About Arriving and Globalization.

Gucci, originally uploaded by aLEX 11.

I have only been to one other country in the Middle East, the nightmarish zombie town of Abu Dhabi. It made me want to gouge my eyes out and play ping pong with my retinas just to keep me from literally dying of boredom. So, naturally, when I decided to move to the Middle East my first thought was to strengthen my eyeball muscles.

And so, for the past 4 months I’ve been gearing up to the biggest culture shock in my life. I’d hardly been to the Middle East, I knew practically nothing of its culture, the language, religion, or people. But that’s nothing new, because really, I don’t know much about most places I go to. But I think the key difference was that I knew just enough to put me on edge. I knew all the wrong things. I knew where my hotel was, but not where my house was; I knew that Bahrain had a lot of sand but no beaches, I knew it was Arabic, but not how strict and serious they were about it.

So with all these uncertainties I jumped on the plane and tried not to think about my next 6 months of life. And here is what was waiting for me:

My first day in Bahrain:

6:00 am: Plane lands and I wearily walk out towards customs

6:10 am: I’m afraid customs guy will give me a hard time cuz I’ll be staying for 6 months and my visa allows 2 weeks. I speak to him really fast, he looks confused, he raises eyebrows and stamps my tourist visa

6:30 am: I am supposed to be picked up by the hotel. Of course, nobody’s there. I think about panicking, then I see a Cinnabon and think about breakfast.

7:00 am: I see a moustached (yes, it’s a word now) man walking around with a sign saying ‘Alex PO’

7:30 am: I arrive at my accommodation, shower, unpack and get a quick tour of the premises

10:00 am: Meet new [pirate] roommate (more about him later)

11:30 am: Walk to the mall and have lunch at Hardees with new [pirate] roommate

12:30 pm: Go for a movie with new [pirate] roommate (déjà vu- denzel Washington stuff… not bad but kinda tacky movie about bending time and space and falling in love with some dead girl then him dying and she not being dead – more confusion to add on to my jetlag)

3:00 pm: Walked around the mall (kinda reminds me of Glorietta except not)

6:00 pm: Dinner at Burger King (Mmmmm.. healthy)
8:00 pm: Watched the end of an Arsenal vs Crap Team soccer match

9:00 pm: Went for a drink and some live music

12:00 mn: Sat in my bed wondering exactly what country I was in and why everything smelled so much of globalization.