What Is An Expat?

Recently our group had it’s holiday party. An ordinary thing, you’d think, but it gave me food for thought. There was something multicultural about it that was very inclusive of everyone, yet at the same time we had an event that almost horrified me at it’s level of anti-Christmas spirit, which is somewhat ironic as I am not actually a big Christmas fan.

It started late Monday evening, when we got the Outlook appointment invitation…for Wednesday night. So much for future planning, huh? As to whether that’s “we had plans, so tough for you” or “hey, you ruined my plans with your last second invite to something I need to go to!” well, you can pick according to your own preference. We had no plans, so it wasn’t much of a problem. Of course, we did have to come up with a small gift, not more than 20 dirhams (about $5-6), for the “White Elephant” gift exchange. I think we ended up spending 40 dirhams, but it won’t bankrupt us. (more…)

The 2006 UAE Gallery contains various pictures from out and about here. A few obligatory shots of the Burj Al Arab, our apartment, some friends that have stopped by to see us, and some general shots from our window into Dubai Marina. Actually, it’s about time to take some more as the construction has really gone crazy in the area. We’ll have some time off coming up at the end of the year for Arafat / Eid / New Year’s so that’ll be a good time to take some more picture. Of course, that’ll be for the 2007 Gallery I guess.

The Gallery has been updated with 80 some odd pictures from our recent trip to Uzbekistan. Primarily we just visited family in Tashkent and Karshi (this implies lots of eating), though we did mount expeditions to Shahrisabz to see some things, in addition to visiting still more family, and also a short trip about Karshi to look at some things.

Check out the 2006 11 Uzbekistan gallery pictures. Trip Report to follow before too awful long.

Wow…has it really been 4 years since I got there the first time?:!:

Some of you may be a bit surprised to receive an email notification on this, as I subscribed you without asking, but only because you’re family. It was a lot quicker that way. Let me know if I missed anyone or if you want out (no hard feelings) and also you can unsubscribe / resubscribe here at the site if you like.

Well, we had a nice little vacation where we didn’t do a whole lot. I didn’t take all that many pictures (619 total) and many of those are redundant so the number will shrink quickly and the editing time oughtn’t be too long. Aside from Tashkent and Karshi, where the millions of relatives reside, we only went to Shahrisabz, birthplace of our friend and yours, Amir Timur. Luckily we were able to use my recent surgery to good effect explaining why I couldn’t eat or drink so much, as otherwise they would be sure I was about to die of starvation. You couldn’t ask for a nicer family though, they’re great.

You will see pictures up in the Gallery soon and I might even whip up a trip report on it! Incidentally, while I had stopped doing those, this format combined with the Gallery might make it much easier to do and get caught back up on. I’ve still been taking notes on all the trips so I’ll be able to use those.