Shoes

This morning in the changing room of my gym an other woman came to me and asked:
"Excuse me, I really like your shoes. Did you buy them here or abroad?"

I mean, again, this is typical Dubai. Let's look at it again.

It happened in a gym. You have to be a member, and it was in the suburbs. Not a place where tourists would go. So we can assume everyone in the changing room was Dubai residents.

Dubai has all the big chains and designer shops. You can buy here absolutely everything.

And yet, her initial assumption is that it is more likely that I bought them abroad than here. Therefore she put the question that way.

And she could have been right. The pants I have today I got from the US, the shirt is from the UK, the scarf and the shoes UAE. And all of us in that changing room were probably wearing a similar combination.

Is there an other place on Earth where it would have happened?

Company car

I took this picture almost two years ago, but the point is still valid. Porsche Cayenne as a company car, with company logo sticker on the side doors... only in Dubai.

Little blurry, sorry, we were both in motion.

Home

There is wide literature on the internet on expatriots, third world kids, repatriating immigrants, etc. On people who lived abroad for an extended duration at one point in their life or in the majority of their life. The main argument is always about "where is Home". Some opinions say there will be no Home anymore, others say the origin country, or the parent's origin culture remains always Home. Some says - and I came to the conclusion of supporting this approach - that all those countries will be Home.

I was in the UK on business in June, and one Sunday I felt I should visit back to Bath, where I had not been since 2004, but lived there for one and half years before. One of my old time friends is still there, so I gave Joanna a call. And we had excellent good time!


The experience of going back to Bath was overwhelming. At one point, I told Joanna that I felt at home. I had the same feeling in different other cities as well. So here is a list what defines Home in my opinion.

1. Have friends in that city. Friends with common memories of the times you spent together in the city.
2. Know what is around the corner. Know the bus lines. Know at least 5 different location outlets from the same chain.
3. Have a memory of the city. Be able to say "oh, this pizza place used to be a bookshop before" or "how come they are changing the road here again, they just created this roundabout a couple of years ago".

And I am quite confident having multiple Homes.

Whenever I feel homesick, it is actually a longing for one of these places. Sometimes it is for Budapest, but most of the time it is not. When I watch some American program on TV - and this is quite frequent, as so many movies are made there - I am crying to go back to the USA. Then I smell something, that triggers memories from my childhood in Turkey. And so on.

Twice every week, I want to leave Dubai. But I know I would miss it a big time.

As most of my friends reading this blog are experienced in abroad living, please feel free to suggest items to my Home definition list.

Captivating Contrasts

This is in reference to my first ever post. There is a new short movie that I saw on Saudi TV MBC, almost at each commercial break, advertising Dubai as the City of Captivating Contrasts. Ehh. What contrast do they exactly mean? A contrast of this?


Workers waiting for their company provided lunch in Dubai Festival City construction site.


Amara Spa at Park Hyatt Dubai. Spa Teatment 1290 AED/ half day. (This picture is from the net, but I have a similar one that I took, will change later when I get my computer out of storage.)


Captivating.

Finland

Just some random photos from my Finland trip. It was actually a conference in Tampere, but I used the opportunity to also visit my friend Kati. The conference was on glass and was actually very good. I am sure it sounds equally exciting for all of you, yeah, what can be more joy than attending presentations on float glass production, glass processing, glass engineering, glass performance, glass fixing systems. Ok, so back to pictures on Finland.

Finland has lakes.
And more lakes.

Not surprizing, Kati's place is also at a lake!


This is Kati. She is on the phone with her boyfriend a lot. Ok, not always. She does not do it when Tero (the boyfriend) is around. (this is mean, I know...)


This is me with Kati. The picture was taken by Tero, hence no phone! :)


Other random observations:
I love saunas. Finnish ones. Good thing that it is quite common to have one that opens from your bathroom if you are in Finland. So of course Kati had one, hurray! What I found surprizing: it is uncommon to have a bathtub in Finland. Although it does make perfect sense, most of us (bathtub owners) very rarely or never use it. There is actually a lot of sense in Finnish home furnishing. I also love the dish dryer grill above the sink. It is like a normal cabinet, with doors, but with grill instead of shelves. Water can drain to the sink below, but dishes are concealed behind the cabinet door rather than exhibited overnight (or for days, as in my case...). But as much as I was happy with home design, looking at shop windows and people on the street, Finnish fashion seems to be a little bit out of space. Fashion items have nothing to do with current trends, and most surprizingly, the streets of Tampere are full of youngsters dressed in gothic rock punk style. I saw at least two of them every day! Did not that style die out last century?? I felt nostalgic.