Carolime Time

small adventures in big places: Sharjah, Dubai, U.A.E

I’m finding it frightfully difficult to make time to write here, and find the time to sit down. I arrived in Sharjah, UAE, on Tuesday morning. I slept for the next 2 days, only waking early in the evening. The 9hr time difference definitely hit me hard and my jetlag had me disconcerted. I’m surprised and pleased that no medication or mutating internal time bomb has been created to cure jetlag. Pardon the imagination, I’m just on a bit of a Dubai conspiracy trip. There’s really nothing to it. It’s just the fact that this country, the UAE, has been masterfully organized and structured.

Each time I visit, I spend the first few days considering moving here. It would make sense. My two brothers live here year-round, I have more than a handful of friends and family friends, and my godparents are a welcoming, warm stand-in for local parents.  I have some job options, too. I’m tempted to look into them this week, but this is amid responses from friends such as, “I could never imagine you in Dubai, I am certain this country would kill your soul” and, “Don’t move here.”

Wow, huh.  So my first few days are always spent sorta enjoying the change in scenery, the sort of people I encounter, and my sensitivity to another style of living. But there comes a point where it all slips and it’s not that I don’t LIKE the country, I just get edgy and feel a sense of helplessness come over me. I’ll have to investigate it further.

At the same time, there is a lot of inspiration here for me in the writing of a neverending story. So much imagery, and I think I could benefit creatively, surprisingly, from this society that is the complete opposite to the undisciplined hullabaloo that is my Canadian life.

Anyway, my friend’s wedding has passed. It was fantastic!!! I think I was talking and dancing so much that I forgot to eat! Well, I know I ate a little bit. I always get very sentimental at weddings and this was no exception. Luckily it was just the reception and not an event involving heavy speeches and toasts. Otherwise I’d have definitely ruined my makeup!

My voice is gone, and I felt quite ill yesterday. It’s from all this drinking, I can’t handle alcohol two days in a row, let alone three.  But it’s in good fun.

My Lebanon plans are not taking form easily. It’s so frustrating, as all my family and friends are on my back not to go. Apparently I’m being very silly with the whole idea, according to my older brother and parents. I know others feel the same. What can I do? I am dying to go to Beirut and see the city and its surrounding mountains.

Lebanon has stated it has no involvement in the current Gaza incursions, and it will only respond to Israel’s attacks–which will not happen since their hands are currently full with Gaza. Not only that, but a Hamas spokesperson said that none of Hamas’  battles will be fought on other Arab soil right now, and it is trying to keep it in Gaza but is not surprised by the reactions of other Palestinian groups in surrounding Arab countries. I really don’t see anything else happening, and the friends I’ve asked from Middle Eastern media think that a trip to Lebanon right now is not a bad idea. sigh.

* I don’t know what to do*…and so, I will go ramble around town, maybe shop, maybe sit at a restaurant or cafe, take my book, and hope something clicks together in my mind.