Arabian Night (clubs)

For an Islamic nation, the night life is surprisingly westernised. I brought my camera out on the dance floor in one of the clubs on Thursday night. Please accept my apologies in advance for the chaotic filming. Its very hard to hold a camera steady while dancing to techno music. Its difficult to tell whats going on because there is barely enough light to see anything... But, hey, at least the song is pretty cool.

Warning: may cause seizures!

The girl wearing the “I am a rock star” shirt is Nayana. She's from Lebanon, and the guy standing next to me is Eihab from Sudan. And I am, of course, the goober from America at the end of the video when it stops.

We were leaving about 15 minutes before the club closed and there were some local Arab girls coming in, covered in black from head to toe, as is the custom. They looked around suspiciously, and then proceeded to take off their local clothing to reveal the (for lack of a better word) skanky dresses they were wearing underneath. It was obvious they wanted absolutely no one to know they were there due to their extremely late arrival and suspicious attitude. I just found it interesting because I had such a strong impression that all the local girls were very conservative. Now I don't know what to think!

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I met an Australian architect one day while walking down the street. He was in a taxi from Dubai, and they were lost and looking for the Marina. Since I was walking that way anyway they gave me a ride in exchange for directions. His friend was in the UAE wooden boat racing championship that was going on that day so I went to check it out with them. (And now I have access to the construction site of one of the biggest developments in Dubai! You gotta love being in the right place at the right time...)

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Lastly, we spent New Years on the gulf. My friend from work invited me to the party boat they had. Its basically a barge with 2 bars and dance floor. Very fun. I just chopped together some of the video from that night real quickly to give an overall impression of what it was like.