Dubai day 2

Just a warning, this post has nothing to do with running. But my training this morning was cancelled, so I have a few extra minutes and I want to document this, if only for myself.

Yesterday was a long day at the hospital, 8:30-6, but actually pretty interesting. We went on a tour of the entire facility, and then the afternoon was meetings. But, luckily most of the meeting pertained to my module so I got to speak enough to keep myself awake. I was amazed at how receptive everyone is to my input. Basically the MT USA is like God to them, they'll listen to everything we say. I feel a little bad for the MT South Africa consultants because they get ignored. But they are amazingly knowledgable, and are very used to finding work-arounds for non standard situations. Obviously they have to be because their hospitals are so radically different, from rural barely functioning facilites in Botswana to state of the art facilties here in Dubai. I'd actually love to work for them for a year- but I'm not sure MT USA would let me go. And, I'm quickly setting into my spoiled comfortable life.

We had about 45 minutes after we finished and before we left for dinner, so I set out to find an alarm clock. The hotel is quite luxurious, but doesn't have alarm clocks and their sense of time is a little lax here for asking for a wake-up call at 6, means you'll get one sometime before 7. There was this really nice juice bar on the way to the shopping plaza, and I'm on a mission to have as much mango as possible so I stopped. It was delightfully cool inside, and they treated me like a princess. I was just going to get a smoothie to go, but they pulled up a soft stool for me, helped me go over the menu, and then brought me free samples, and a puzzle for while I waited. I feel a little wierd being served like that, but that's the way it is every where here. The smootie was amazing, big hunks of mango and berries.
We went to Jumeriah Madinat Souk for dinner, which is this fancy tourist souk over by the super expensive hotel. It was like being in a movie. It was canals and candle light and fancy shops. I convinced everyone to go to the Persian restaurant instead of the steak house, and it was amazing. They brought pita bread, cheese, and all these fresh herbs (lemon basil, mint, chives, anise) for starter, and then I got this spinach with fried onions and dried yogurt as an appetizer. For my main course I got this stew with chicken, walnuts and pommegranite. It was so dark and rich and amazing on top of fluffy, light jasmine rice. I was tempted to go back to the hotel with the early crown, but I fought my loser intincts and stayed late. We wandered the stalls, and then went to the center open bar for drinks and a hooka. I actually liked the hooka, it's not like a cigarette at all, it's light and smoky. But, to preserve my lungs I only had a couple puffs. It was warm and lovely, and great people watching. There's no typical person here, it really is a global city and you hear hundreds of languages. You see burkas and traditional dress next to mini-skirts and high heels.