JFK International and Beyond

I appologize for this late installment in my story but I was out of town again. That is fodder for another blog.

So the big silver bird that carried me in extreme comfort half way around the world in a few more hours than a normal workday touches down at JFK International Airport. Technology is great!

I thought that I would experience a wave of emotion upon setting foot in my Homeland after 7 months away but I didn't and that surprised me. Just another trip and just another airport, I guess I am getting jaded to it all which is fine by me. Or maybe I was just tired.

I walked out of the jetway into the big international Terminal 4 and was surprised how empty it looked for a weekday morning. In the past, this place would have been buzzzing with the movers and shakers of the world travelling to do their out-of-town deals. Another symptom of the bad economy in the U.S.

Immigrations and Customs were a breeze (due in part to the lack of passengers). I had to make my way to Terminal 3 which is one of the terminals Delta Airlines flies out of. I got there in a few minutes and settled in to wait for two hours for my flight to Atlanta. I sat across from a couple who appeared to be well-to-do in their mid-sixties. I don't think they said a word to each other or made eye contact the whole time. She kept fiddling with a book I doubt she was seriously reading and he kept getting up and wandering around for a few minutes and then sitting back down. They looked miserable.

Finally, the boarding call to my flight and I got situated in my seat. The engines were started and we pushed back from the gate and taxied for what seemed like forever and stopped for awhile on an isolated ramp while several other planes taxied by. I think the Captain screwed up somehow and was being "punished" by the ground control folks in the tower. This happens alot at large airports. The flight crew misunderstands instructions or gets out of sequence and they are sent to a remote ramp "to think about what they did" much as a child being made to sit in a corner after misbehaving. At Chicago O'Hare, these are actually called Penalty Boxes and are labelled as such on the official FAA airport diagrams that pilots carry around. Chicagoans are big ice hockey fans.

After 15 minutes, the JFK ground controllers decided to grant our flight a pardon for "time served" and let us start rolling again into the queue. Soon we were in the air with an astonishing view of Manhattan, I never get tired of looking at that skyline, but there will now always be something missing from it if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

Those of you who fly internationally must notice the difference in levels of service between foreign and domestic U.S. airlines. One tends to get much better treatment on let's say Lufthansa between Amsterdam and Frankfurt (I have done that leg) than you would on a U.S. airline between New York and Atlanta. All the airlines throughout the world are facing a tough situation, but why can I get a smiling flight attendent, free drinks, a free meal and free checked bags in coach on Lufthansa when Delta charges me $7 for a can of beer, no food and grouchy flight attendents that treat me as an intrusion in their day on basically the same distance flight? In JFK, Delta wanted to charge me $15 to check a ratty gym bag that wasn't even worth that much but relentented when I told them I arrived from overseas. I don't want to pick on Delta as most other domestic U.S. airlines are the same way.

So I get to Atlanta Airport and endure another 2 hour wait at that hellhole with the help of a few big lagers at the bar. This airport is always stuffy, crowded and too big. In fact, I understand it has more flights than any other airport in the States. There is a saying that when you die, you have to connect to heaven (or the other place) through ATL.

So now I am on the flight to my final destination, Fort Walton Beach, Florida (VPS). It is a short one hour flight where I will find my loving mother waiting for me at the arrival gates there. Despite my extreme fatigue and the fact that the Atlanta beers are wearing off, I am getting excited to see her and my childhood home, the "Redneck Riviera". Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Next: Family, good friends, sun, sand, palm trees, raw oysters and snow!

Back to the U.S.A.

In one of my last posts, I said I would be taking some time off and would be going back to the States for the first time since my relocation here in Abu Dhabi. Well I did and I am back and am here to tell you about it.

My flight from Abu Dhabi didn't leave until 2A.M. local time and I had the entire day to spend packing and getting documents ready for the trip. I finished early and was sitting around the apartment-bored-when the beer godesses started calling me. I figured "what would be the harm" and popped my first Amstel Tall Boy. Well one led to another and when I was ready to get to the airport at around 11:30 P.M., I was feeling no pain. 

One of the worries was how to get to the airport. I live closer to the airport than the city so cabs are either feast or famine out here. I dragged my suitcases don the elevator and into the parking lot next to the road where I hoped a cab would pass by in the next 15 minutes. Chances are that I could have been there for an hour or more, but as luck would have it, one of the old white and gold Abu Dhabi cabs stopped by within a few minutes. 

So I loaded my bags into the trunk and settled into the cheap plastic-covered back seat of the ancient Toyota. It didn't smell TOO bad and I was so happy to get to the airport ahead of schedule, I gave the Pakistani driver a HUGE tip. 

Out come the bags and into the "quaint" Abu Dhabi Terminal 1. A porter approaches me and I agree to let him handle my luggage, but there seems to be confusion at the check-in counters and he holds me back until some words were exchanged in some language I didn't understand with an Official and soon I was at the front of some line. He got a huge gratuity, too.

Check-in went without a hitch and I bid farewell to my courageous porter. Then the quest was to get to the bar for a cold frosty as the others were wearing off rapidly. In Abu Dhabi Terminal 1 there is only one place to do this---The Piano Bar. It is hard to find with only a small sign at the top of a semi-spiral staicase leading down 12 feet or so, you would walk right past it if you didn't know where to look. At the bottom of the stairs, the room opens up and there is perhaps 8 barstools in a 20X20 room that could have been a boiler room in a more restrictive time. I don't recall seeing a piano but the bar overlooks a downstairs promenade with duty-free shops on either side. Quite entertaining. I am amused easily.

So, happy to find a seat at the small bar, I bought a Heineken and relaxed knowing I had plenty of time to get through security and to my flight. After about halfway through my beer, a guy sat next to me and we began to chat. I found out he was a Kuwaiti and he found out I was an American and when my beer was getting low, he offered to buy me another. I told him that was unnecessary but he insisted as he said felt indebted to the people who helped reclaim his country from the brutal invasion they suffered from Saddam's Iraqi Army in the First War. I told him that althought I was in the U.S. Navy at one time, I had no participation in that conflict. He said he didn't care and that he and his fellow citizens will always remember the sacrifices of the Americans and other coalition forces in behalf of his country. I was touched at how grateful and sincere he was. I don't care how cynical one is, it was a proud moment for me.

Then it was off to the plane with no drama at the security checkpoints (which I always dread). I boarded and was instantly comfortable in a biz class seat and champaign in my hand before takeoff.  After liftoff, I had a good Arabic Style meal and a few glasses of wine and fell promptly asleep. I woke up over the North Atlantic to a beautiful sunrise and had to take a "biology break". I went to the lav and when I went inside to do my business I noticed that in this particular aircraft, there was a window in the small lav, right over the  toilet. What got me was that as like all windows in the passenger section, it had a pull-down shade and it was closed. So I opened it to get some sunlight in an effort improve my mood and to help my aim. 

My point of this story is that I went to the lav in that plane at least three more times (It was a 14 hr flight) and every time I went in there the window shade was drawn down and every time I went in there I pulled it back up. Now who are these people that are so paranoid that they think that someone on the ground or someone up there in the RVSM altitudes would see their genitals at 40.000FT ? People are strange. And why are they embarassed peeing with an A340-500 window shade open in the lav at FL400?

More to come about my time in the States!

New Toy

I bought a new camera yesterday. I came to the realization that even the new mobile phones have more capabilities than my three year old 3.2 Megapixel, 4X zoom camera. As I am in such a target-rich environment for interesting photos and I am planning to travel more extensively in Europe and Asia this year, it made sense to upgrade.

I did a lot of research on mid-range cameras (that's half the fun!). I wanted one with a powerful zoom, relatively small size and Automatic features with the option for manual controls, all for under $500. I did not want a pure point and shoot nor did I want to return to my SLR days of lugging around a bunch of specialty lenses. A jack of all trades is what I needed. I am partial to Canons as my previous three cameras were that brand and ownership has been trouble-free so I concentrated on the Canon line.  

I had kind of settled on the Canon SX110 IS but a fellow blogger, Dave suggested that I look at the SX10 IS. That was a good tip as the latter has twice the auto-zoom (20X) of the former and a few more features that would be valuable to me. It was not too much extra money, either. The more I looked into it, the more I liked it. A solid camera with room for me to grow into. Decision made! By the way, Dave has a very good blog with excellent photos of the Abu Dhabi area. Click on the "From My Eyes to Yours" link in my blog list or:

 http://dwyllie.blogspot.com/

 

So I brought the SX10 IS home, popped a cold one and started to get acquainted with my new toy. The IS stands for Image Stabilization which is important with such a long zoom. It has a lot of other bells and whistles too as is characteristic of almost any high-tech gadget these days. In fact, the shear number of features is initially mind numbing for me. Look at (or click to enlarge) the above scan of page 49 in the User's Manual and you will see a complex amount of symbols, lines, charts, arrows, notes and descriptions. This page only describes the viewfinder functions! There are 287 other pages in the manual that look similar and they make a Boeing 777 flight manual look like a child's schoolbook. 

So as you might have guessed, you will see more interesting photos on the blog. They will be added gradually as I progress past the "Turning the Camera ON/OFF" chapter in the manual. That in itself may take a few days!

The Haircut-Epilogue

Now where was I?....oh yes, I was walking up the stairs of this Men's Saloon uncertain what I would find up there. The ground floor was certainly unfinished and barren. All that was missing was a "Pardon Our Dust" sign. You never see these types of  signs over here even though EVERYTHING is under construction and there is plenty of dust to go around even if there was no construction happening. Back in America, those signs seem to be polite but I don't think the sentiment is really sincere. It's too much like one of those sappy Hallmark cards.

Anyway, when I got to the top of the stairs, I was pleasantly surprised. There were 3 or 4 Indian barbers standing around, and the the place looked like a normal barbershop. The most important thing is there was no no one waiting. I hate waiting! As much as I miss my barber in Utah, I sometimes had to wait up to an hour and a half to get a haircut depending on the time of day. That was really irritating but I put up with it because he did a good job and I didn't want to "break-in" a new one.

So, I did the scissors hand signal and the closest guy motioned for me toward his cubicle. And what a cubicle it was! There was a giant, classic barber chair that I like, the space had a sink and  large displays of hair products on the counter. It was very clean and even had curtains for privacy. An ashtray was thoughtfully provided (try THAT in the U.S.!) but I didn't partake. The icing on the cake was that there was a 32" LCD flat screen TV mounted over the mirror connected to a satellite receiver!

My fears gone, I sat in the chair and the barber commenced to tape my neck and drape me in the usual cloth thing as I leaned back and started enjoying some Clint Eastwood movie on the TV. The barber then asked me in broken English how I wanted my hair cut. This was the part I dreaded due to the language barrier. He asked "half?' and I just nodded. 

He took his time and seemed very detail oriented. Clippers, scissors and a dry shave around the hairline with a straight razor that concerned me a little. I had these before but with lather. The guy was definitely good as no blood was shed. When he was finished I had the mirror inspection and all was well. Then things turned to the unfamiliar.

He asked me if I wanted a head massage. I thought "why not? and agreed thinking that it would be just the rubbing of my temples and my scalp. Besides, I am always up for something new. So he started banging my cranium with the palms of his hands and would rub the sides of my head and make a loud clapping sound in between moves. This was cool, as it was relaxing and despite some of the more aggressive moves giving me momentary double vision, my sinuses were starting to loosen.

As I sat in the chair earlier during the actual haircut, I noticed big jars of goop on the counter near the sink. I recognised one of these products as cocoa butter but the other jars contained a multicolored substance with an Indian language label on it. I didn't think much of it until my barber grabbed on of these jars from the counter and opened it. Whoa Nellie, I thought the massage was over. Apparently not as this guy proceeded to dip handsful of the multicolored stuff and apply it to what was left of my hair. When that was done, same thing with the cocoa butter. Both had the consistency of SAE 90 axle grease but thankfully smelled better.

Ok, I was sitting there with all this crap on my head and the guy leaves the room. I sat there wondering what's next? To my horror, he returns with one of those big hair drying machines on wheels that has a clear plastic dome on top that you usually see the old, blue-haired ladies using to set their permanents. He lowers it over my head, sets it on HIGH and leaves the room again. Meanwhile, the goop starts to melt and after 10 minutes he comes back and turns it off just before the melted stuff on my head drips it's way down my neck and ruins my shirt.

It turns out well though, after the heat treatment he gave me a shampoo and almost all traces of the mystery muck was gone. He did a good job with the haircut and I gave him a generous tip but I don't think I will go the option of the head massage again. All in all, I spent almost 2 hours there and the final cost was 50 Dirhams or $13. Not bad in my book! 

Now I just have to figure out who to call or where to go if I get a sudden toothache or happen to break a bone. Nothing here is intuitional for the expat.

The Haircut, Part 1

One of the more uncomfortable things about moving to another country and culture is how and where to get personal services done. Ok, get your minds out of the gutter, I know where to get "THAT" done. I am talking about doctors, dentists, tax accountants, barbers and such.

About 3 months into my residency in Abu Dhabi, my sharp "First-Day-At-Work" haircut I got a few days before I left the States started to look a little shaggy.  If I was still in my small Utah town, I would have just gone to the local barber that I had been going to for the last 8 years. He was and Old School guy with an Old School shop. You know, the kind with a couple of those big hydraulic swivel chairs that the barber could pump up and down with a foot pedal. My barber had a classic chair with lots of shiny chrome details and was upholstered in glossy two-tone metalflake gold and ivory vinyl. It always reminded me of a 1950's hot-rod. The chair also had one of those large cast iron, doormat sized footrests. It was a masterpiece, Elvis himself would be proud to sit there!

While waiting for my haircut with the other guys, our conversations would always feature the newest bawdy jokes as well as debates about government, taxes, women and cars, not necessarily in that order. It was just like being at Floyd's Barber Shop in the Andy Griffith Show. Real Americana, and fun. Not to mention that my barber was a real professional who gave a perfect haircut for $8. He enjoyed his job.

 You can't find many of these places anymore. In my book they beat the hell out of the mini-mall "unisex" franchises that have the 20-something young girls who are recent beauty school graduates cutting hair. They are nice eye candy, but the random chance of a perky breast brushing against your arm as they do their work is not really worth the crappy haircut you inevitably walk out the door with.

Now that I was here in the Middle East and my previously tame follicles were winding their way over my ears and down the nape of my neck,  I desperately needed to find a professional to remedy the situation. Here they call anything to do with hair a "saloon". There are mens' saloons and ladies' saloons. Ladies' saloons outnumber the mens' saloons by at least 10 to 1 which is surprising as the Local women end up covering up the coif anyway with the traditional scarves when they go outside. Go figure?

I finally found a mens' saloon in a sort of Arabic strip mall 2 miles from my apartment and decided to take the plunge into cultural differences and risk my appearance for a few weeks with what could turn out to be a very visible disaster. I really had no choice. Imagine the difficulty in communicating just a simple "a little off the top and sides" or "make me look like Brad Pitt" to a person armed with sharp scissors and a straight razor who may not be so well versed in English!

I parked the Jeep outside the shop and walked through the door and saw that the ground floor looked like it still was under construction but a large red arrow on the wall pointed up the stairs. Not very confidence inspiring. It was quiet and empty in the place as I walked upstairs, I didn't know what I would find up there. Maybe it was a place only reserved for Locals who would be offended if a Westerner showed up. Maybe there were strange customs that had to be followed in getting a haircut in this part of the world. Incense and goat sacrifices crossed my mind. I had no clue, but I kept walking up those stairs. 

Note: I intended to keep this long story short (I know.....too late) but I will have to continue this report tomorrow. I am writing this after my 12 hour night shift and the sandman is rudely throwing grit in my eyes ...stay tuned!

 

Internetus Interruptus

My internet service went out the other day. Despite my resucitative attempts to reset the modem and the "mystery box" just inside my foyer where all wires lead, the patient remained unresponsive and comatose. My coworker/upstairs neighbor called and said his was out, too. Due to my getting used to the patchy level of services here, I assumed it was a systemic problem (maybe a laborer fixing something else cut a wire by mistake) I figured I would wait until the morning and check it again.

The next A.M., not enough of the little lights were lit on the modem so I knew the internet was still down. I planned to call Etisalat-the government phone monopoly-and get ready for a time consuming, frustrating and lengthy effort to get back online. Nothing happens easily here when it comes to utility problems.

My coworker beat me in making the trouble call and when I showed up at work, he pulled me aside and said that we had both been cut-off because of non-payment. That was a shock as I have never gotten a bill from them. I have written about this before and when I express my concern about long overdue invoices, everyone just tells me not to worry about it, I will get the bills in due time. It's just the way things are done here. Nothing bad will happen.

Well something bad did happen, they disconnected me! Etisalat had my mailing address, phone number, and email and did not use any of these avenues to inform me in advance that they now considered me a bad customer and will cut me off. If they would have contacted me, I would have gladly paid the amount and saved us all a lot of grief. As it was my fellow, now also deadbeat, co-worker generously volunteered to go downtown and pay the arrears for both of us. Service was resored that night.

What business sense does it make for a company to provide a service, never bill the customers and then cut the service abruptly and without warning when they don't get a check in the mail? What the hell did they expect? Every other place where I transact, I am presented with some sort of invoice for goods or services rendered whether it be a restaurant or hardware store. I assumed that the bills would eventually come after they wound their way through the bureaucracy.

What concerns me is that I haven't received an electric bill  either. So I have to find out who I owe money to for that and figure out how much I owe and then research how to pay them before I wake up in a dark apartment early one morning with no hot water and food rotting in the refrigerator. 

On another note, it was 33 degrees C. here this afternoon. That is almost 92F. for those metrically challenged folks. On February, 11th!!! I hope this doesn't portend a more than usual Hellish Summer.