Once again, names removed to protect the innocent and guilty alike.
The past two days have been relatively uneventful save a few choice moments of hilarity. I've cabled an entire office listening to a variety of 90s pop hits from a laptop in a blissfully empty office. After work the first evening we went for sushi then i was dropped off at my b&b. On realising I hadn't been given a key to the front gate, I had to vault the wall like a middle class ninja, complete with laptop-laden rucksack, retrieving the gin and vodka I had muled through customs for my contact at the office.
The second night we got a cab to the mall of the emirates, the largest shopping mall in the world complete with the only indoor ski slope, possibly in the world but definitely in the middle east. We spotted the other company types who had made also made the trip over from Brighton sitting in a restaurant, unceremoniously sat down and started eating the remains of their rice, humous and flatbreads. It was only halfway through devouring their leftovers (in a style that many of my friends will recognise) that they 'let slip' that they all had a painful stomach bug which necessitated worryingly frequent trips to the toilet. One person disappeared, returning only to regail us with tails of no less than 3 visits to the porcelain parapet in the brief time she had been away from the table, much to the surprise of two arab ladies who watched her wash her hands, look sheepish and head straight back into the cubicle.
The evening ended in a cocktail bar overlooking the ski slope. We drank lemon & elderflower (sounds healthy but it was loaded with vodka) and watched children falling off their mats as they scraped down a fake toboggan run, expert skiiers tackling the black-run and a variety of snowboarding videos including the crashes at the end. Interspersed with sips of cocktails were various jokes about gastroenteritis, ski runs and exploding bowels, subtlety was not an issue.
At work on the third day, the office was suddenly full of people. As we know in the IT world, people = problems. While trying to fix a laptop and just get the damn thing working, I was bombarded with questions and issues, ranging in severity from "i can't email this person" to "desktop background has changed". Skipping lunch to plough through the problems, I eventually emerged victorious with only a few items left on the agenda for the next day.
Sloping off to a shopping center in search of tacky fridge magnets and vulgar baseball caps, we decided that (although tacky) none of it was tacky enough to warrant spending 300 dhirams (£4.20) on a wooden carving of the sheikh looking like GI Joe, resplendant with beard and desert head-wrap) surveying his estate. Over dramatasising it now, I wish i'd bought it but it really was absolute crap.
Walking through what seemed like a tight moroccan market place (but was actually a manufactured tourist bilge sale) we passed numerous tourist trophy families, with their immaculate tans and peroxide blonde hair, the head of the family always sporting a white linen suit, obviously in an attempt to emulate the man from del monté. We walked around by the river, passing by boats carrying residents of the two hotel complexes, and took pictures. We eventually settled on some bean bags by the river and ordered drinks. I freaked the waiter out by ordering strongbow with lime juice, which my colleague took an immediate liking to. Pint of cider & lime (slime) anyone?
We discussed the gold standard but grew tired of the heavy stuff and reverted to the venerable subjects of comedy & religion, two infinitely combinable subjects. As we chatted away, groups of extremely rich tourists sauntered past with their sullen teenage children stumbling around in high heels, morosely texting their mates, their faces lit only by the dim glow of their nokia bitchface 300, with the extra un-flattering lens specifically to produce bad photographs ready for FaceBook.
Eventually it was time to leave and now, after middle-class ninjerring the wall again, i'm in bed ready for my last day as IT monkey on the 15th floor of an unfinished tower block in the unfinished media city district of Dubai. Hopefully I'll get all my work done and won't be bothered by people who don't understand "I'll get to you once I've stopped the server from vomiting all over the internet"
