlier than the folks in Dubai, and it has more of a "hometown" atmosphere. It would be a shame to lose that in the name of "progress."
The expo was in two parts, one downtown and the other close to the airport. The one downtown was an informational expo, geared toward professionals who wanted information on the various products etc. The one close to the airport was a huge market, and it got pretty crazy in there. Wall-to-wall people, thousands of them, everybody buying stuff left and right, noise like you wouldn't believe (every speaker in the place was cranked up full volume). "Understanding Arabs" says that Westerners walk around in a bubble of personal space, but Arabs don't...they get right in each other's faces to talk, touch each other a lot (you often see men walking holding hands or with their arm around the other), and our experience at the expo certainly brought that concept home for me. That will probably take more getting used to than anything, though the idea doesn't really bother me that much--it's just very different.
We ate at a cafe in a mall somewhere. I had a margherita pizza and a seafood salad, both of which were very good. Paid about $4 for a tube of chapstick (Neutrogena was all they had), but I had to get something for my lips before they started splitting apart. After all, I love my lips. :) I got to drive just a little, from the expo market back to the airport terminal. It was about like driving in Houston...lots of traffic, construction everywhere.
On the plane ride back, a Qatari in front of us got ticked off at a stewardess for some reason, and was giving all of them a tongue-lashing. We never could figure out exactly what she did to upset him, but he was pretty hot. It was pretty funny, in an annoying sort of way. I hope the stewardess didn't get into any trouble over it. Her coworkers were doing a pretty good job of keeping her out of the direct line of fire, anyway.
When we got back to the Doha airport, we were standing in line at the passport control area, and Danna noticed that the line next to us was empty...so she unclipped the rope thingy and went through. Tim did the same thing, and then Zach held the rope for the rest of us, and he went through last and clipped the rope back in place. One of the guards saw Zach, but apparently missed the rest of us, because he told Zach to get back in the other line. Then Zach had to go through all sorts of grief to get his re-entry visa processed. It was pretty funny.
At the expo, I bought a set of speakers. The small speakers look like 5x7 picture frames, and each one has a different Van Gogh print in it. They don't sound quite as good as the Altec Lansings I have at home, but they'll do, especially given their unique appearance. I moved the desk from the study up to the landing at the top of the stairs...there's space against the wall for the desk, it's out of the way of the door, and I can put the computer & speakers up there and hear them throughout the house. Plus, it cleared out the study so that it's more of a parlor, which will be nice to have--apparently Arabs are honored when you escort them to a parlor for visiting. We'll see how my bride likes it; we can always move it around later.
At church, there were three visitors from Baghdad...all U.S. soldiers, two women and one man. They were probably in their early twenties. The girls were both MPs, and the guy worked at the recruitment office for the new Iraqi army. They've been on a four-day r&r leave, and they said it's been the best four days of their whole stay in the middle east. They don't particularly like it in Baghdad...he said that the anti-new-government Iraqis shoot at the pro-new-government Iraqis on a daily basis, and the only good thing was that Iraqis are terrible shots. Give them a rock, though, and they can bean you in the head every time...he said he's had to stand outside doing crowd control (they had a 60,000 person mob the other day) and get hit in the helmet with rocks, and not be able to fire except for warning shots. The girls have it a little better; they have shotguns with rubber bullets, but they said that if you fire a round, you have to do five pages of paperwork per round to explain why you fired, who you fired on, what they had done, etc. ad nauseam. So, they basically try not to shoot anybody, even with rubber bullets. They make regular PR sorties through town, dispensing candy to the kids from their Humvee. They're all ready to get out of there. I told them that we appreciated what they were doing, and to hang in there. We invited them to lunch, but they had to go wash clothes and get ready to go back.
We ate lunch at a Turkish restaurant, and when they asked if we wanted to sit downstairs or upstairs, we said, "Uh, upstairs, I guess." That turned out to be a good thing, since upstairs was where they had the little rooms with couches and low tables. So, we got a fairly authentic Turkish experience. There was an Arab family up there, with several little kids (maybe their dad owns or runs the place) who periodically stepped into our little room to ask us our names, how we were doing, etc. just trying out their limited English. They were very cute. Their mother figured out what they were doing, and she was mortified. She was veiled, all except her eyes, but we got to talk to her just a little, enough for her to tell us that the children had been studying English for two years. I told them that they were doing very well in their English. I think their father disciplined all of them for bothering us, and then moved us to a little bit larger room. That was sort of a shame, since we were rather enjoying the kids. At least I was; I don't know about anyone else...none of the rest of them have kids. :)
As of late Friday evening, my bowels are in an uproar over the authentic Turkish experience. I think it was probably the stuffed grape leaves that did it, but it could have been the Turkish coffee. Looks like I'll be going easy on the local cuisine for a couple days...or at least not eating much Turkish food. :)
Posted by jon at October 24, 2003 01:12 PM