Dubai and Beirut

Dubai - Vegas meets Lawrence of Arabia.

On the plane flying into Dubai, Arabs flock to the restrooms prior to landing to change into their burquas and white robes with tablecloths on their heads, ready to rock the Kasbah. As I walk through the airport, hundreds of black-veiled women are shooting me disapproving looks at my western attire, but yet one stops me to ask where I bought my dress. Some veils have slits where all you can see are their sexy eyes.

The women distinguish themselves from the rest of the black-clad women by wearing the most expensive Paris Hilton Sunglasses and big, gaudy, expensive bags. I think most of these Saudi girls are more spoiled than our hotel heiress. Currently I am reading the Girls of Ridayah, acclaimed as the Middle-Eastern Sex and the City, which is opening my eyes to the hypocrisy and tyranny of this culture.

I met with Raphael’s friends in Dubai – Martin, Sarah and their two boys – Peter and Luke, who is Raphael’s godson. Martin is the director of an architecture firm there and they took me on an amazing tour of the city. He moved out there in 1997 to work on Emirates Towers and has not left since. They dropped me off at the Emirates Mall to Ski Dubai, where you can take a pain-stakingly slow chairlift for 15 minutes to ski down a 30 second slope that smaller than a sled hill.

For dinner, I went to the Burj Al Arab, the hotel that looks like a sailboat to see on the menu the world’s most expensive cocktail. $27,321 AED for 55-year-old scotch served in an 18 karat gold cup. The view at sunset over on of the three Palm Islands is beautiful. The architecture itself may look opulent from afar, but is of relatively poor quality, much like Vegas.

Dubai is a giant construction site. Everything is under construction and playa dust is in the air. 20% of the world’s cranes are in this city alone. I had an impromptu interview in the gym with a PM group and the next day with Martin’s company. Both companies need help on projects pronto, but I am afraid it is too hot for me there, I am too blonde and too female to succeed there in construction and they cannot afford me. Even though both companies are UK-based, I still think it would be hard for me to break through the gender barriers.

Lebanon
A family that belly dances together….a.) stays together, b.) is hell of a lot of fun, c.) is it wrong for cousins to dirty dance? Not in Lebanon! I am in a mountain town near Beirut visiting my brother’s fiancé’s family, prior to their wedding this weekend.

Nancy’s family here should be cast for TV programming. They are all beautiful people, from Grandma’s flawless skin, to the high-school boys with their stunning good looks that would make up a good boy band, to the adorable children running around being bad in French. Uncle Elias keeps wanting me to drink Arak and dance on tables, Grandpa wants to marry me off to a nice Lebanese boy, and 14-year old Mejd wants to marry me for a green card to the U.S. Since cousins can marry here, we are trying to match up which ones will make the best combination for supermodel babies.

Kelly’s Lebanese Boy Band – Babaganoush ->

We are speaking an mélange of French, English, Arabic, and now Spanish that friends from Venezuela have shown up. The food is amazing. The tabouli, babaganoush, lammwurst, homemade hummus, kibbeh, schwarma, kafta, fatoosh, and numerous other dishes keep coming our way and the eating is endless. Most dinners last until 1am followed by Arabic dancing.

My daily walk with Brian in the mountains is not much different scenery-wise from my view in the Oakland Hills, except every fourth home is bombed and gutted, covered in bullet holes or I am passing (hot) Lebanese Militia Men heavily equipped with tanks and machine guns. It does not scare me though and feels completely safe here in the hills of Bhamdoun, where Nancy’s family’s summer home is located. The people and cars here are from Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. Many Saudi women come here to get their nose jobs and are wandering the streets in bandages.

In Byblos, we visited the medieval town and the beach with infinity pools emptying into the azul waters of the Mediterranean, followed again by a feast. Friday we took an excursion out to Beit Eddine near Beyrouth to the Palais Emir Bachir Chahabi where we were able to see some amazing scenery, the palace and Turkish baths. The scariest part of the trip though is Jimmy the Camel. He is the dirty old man from the hotel who offered to drive us there in his Land Rover, playing the Pet Shop Boys.

The ride there was very educational, but as the trip progressed, he became increasingly sure that I was to be his next wife and was ready to negotiate with my brother for me over another Lebanese feast. Luckily the fact that I am left-handed cancelled all-bets on me, as I am no longer worth ANY camels now, maybe because I am eating hummus with the same hand I am supposed to wipe my arse with. Jimmy drank and entire karaf of Arak (the Arabic equivalent to Ouzo) and was in no shape to be driving us home on the mountain roads. We tried to escape him in one town when he stopped to buy peaches but he got irate with us and we realized there were no taxis for miles and finished Mr. Toad’s wild ride. The rest of the ride was in silence.

Another Hanna-Haber family tradition is the Hubbly Bubbly, aka hookah, at every dinner table. This is basically a giant bong with flavored tobacco smoked. Uncle Elias is always offering to bring down his home-grown stash for the hubbly-bubbly, if that will help get me to dance on the tables.

Friday afternoon after the Arak ride from hell, we encounter another bad driver in our taxi to Beirut. Not only did the driver get lost in his ancient Mercedes with no AC in the blistering heat, but also his car broke down on the Avenue de Paris, a main thoroughfare along the shoreline of Beirut. Then he tried to rip us off and caused a commotion when he left us off in the middle of the street in rush hour traffic.

Clubbing in Beirut
There is no club in Beirut that a blonde girl cannot get into. It is amazing to think there was fighting here as recent as two months ago, but the town is in business, Buddha Bar has reopened despite the protests across the street, and it is safe to walk anywhere at night. We are clubbing with Nancy’s 17-24 year old cousins until 4am. I love this town where the 20-something year old boys are ALL good looking with glassy-blue eyes and think I am their age. One guy asked me to go home with him and when I asked his age and told him I was old enough to be his mother, he had the rebuttal, “But you can be like Demi Moore…”

Reema and Lilia are fun to dance with. They both just graduated from high school and are close to six feet tall and look like supermodels. One club we went into, the entire club gathered around us in the center to bellydance. It was fun because I actually knew this particular arabic music since I used it in a bellydancing class I taught in California (you didn’t know I taught bellydancing, right? I don’t, but I faked it pretty well in Berkeley and in Beirut where the music is catchy.) I threw in some of my Bollywood moves, like screwing in my light bulbs and petting my goats. Nancy is an amazing bellydancer and actually knows the correct way to do it.

Nancy’s Big Fat Lebanese Wedding
Is this an MTV production? There are 10 people following the bride and groom around with cameras and flood lights. They have equipped the Intercontinental Phoenicia with the Dance Fever set and a man is wailing on the violin a tune that puts the Devil went down to Georgia to shame. The reception starts with the Dancing, then you eat through the block-long table, then dance, then pyrotechnics, then dance some more, then many men with cakes and sparklers emerge onto the dance floor were the bride and groom are to sever the six-foot cake with a sword, then they dance, then the bouquet and garder throws, then the cousins perform strip teases for each other. Wow.

The 700 year old church where the ceremony was held is tucked up into the hills with an amazing view as well. What could have been a quaint ceremony, is making my brother melt with the amount of lighting and cameras imposed on the structure and the sound system is having a bit of difficulty as it belts out Toccata, Dracula’s music, at high decibels.

We were able to do a live video cast for our relatives back in the US who could not make it to the wedding and skyped my parents into the reception hall. This is a Jetson world.

DOHa
Am I playing the Amazing Race all alone? My trip ended with an unfortunate, stranded Kelly in Qatar. I questioned my 30-minute layover in Doha numerous times from the reservation process all the way to the morning check–in and notifying the crew on my flight of my quick connection. Unfortunately, Qatar airways still chose to sell my seat to someone else. This stranded me in Doha and caused me to miss my Singapore Air connection in Dubai. Not only was there no customer service, but I had to buy one way tickets home. All flights to Singapore from Dubai and Doha were sold out, so I ended up in Kuala Lumpur the next day. Raphael helped me with flights over the phone as I stood in lines for over 3 hours at the airport to find my luggage and get someone to help me.

Overall, it was one of the most culturally amazing trips of my life. I love my new family in Beirut and when I am old and scraggly, someday I hope to return for my boy toys. Nancy did an amazing job on the wedding planning!