8 Years and DSF Parade

Saturday, February 19th, was mine and Jared's 8 year anniversary! The time has gone so fast that we sometimes have a hard time believing it has been that long. But then we just think about all that we have done in that time -- we started dating when I was a sophomore and Jared was a junior at Hobart, then subsequently both moved to Boston for law school and survived three bar exams together (first Jared took MA, then the following year I did, then the third year Jared took NY. I would not wish three summers in row of bar exams on anyone). We have done long distance on more occasions than I like to think about (while I lived in London and Rome, a year of me in NY and Jared in Boston, a year of him in Dubai and me in Boston) and have traveled the US and world together. When I think about it that way, it's been a long time! I mean, we could have a child in 3rd grade! (you know, if we were extremely irresponsible hardcore pro-life people). We have also been together longer than the vast majority of our friends who are in couples, and a good number of them are all engaged and/or married now.... So, given all of that, we thought we needed to adequately celebrate such an occasion. So, we decided a trip somewhere was in order, and will be heading to Istanbul next weekend for a proper celebration.

However, we couldn't let the day pass without any ado, so decided to go out to a nice dinner at our favorite steak restaurant in Dubai, Gary Rhodes' Twenty 10 at the Royal Meridian Hotel in the Dubai Marina. Before dinner though, we decided that we needed to hit up the Grand Finale Parade to the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) that they were holding on the Burj Boulevard in our neighborhood. Last year we went to the shopping festival parade that they hold every night of the shopping festival down by the Dubai Creek, and it was one of the most entertaining/trippy parades I've ever seen, so couldn't possibly let this one pass us by without checking it out. And truly this year's DSF parade did not disappoint. It was similarly a psychedelic-Alice in Wonderland experience, only this time there seemed to be an actual theme to accompany the seemingly random barrage of bird people and larger-than-life dancing shopping bags. I was only disappointed that my camera was putting up a fight with me and so all but three of my photos are far too blurry to share. The theme seemed to be "Around the World" and therefore there were different dancers and floats to represent all of the continents in the world (ie, African dancers, floats with North American icons like the Statue of Liberty, giant dancing Russian Matryoshkas (think "The Nutcracker"), and Chinese New Year-style dancing dragons and fish. Very entertaining, although my favorite part was still the random dancing bird people (see my Feb. '10 postings on the DSF Parade for a visual representation). I will share a couple pictures though just so you can get the idea...

The Clown Car float. A little freaky if you start thinking about Stephen King's movie "It"...

A random parade shot. This scene reminds me a bit of "Babes in Toyland" with the giant rainbow train.

Closer image of the train. I think it at least gives you an impression of the trippiness of this parade. Oh Dubai.

Then after the parade we headed to the Royal Meridian for dinner. We got there a little early, so decided to grab a drink at the Mexican restaurant at the hotel called 'Maya' which has a lovely outdoor terrace overlooking the water. A mojito and some chips and salsa later and we headed to 'Rhodes' Twenty 10' for dinner. Jared had called ahead to tell them it was our anniversary, so when they showed us to our table, it was decorated with rose petals and heart confetti, quite a sweet touch I thought. Then we had a fabulous dinner of crab salad (with quail eggs, surprisingly delicious) and lobster minestrone soup for starters (all the starters are meant to be shared), and then American steak(!) (a rib-eye for Jared and filet for me) with triple-fried frites and cheesy cauliflower. All pretty standard steakhouse fare, but what makes Twenty 10 in my opinion is the plethora of sauces/dips you can choose from to accompany your steak (which I once believed to be blasphemy, but I can now appreciate the goodness that a little Bearnaise can add, especially if used for dipping frites!). Jared chose whipped horseradish, and I of course chose the Bearnaise... Mmm. For dessert we split a sticky toffee pudding (probably the best food to come out of the UK besides fish and chips). Then, when we were just about finished they brought out a plate of beignets with "Happy Anniversary" written on the plate in chocolate. Another lovely touch which I thought couldn't be beat until they brought me out an absolutely gorgeous bouquet of roses and lilies, saying that it is the restaurant's tradition to give the woman a bouquet when couples come for their anniversary. Just lovely. I felt quite special carrying a bouquet through the hotel as we were going to get our car from the valet. A perfect and fitting way to celebrate 8 years.

Muscat, reprised.

This weekend we had a long weekend for the Prophet's (peace be upon him) Birthday, so we figured we'd take advantage and get out of town to Muscat in the Sultanate of Oman for a couple days. It's only about a 4 hour drive, and we had been before over Eid when we first moved here in September 2009, but we'd been wanting to get back and do some more exploring (when we went the first time it was so hot that we didn't do as much exploring as we'd have liked). So we left early Thursday morning (2/17) and got there by 11am.

Playing on one of the old watchtowers.

We roughly knew the layout of the city from our previous trip and it's also a pretty small place, so we kind of just drove around and explored a bit before heading back to find our hotel, which was just an older cheapo, but we figured for one night who cared (although it did turn out to be fairly interesting in that they seemed to have lost our booking -- at least the 12 year old Omani boys working the front desk couldn't seem to find it, and then we later discovered that the light in the hall of our room was a communal light that could be controlled by a switch outside our door, therefore was turned on on us 2-3 times in the middle of the night and Jared had to get up to turn it off, oh, and Jared killed a giant bug in the bathroom which he swears was a baby cockroach, but I digress). After we got checked in, we promptly decided that we didn't want to spend any more time in our hotel room than humanly possible, so immediately headed back out to explore.


Our first stop was some of the old forts and watchtowers that are prevalent all over the Muscat skyline. When the Portuguese colonized the country a couple hundred years ago they built TONS of forts, so they are everywhere and fun to explore... although I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to be up this particular watchtower given the 5 foot hole in the middle with a 40 foot drop to the rocky Gulf of Oman below. Oops.

Another view of the hole in the watchtower. It gives a good view of what your fate would be if you fell through... We were just perplexed as to how the cannon is still hanging there and hasn't fallen through.

Another view of the cannon.

More Muscat

View of the giant ornamental incense burner in Al-Riyam Park and a watchtower from our perch. Something about the incense burner looks very UFO to me...

We continued our exploration around the Mutrah (older) area of town and the Corniche. The more we travel in the region the more we can see that each country has their own distinct style of mosque, and I really think Oman's are my favorite. Beautiful colorful mosaic tile domes tend to be the style here, and I got a little bit carried away with my camera..
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Another mosque next to the Mutrah Souq. I love the contrast of the mosque with the mountains behind. Mountains and rocky cliffs are another prevalent sight in Muscat. The city is basically built into the mountains.

My attempt at an artistic shot of the minaret.

The Muscat Corniche.

View of the Corniche looking out toward the Sultan's yacht.

And once we got bored of exploring the corniche (and discovered that most of the forts are a lot more difficult to get close to and/or unable to be climbed), we got a little bored and decided to head down to the beach.

It was low-tide and there were tons of shells, so I had a blast collecting them. One of the best parts of Muscat is that all of the beaches are public beaches so you are free to just walk-on where ever, notwithstanding some very nice hotels with so-called 'private' beaches.

The weather was lovely, however, unfortunately, extremely windy so swimming at the beach would have been a bit chilly. We collected shells and walked around for a bit watching some men trying to fish in the low-tide pool using improvised fishing equipment. After we tired of that we found a little cafe right across the street from the beach and went for a little afternoon snack, or rather, sheesha for Jared, delicious fresh mint-lemon juice for me. Really relaxing and just nice to be out of town doing something different for a change.

We stuck around the cafe until the sun set and then headed back to the hotel to regroup before heading out to dinner at Mumtaz Mahal, which is supposed to be the best Indian restaurant in town and is also located on top of a big hill with great views down to the city. Our plans were thrown for a little bit of a loop, however, when we realized that the Muscat Festival was going on and that the restaurant was located right in the midst of it. So we got stuck in festival traffic trying to get to the restaurant to park our car. Luckily, the Klebanoff mantra of always leave excessively early for everything because early = on time and on time = late worked in our favor and we just made it in time for our dinner booking, although not without great frustration. Dinner was delicious though and because they didn't have my favorite Indian dish (chicken tikka masala, slightly boring I know, but it never lets me down) I ended up trying another yummy chicken green curry. A lovely and relaxing first day in Muscat.

View of Oman Dive Center's private beach and harbor.

We woke up bright and early the next morning and after having the sketchy hotel breakfast which included chicken hotdogs (actually a more common item than you would think on sketchy breakfast buffets over here, which we've experienced our fair share of) and chicken nuggets, checked out of the hotel to head to the beach.

Since we had already hit up the public beach the previous day we decided to try someplace new and instead headed out of town about 10 minutes to the Oman Dive Center. It took a little while to get there on hilly mountain roads, but it was well worth the drive because it turned out to be absolutely gorgeous!

Wide view of the Oman Dive Center beach with their super-long dock jutting out 100 meters or so into the harbor.

So we luxuriated at the beach for a couple hours, soaking up some sun and swimming in the harbor.

Jared, with a view of the Oman Dive Center's beach huts in the background. There were only about 6 or 7 of them, but we were questioning our decision to stay at the sketchy Safeer Hotel Suites when we could have stayed in a lovely beach hut here... Although we comforted ourselves with the presumption that they were undoubtedly fully booked since we only decided to come two days before.

View of one of the two private beaches around the Center that are only accessible via water. We swam to this one and watched some Omani boys playing soccer for awhile before swimming back.

View back to the Center from the end of the dock. I was a little camera happy because I just couldn't believe we had found this little gem, and only 4 hours away from Dubai!

Another view out into the harbor. The Shangri-La luxury hotel complex are the buildings out in the middle. Apparently quite posh and uber expensive.

Self-take.

Me with the Oman Dive Center behind.

Another self-take. I guess I did get a bit carried away...

Once we determined that we'd had enough sun and sand we decided to head back into Muscat for a bit more exploring. I was trying to capture the steep hilliness of the mountain road to the Dive Center in this photo (we were truly skeptical as to whether the Lancer could make it up one of the hills), but I don't think the photo does it justice.

On our way back into the city we found a beautiful overlook, so stopped for some more photos.

With the mountains and Muscat in the distance.

Closer view from the overlook.

Beautiful mountains.

Our last bit of exploring in Muscat brought us to Sultan Qaboos' Palace.

The Palace Gate.


Another view of the Palace grounds. Simply stunning. I was really struck by how green Muscat is. Everywhere you look it seems there are flowers and open green space. Much more so than Dubai, for sure.

Jared in the Palace colonnade.

View through one of the archways around the palace. I thought it pretty much epitomized the city.

An old fort on the edge of the Palace grounds.

Close-up of the fort.

After our romp around the Palace, we decided it was time to head back to Dubai so that we could attempt to get back before dark and have a relaxing evening at home. After this trip we've concluded that we just love Muscat and would definitely come back. Such a relaxing little getaway from Dubai to what feels like a very sleepy little city. My only disappointment was that I was hell-bent on buying a Middle Eastern dowry trunk that I've been wanting for awhile (one of those things that I feel that I just must buy while I'm here), but we didn't time our stops at the Mutrah Souq very well, and most all the stores were closed both times we stopped in. In the one shop I did look in, they offered me a 90 year old antique trunk from Zanzibar for 600 Omani Rials (aka roughly $2000 USD or 6000 AED, yikes). Obviously, I walked away trunkless... There's always next time...

V-Day

I just love Valentine's Day! I know it is one of the most hated and commercialized 'Hallmark' holidays there are, but for some reason I just love it. I think (other than the obvious enjoying flowers and chocolate), I really enjoy Valentine's Day because it is the anniversary of mine and Jared's first date (Feb. 14, 2003: Art Show at Houghton House [at HWS], followed by me performing in The Vagina Monologues [which Jared refused to attend out of principle, but his frat brothers did], and concluded with a Semi-Formal Dance at Kappa Sigma, oh the memories...). So the holiday always holds a special place in my heart. It has become our tradition to stay in and cook a nice dinner at home to celebrate, because, it's kind of like New Years Eve in that you are pretty much guaranteed an overpriced crap meal if you go out. And Jared's personal mission seems to be outdoing himself year after year in what he prepares. This year he did not disappoint...

Homemade Fried Calamari.

Who makes their own fried calamari? Jared does! Our first wonderful course, which may have just outdone the homemade pomme frites of last year. Delicious.

Beef Wellington with asparagus.

Then our main was Beef Wellington (ala Gordon Ramsay) with asparagus. Jared knows my true love in life (other than him, of course) is filet mignon, and that I would probably be extremely disappointed if he didn't make some semblance of beef tenderloin, so instead of just doing the stereotypical grilled steak, he stepped it up and made Ramsay's famous Wellington that we've both been wanting to try for some time. It is basically beef tenderloin wrapped in prosciutto and then covered in a layer of minced mushrooms mixed with pate and then all covered in puff pastry and baked. I never really thought you could improve upon filet, but this just may be the way. Super yummy!

Sex in a Pan.

And I was in charge of dessert, and being much less talented and industrious in the kitchen than Jared, I made this fairly easy recipe which consisted of a shortbread/pie crust-like layer on the bottom, followed by a cream cheese frosting layer, then a chocolate pudding layer, and then whipped cream on the top. It was quite good and the name seemed fitting for the holiday. A perfectly lovely Valentine's Day.

And on a side note, Valentine's Day at school was completely crazy with the most over the top Valentine's party and Valentine's I've ever seen. There were kids bringing Valentine's gift bags with stuffed animals for the others kids in the class (all 16 of them) as their "Valentine"... So much for punch-out valentine's from the drug store that I gave out when I was a kid. I received two stuffed animals, about 5 boxes of chocolates, a scented candle, and even a rose from one little girl. Crazy. It was fun though.

French Week at Galleries Lafayette

The Eiffel Tower of French Bread. Need I say more?

Global Village

Last weekend we went to Global Village. It's been on my "to do before we leave Dubai" list for at least a year, and so we finally decided to check it out. We had additional motivation in that a friend of our friend JB had been hired to perform there in a Stomp-style percussion band, so we were going to meet him and go for some drinks after.

Global Village is a 4 month annual festival that is best described as a giant Middle Eastern Epcot Center meets the New York State Fair. There are pavilions set up representing different [mostly Asian and Middle Eastern] countries to sell arts and handicrafts from the countries and also entertainment from the different places (dancers and bands). In addition, there is a midway/state fair-type area with rides and games, which we couldn't be bothered to check out (although I kind of regret not going for a ride on the air-conditioned Ferris Wheel)..

Each of the pavilions was 'decorated' to represent that country, and it was really interesting to see what they were selling and how the countries wanted themselves represented.

The Egypt Pavilion. I took a picture because this is probably the closest we're going to get to visiting Egypt at this point... It sold a lot of stereotypical 'Egypt' souvenirs: model pyramids, magnets, etc. but there was also a large volume of lingerie stalls... Hmmm...

The Yemen Pavilion. Also a country that this is the closest we will get to visiting. My impression of Yemen is pirates and terror cells, but I guess that isn't the image they are trying to portray and instead it was full of hundreds of spice stalls.

The India Pavilion. One of the most elaborately decorated of all.

The manually-powered merry-go-round inside the India Pavilion.

I was sufficiently impressed with the India Pavilion. It was probably the most authentic of all, HUGE and selling the largest selection and variety of handicrafts actually produced in India and actually representative of the country. Tons of beautiful scarves and other textiles. This is the only pavilion I would have actually been interested in buying anything from, but Jared wouldn't let me buy anything because he said what is the point in buying an Indian scarf from Dubai when I could buy one from India (which is actually a fair point since India is very high on our list of places to visit before we leave). Oh well, it was still fun to see.

Then, just as we were getting ready to leave the nightly Global Village fireworks show began. It just wouldn't be Dubai without random unnecessary displays of fireworks...

And after the fireworks we caught some of the stick-twirling Emirati dancers. Much less exciting than it sounds (if it sounded even remotely exciting). Overall, Global Village was an interesting thing to see, but not something we probably need to go to again. We concluded that the best part of the whole night was our friend's friend's percussion band. Chalk it up to another uniquely Dubai experience.

I'm a published photographer!

The article, Maclean's Magazine, January 31, 2011 (my photo is in the middle).

I'm a published photographer! So, completely randomly back at the end of December I received a comment on one of my blog entries from a writer at a Canadian magazine called "Maclean's." She said that she was interested in using one of my photos in an upcoming article about the Qatar 2022 Olympic Bid construction. I had never heard of the magazine, and I was slightly skeptical, but I did some research on the magazine and figured it didn't hurt to email her back and see what it was all about. In several email back and forths she indicated that she would like to use one of my pictures from our trip to Doha last April. I never imagined my silly little blog was read by anyone other than family and friends (I mean, I know lots of random people often find my blog while googling around for other things), but it never really occurred to me that someone might actually want to publish one of my pictures. I was delighted and told the woman that she could certainly publish it with my full permission. I didn't hear back for a little bit, and I figured it wasn't going to happen. Late in January I finally heard back and she said that she did run my photo in the magazine story, and that actually, they were going to pay me for the use of my picture! I was completely shocked. How exciting! So I had to complete an invoice and they sent me a check for $75! How fun! So, I am now the proud photographer of an a published photograph! Guess you never know what can happen if you put yourself out there. Below is the image that was published, one of my favorites from Doha, of a street sign that says, "Take Care, Don't kill us, we are at work." Yippee!