Ahh, Friday. In the states, it is the day everyone waits for, the end of the week. Here, where the week starts Sunday and ends Thursday, Friday is The Day No One Does Anything. It's amazing. Everything is closed, so you don't have to feel guilty for not running errands. Today is Abe and my 3rd Friday here, and from Friday #1 we jumped right into the flow of not jumping or flowing anywhere. It's 6pm and I haven't put pants on ONCE today. It may be a boring day, yes, but maybe that's why it seems to be the perfect day to highlight all the tiny differences that have become part of our new normalcy.
1) Woke up at 10. Why? Because we drink tea about 5 times a day, so it's unlikely we'll get to bed before midnight. Last night we sat at "Buffalo Wings and Rings" in the uber-hip 1st circle (start of Rainbow St/ sherea3 al-rainbow) until 1am drinking cheap local beer and eating highly unusual "quesadillas".
2) Immediately made some shai, strong and sweet (though not half as sweet as it would be served on the street).
3) Did some Arabic homework, watched some Australian cooking shows (so good!), and searched the web for explanations for our failed dairy purchases. Answers were forthcoming, but disturbing. More on that later.
4) Turned on the hot water heater, then went back to the couch to wait the 20 minutes for it to get hot enough for a shower. Took aforementioned shower (shower head protruding from wall in the bathroom, no tub, door, or curtain), making mental note that it was time to hose down the bathroom. All floors are tile here, and come equipped with drains built in, so naturally people use hoses indoors to clean. We got quite a surprise the first time we realized this, sitting in our apartment and hearing a peculiar noise right outside the door . . . "Is it raining inside? Is there a leak? Umm, it sounds like a hose . . ." Yes, indeed it was our building's maintenance man cleaning the hallways with a hose.
5) Put my laundry in the washer in the kitchen, where you'd probably expect a dishwasher to be. Transferred clothes to the drying rack while Abe removed his and got ready to iron his shirts (I know -- really).
6) Made some homemade french fries with curry powder and ate with mayo. I never enjoyed that flavor combo before, but somehow with the curry powder it works.
7) By this point it was about 4:30 and we were ready for dinner/lunch/big amorphous Friday meal. We got out our ingredients: lentils, rice, and cauliflower, but there was a problem. We were out of water! Luckily the shop downstairs does open on Friday (reduced hours), so Abe ran down to pick up another 5 gallon jug. Crisis averted.
8) Settled down to eat our feast while watching "Great Expectations" on the Dubai Expat channel.
Typical Friday.
Haha. That bathroom sounds insane.
ReplyDelete