"So, how was Dubai?"

Dubai was great!! Here is the day-by-day account, with lots of pictures. (Most of the pictures will get bigger if you click on them):

21.Oct.2006

Unfortunately, Mike spent our first day in Dubai battling illness. Fortunately, he got to be sick in a very lovely hotel room, and I spared him from shoe shopping with me. (Shoe shopping with me can make even a healthy person very ill. On this trip, however, I picked out a nice pair of tan sandals in record time - about 30 minutes.) After I returned from shopping, Mike felt well enough to have dinner by the rooftop pool at our hotel (The Movenpick). We also went for a swim. Very nice.



22.Oct.2006

We had a lovely breakfast at the hotel. I wanted to take pictures of the buffet, with the baskets full of bread, the towers of fruit, etc., but Mike said I shouldn't take pictures of people eating breakfast. He also said he realized that, for me, "it's not where we go - it's what you eat when you get there." Amen.
After breakfast, we walked to Creek Park - a very large public park that reminded me a bit of Central Park in New York. It was so nice to get to see so much grass all in one place.

The views across the Creek were also very nice.

One area called the "desert garden" reminded me of Arizona because it had a saguaro and several other cacti. We also saw a bird that looked like a parrot - it was drinking out of a grate.

After the park, we went shopping. Then we went golfing at the par-3 night course at Dubai Creek Golf Club. It was absolutely beautiful. The climate and setting was perfect.

After golf, we had dinner at the Boardwalk restaurant - we sat at a table outside that was right by Dubai creek, and watched boats go by as we ate. A lovely night.

23.Oct.2006

Today we went to Jumeirah Beach Park - a public beach in Dubai. The water in the picture is the Persian Gulf (the Arabian Gulf). If you kept swimming straight out, you would eventually hit Kuwait. Mike is the white guy in the middle of this picture (you can only see his head sticking out of the water).

We started taking turns swimming after people came and sat in our chairs the first time we ventured into the water. When I went swimming by myself, men would start talking to me and one guy asked me if I was by myself. When I said no, he said "darn." I also got stared at a lot. It was kind of weird. [Note: I (Mike) told Sara that when that happens it's called "flirting", and that most women are actually flattered by the attention that men give them. She still didn't understand. Then she said I looked like Magnum PI in this next picture - she told me that was supposed to be a compliment. I still didn't understand.]

When we drove home from the beach, we passed a lot of the new construction areas. One out of six of the world's cranes are in Dubai. Pictured on the right is the construction of the Burj Dubai, which will be the tallest building in the world when construction is completed.

24.Oct.2006

Today we went on a desert safari. We rode with an experienced driver and a family of three out into the desert in a Toyota LandCruiser. Then our driver took us "dune bashing" - driving over sand dunes, driving on the sides of dunes, and kicking up sand so high it would go over the whole windshield. I got to sit in the front because I was sure I would get sick. I didn't. It was so fun. [On that note, I (Mike) had to sit in the "boot" as a compromise for Sara sitting in the front. I still have bruises, but it was totally worth it.]

On the way to the "desert camp," we stopped at a camel farm where I got to pet a camel and see them up close. That was really fun. Their feet are huge! Then when we arrived at the camp, we got to go on a thirty-second camel ride.

The activities at the desert camp included sandboarding (that's me in the picture), henna painting (a traditional Arabic thing to do - and very fun, because you get a temporary tattoo for about 3 weeks), and shisha smoking (which Mike likes, and I don't like - I did try it, but the tiniest little bit made my lungs hurt). [I (Mike again) wouldn't say that Sara "tried" sheesha as much as I would say that she "lamented" it.]

We ate a wonderful Arabic barbecue meal at the desert camp, and then on the way home we had a rousing discussion with our Pakistani driver named Zada. [Zada overheard the other passengers asking me (Mike) about George W. Bush, which prompted him to add his two cents (and then some). After going on, sometimes unintelligably, about his political views, Zada made a poignant comment. He said that he believed that President Bush will always be safe in Washington without threat against his life - he also said that Osama Bin Laden will always be safe in his hiding place without any legitimate threat against his life. Zada's conclusion was that "they are safe over there, and they are safe over here, but I lose you, and you lose me." He was commenting on his sadness about the personal effects of war that strike the hardest on the average citizens rather than the ruling elite. Zada then shook my hand, gave me a hug, and said, "tell the Americans what we are really like here. Tell them we want peace just like they do." I then told the other people in the car that they are lucky we had arrived at our stop, because next I was going to ask Zada about Israel - they all glared at me and then broke out laughing.]

25.Oct.2006

This was Mike's favorite day, so he gets to do the account of it:

The early part of our day was occupied with shopping in the Karama Shopping Area. "Karama" loosely translates from Arabic into English as "place where many guys come up to you and try to sell you pirated DVDs, knock-off fashion accessories, and 'designer' clothing." At least that was my understanding of it. These salesmen take you into a small shop, where they press a button that releases a hidden door, which leads through a narrow corridor to some rickety stairs, under a few ceiling beams, and into an entirely different upstairs shop that lacks any windows or outside entrances/exits. The great part about all of these shops is that the salesmen always ask you where you are from, then say, "because you are from _____, I give you good price." We had a fun morning, but obviously took no pictures.

The photo below is of Sara standing at the textile Souk. This was the next stop of our day. The Souk was packed with inexpensive fabrics of all sorts, as well as clothing shops, tailoring shops, and the like. It's an experience just to walk through the Souk, which is part of "old Dubai", to get a feel for the traditional culture.

From the Souk, we walked to Dubai Creek, which runs through the middle of the city. Here we took an abra (water taxi) across the creek to the wharf/shipping area. You can see pictures of the creek and the abras below. The abra ride afforded some great views of the city and its buildings, especially as the sun was dipping lower in the sky.

We disembarked from the abra right into the hub of Dubai's shipping industry. The wharf was packed with ships that made you wonder if they are actually sea worthy. There were boxes, palates, bags, and every other imaginable type of container holding cargo bound for all over the Middle East, North Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world. The white bags pictured below are full of peanuts, and the brown boxes are full of noodles. We engaged a worker in conversation, and he gave us permission to climb into his boat.

Below is a picture of the cabin of the boat, where all the workers eat and sleep during the voyage, and a picture of Sara standing in the boat. Sara provided the entertainment for the boat's crew by trying to scale the wooden ladder into the boat while wearing a skirt and sandals. I provided my own entertainment for the crew as I played the role of "funny, bald, white man with a digital camera". I took pictures of everything.

One of the unique parts of our boat visit was afternoon tea. Since it was late afternoon, all of the boat's crew had settled down for their "tea break". In accordance with Arab hospitality, the crew offered Sara and me some tea. One of the crew handed me the cup he had just been drinking from, and, in accordance with accepting Arab hospitality, I began to drink. Sara was offered a "clean" cup that came from a plastic container filled with water, sand, and various insects. And, for one brief moment, hell froze over as Sara began sipping tea from a less than sanitary beverage container. (She said later that she observed this same phenomenon in Venezuela, so was quite less surprised than I was at the lack of sanitary conditions). So, we sipped tea and spoke in broken English with a bunch of sailors - it definitely made my day, and I'm guessing it made their day, too - especially when Sara almost lost her sandal in the creek as she was trying to climb out of the boat without flashing everyone.

We ended the evening with a walk through more of Dubai's many downtown souks. Below is a picture of Sara standing in front of a store that sells spices and other food.

As we cruised back across Dubai Creek in the abra, we could hear the call to prayer begin to sound. Below is a picture of the Grand Mosque. This picture is significant for a few reasons. Just above the Mosque, you can observe a crescent moon, which is a significant symbol in Islam. Since the Islamic world uses a lunar calendar, the end of the Holy Month of Ramadan is marked by the appearance of a crescent moon. Also, this picture looks really cool, and that's worth something.

This is Sara again:

After our walk along the water, we took a taxi to the Emirates Towers - currently the tallest buildings in Dubai, and probably the most recognizable from skyline pictures (although we don't have a picture - sorry). We had drinks in the bar at the top of one of the towers, and looked out over Dubai and the water at night. It was really neat, and a good way to wrap up our visit.

So, there you have it. Our trip to Dubai was really fun! We would love to go back sometime.

dubai info

On Saturday we are going to Dubai for a 5-day holiday. I have been reading some fascinating things about current building projects underway in Dubai, and thought I would post some of them:

Note: The last picture is real - the others are artists' renditions, since the projects are not yet complete. The "sail" building in the last picture is the Burj Al Arab - currently the world's tallest hotel. We're not staying there, but we are going to try to visit. I guess it's pretty amazing.

Cricket - the most exciting game ever!

Here are some pictures of Mike's cricket team, and Mike himself after batting in a cricket game this past weekend. In a recent discussion about the game, I believe Mike said "Cricket is about as exciting as watching paint dry." I went to cheer for his team this past weekend and found myself hoping for somebody, anybody, to get out so that the game would speed up. An official game can take days - thankfully Mike's team was able to pull out a win in a matter of about 3 and a half hours. The last 10 minutes were actually very exciting. Really.

A typical day in Bahrain

A few of you asked what a typical day in Bahrain looks like for us. Mike posted his very entertaining response yesterday, while I typed up the entirety of my thoughts before publishing them - and now here they are. Here is a typical day for us (it's very long - if you make it through the whole thing, I applaud you...) -

- wake up around 5:10 a.m. (or 5:20, or 5:30 at the latest)

- keep on the lookout for cockroaches as we go into the kitchen to eat breakfast (we have had a bit of a cockroach problem here - we've probably seen about 25 of them in our kitchen over 6 weeks. They are not big (about an inch long), but are quite gross. We've had our place sprayed three times now, and (knock on wood) we haven't seen a cockroach since the last time the people sprayed - about a week ago. After spraying and disposing of any of the little guys, we usually eat breakfast very quickly (at least I do), so we are not the last ones on the bus.

- catch the bus to school around 6:15 (we ride the bus with a bunch of our colleagues - it is the transportation that's provided by our school). We would like to get a car soon, but are glad to have the bus for now.

- arrive at school at about 6:50 a.m. It takes a long time to get to school because of traffic - there are soooo many cars here, and poorly planned intersections. Also, our school is one of about 4 in the same area - including a university. The civil engineers who came up with that make me wonder...

- teach (in English, to Arabic-/English-speaking kids) 4-5 classes each day, from 7:10 a.m. until 2:10 p.m. The day goes quickly because we only have two 20-minute breaks, rather than a longer lunch break. The good thing is that we have two planning periods each day. We both teach very demanding courses that require several hours each day of planning/preparation/studying, so those planning periods are really helpful. The students that we teach are very nice, and very impulsive. They tend to say whatever they want, whenver they want, without really thinking about if that would be disruptive or not. They are extremely chatty. This can be a challenge to deal with - Mike and I are both working hard at getting them to raise their hands and to not blurt things out. They are learning, slowly but surely. The students are also very good at coming to class prepared, having homework done, etc., so that is really nice. They all bring their books, they all do the warmup problems, and I'll usually only have one or two kids a week who have an incomplete homework. They are very hard workers, and ask a lot of questions. They are energetic and fun. Also, their English is perfect, as they have been learning to read/write/speak in English from about 3 years of age. One of our jokes about them is that they do not use contractions, and they enunciate very clearly ("I would like to see number twen-tee"). We think that is fun.

- The bus picks us up from school around 3:30, and we usually get home by 4:00 p.m. Sometimes I stay late to try to get more work done, but other times I will take work home. Some evenings I spend 2-3 hours on math work, and Mike often spends time as well working on his curriculum. I have to do lots of math problems every night in order to stay ahead of the kids. Half of what I'm teaching is stuff that I haven't taught before, so I have to spend a lot of time recollecting what I learned in college (7 years ago!!), and then figuring out how to explain it well to high school students. Also, I get very nervous in front of the class when they ask me questions on their homeworks (for the higher level year 11 and year 12 students), so I try to do the homeworks on my own at night so that I can answer their questions the next day.

- Aside from working in the evenings, we often do some form of exercise. I am running about three days a week, and Mike plays a lot of afterschool sports with our colleauges (soccer is his favorite - they also play basketball and hockey, and sometimes cricket). It is very hot and is humid about every other day right now, so I have been trying to gain back my running endurance that I had when we moved. I am finally starting to get acclimated, and am now able to run farther/faster than when we got here. It is a nice feeling. More on running: Every Thursday afternoon, the Bahrain Road Runners club has a race (3K,5K,8K, so far). There are usually about 30-40 people there, and everybody is very nice. They all like Mike and me, and are always encouraging us. One guy, Hussain, tells me every week that we will keep getting better as we keep training in this climate, and as we keep training in general. He is super nice.

- Some nights we go to the Brit Club to work out in the gym there or to sit by the pool or swim. The Brit Club is a social/sport club where they have a couple of restaurants and a couple of bars/smoking rooms/soccer-watching rooms, as well as nice athletic facilities. Mike and I got memberships for the year. It is about a 10-minute walk from our flat, so that is nice. They have a very large, very nice pool outside, with lots of lounge chairs and people who will bring you food/drink, so that is really fun. I have only done the pool thing twice so far, but Mike has been several times - it is very relaxing. There is also a cute orange cat that wanders around the area, and sometimes sits in the lounge chairs. Mike and I have named him orangey. ...There are lots of cats here, and they are all homeless. We see them hanging out in and around garbage cans all the time, because that's how they eat. Some of them are very small and sickly-looking, so I get sad sometimes when we see them. I bought a little box of dried cat food, and sometimes take a baggie with me when we walk to the grocery store, so that I can feed some of them. They are wary of people, so I usually just dump some food by the garbage can and then hope that they come eat it later. I am attempting to "make friends" with the cat near the garbage cans closest to our flat, but it doesn't seem to be working very well.

- Another night activity, of course, is making dinner or ordering dinner. It's super cheap to order food, and everybody delivers - a huge dinner (with enough left-overs for lunch the next day) costs about $5-$11, depending on where we order from. So far, we have ordered more food than we've cooked. We are trying to cook more, though, and have made a few lovely meals. One notable meal was pasta with white sauce and parmesan cheese on top, with broccoli on the side. It was notable because white sauce is hard to find (there was only one kind at the store, and now there isn't any), and the canister of asiago/romano/parmesan cheese mix that we bought cost about 6-8 dollars, I think. It was a special treat, so we decided it was worth it. Food is actually not very hard to get here, depending on what you're looking for. The imported food can be expensive (Frosted Mini Wheats ($5-6 a box), Driscoll raspberries ($8 for about 20-30 berries in a tiny container), a block of Kraft cheddar cheese ($8-9)), but there are often local brands that are good prices. Bread is very inexpensive, and there are a lot of really good kinds to choose from. Some kinds of produce, like bananas and cucumbers and carrots, are also quite cheap. Most other things cost about the same as in the States.

- The other thing that I like to do in our free time is walk places. We live in a city, so there are a lot of cars and everything is always very busy. It's kind of nice just to get out and watch things/people go by. It is also very safe here, so going out after dark, even by myself, is never scary. It is a 10-minute walk to the grocery store or to the Starbucks next to the grocery store, and is only about 5 minutes farther to a string of shops and restaurants. Starbucks is a special treat (I think I have had it 4 times since we got here), because it is a bit more expensive than in the States (about $5 for a tall frappucino). It's funny, though, because when you go inside, you feel like you could be anywhere in the world. The decor/music/colors/smells are all just like Starbucks at home. It is nice sometimes to have something comfortable and familiar like that. (Wow, I am certainly part of a target market, I think).

- After doing any of the above evening activities, we usually go to bed about 10:30 p.m., after I check the bed for cockroaches, which really bugs Mike (no pun intended) :-)

And that is a typical day at the Kopp household in Bahrain. Pretty much what you would expect, right?

"So . . . . What do you guys do?"

One of the questions we frequently get is "what do you guys do?" and "what is life like in Bahrain?" The answer to those questions is probably about the same as it would be if you answered them yourselves. Bahrain just seems more "exotic" because there aren't as many white, Protestant, English-speakers here. However, in spite of the fact that we work, play sports, go out to dinner, etc. just like we did in Spokane, we do all of this stuff in a different setting. So I guess the other part of the answer to the above two questions is that everything is totally different for us. Cryptic. Anyway, one of our favorite activities right now is walking everywhere - since we don't have a car. The picture to the right is the Grand Mosque (lighted up) as observed on an evening walk along the water-front. We also enjoy seeing how low of a price we can offer to pay a taxi and still have the driver let us get in the car.
Many people have asked us about cultural activities in Bahrain. Since we spend the majority of our time at work during the week and a majority of our leisure time with other expat, we have not exactly lived up-close and personal with the local culture. However, one of the fun cultural events we attended was the Bayan School's Ghabga. The Ghabga is basically a school-wide party where all the students wear traditional arab clothes, dance to arabic music, get henna tattoos, and eat food. It was a great experience. Other "cultural" activities include learning to call soccer "football" and learning how to play cricket. Incidentally, it's not as much like baseball as you might think. And, of course, one of our favorite cultural activities is eating food that we've never heard of! Another cultural activity involves smoking flavored tobacco out of a water pipe (sheesha, or houka, depending on who you ask) - and since Sara's not standing here right now, I can say that it is pretty fun.

The following are a couple of pictures from the Ghabga. The first is us with a co-worker, Bob (middle) and one of Mike's students, Mohammed (right). The second photo is Sara with a lot of her students.

Monsoon restaurant pictures (continued) - 28.sept.2006

Me and Mike outside the restaurant by a big stone elephant.


















Ice Cream after dinner (Mary Ann, Louise, Mike, Ed, Me).

Monsoon restaurant - 28.sept.2006

Marge (our Australian friend who teaches art in the primary school) and me. We both ordered Pad Thai, and I had a wonderful Thai Iced Tea.

Mary Ann (journalism teacher for high school - she's from Houston, and the Phillippines before that) and Robert (Marge's husband, who is the dean of students for the elementary school).

Louise (from England - the high school drama teacher) and Jemma (from New Zealand - a primary school teacher).

Me and Mike.

A beautiful centerpiece in the middle of the restaurant.