I Can't Complain

It's been a pretty decent week.

Got a pedicure the other day ... nice when you wear sandals all the time. Skipped out early yesterday for cocktails on the beach at sunset. Got a massage (Valentine's Day gift) tonight after work, my Friday. Treated myself to Indian street food. And I plan to head to the beach tomorrow.

Nope, can't complain at all.

The massage was great. It was in a hotel spa downtown, an oasis of calm in the middle of chaos that is that neighborhood.

Afterward, I went in search of vada pao, sometimes called wada pav. I know I said I hit the Indian food wall the other day, but not really. I've just cut back from many times a week to once or twice.

My colleague has been writing about delicious Indian street food. Here and here. (And yes, this is the same woman who gave me the most valuable information to date: How to make papadam in the microwave.)

I finally find myself in the right neighborhood and I ask the doorman at the hotel where to find the vegetarian snack restaurant. He asks someone and tells me to go down the street and it's right next to the El Dorado theater.

This is good news, because I actually know where the El Dorado theater is. So of course, once I find it, I discover it isn't the right one. It's actually a satellite version, much smaller and specializing in sweet Indian street food.

I call my colleague, apologize for interrupting her personal time and tell her I don't see what she is talking about on the menu. She asks to speak to the guy behind the counter. They speak ... I don't know. Hindi? Bengali? Probably.

He hands the phone to me and she says: You're at the wrong one. Ask him for directions to the restaurant. I hang up and think this isn't going to work out so well, since I had to call her in the first place because the guy didn't speak English.

He tells me "Straight, right at ADCB. Very tall building." So you know I've mentioned the whole address and directions thing. These directions would work much better if I had any idea what the ADCB building was. And I didn't. And telling someone "very tall building" means little when you're in a downtown area filled with high-rises.

Meanwhile, I've received a text -- after I've set off -- that says: Tell him to give you precise directions to their main spot, on Salam Street, behind the ADCB bank's HQ. I'm mumbling to myself. Precise directions? He doesn't speak English. No directions here are precise. But whatever.

Onward I go, undeterred. I cross the busy street via the underpass and make my way toward the water. I'm going straight. The last building before the big-dig construction site that is Salam St seems to have an ADCB on it. I turn right. I'm along the side of the building, next to where Salam St would be if it weren't a gigantic construction site and there is nothing behind this bank building.

I look to my right and see a gas station. I worry that the restaurant is actually across the construction site, on the other side of Salam St. But nobody told me to cross the street. So I wander some more, discover a Thai restaurant I had been wondering about (Aha! There's the Royal Orchid!)

Finally, I find it. By behind the bank building what everyone really meant was behind the bank building and through a construction area one street over and back two blocks through a parking lot.

Of course. But I've found it! Victory!

The waiter is nice (I have been warned that he might not be, and not to take it personally). He brings me a bottle of water, gives me some time to look at the menu, and I look for the wada pav, as it's called here (as opposed to what it seems to be called in Mumbai). There it is, right where it's supposed to be. By now I've forgotten what wada pav is and just know that I want to try it.

I order one, for Dh4.5 ($1.23). Spicy, medium or hot, he asks. Medium.

I am surprised when it comes out. It's an overstuffed sandwich that I am apparently expected to eat with my hands since no utensils have come with it. Imagine a dinner roll -- sort of like the sweet, doughy ones they used to have at Kentucky Fried Chicken. (I'm sorry! That's what they remind me of!) Between the two halves is a fried potato pancake, chunky and golden. There are chopped onions and chutney in there somewhere. The whole thing has a sweet and spicy delicious taste. Flavors I've never had. It's very, very good. I think if I were to discover this at a street stall, I would be amazed.

The waiter asks if there is something else I'd like to try. I get another text: If you are feeling really hungry, order a masala dosa. So that's what I ask for. There are more than 80 items on this one-page menu. I recognize only a few words -- aloo (potato) gobi (cauliflower) and daal (lentils) .

My masala dosa arrives. I don't know exactly what I expected, but this wasn't it. A fried crepe, slightly sweet, stuffed with seasoned potatoes. And it comes with three sauces that, presumably, I am supposed to pour over the crepe, or dip into. I'm not sure which. I get a spoon and a fork, but no knife. And the thing is huge. The first one was a small sandwich with big filling. This is a folded crepe the size of a large plate.

It was unusual and tasty and I can't wait to go back for more. Afterward, the waiter gave me a take-away menu and marked some things I should try next time. He explained that one column was south Indian and another north Indian.

My colleague's final words: That place is a treasure trove! Will require multiple visits.

Air Mail

Journalists know better than anyone right now that the internet is where it's at. And being far away, we don't know how we'd survive without it; e-mail and Skype are essential.

But that doesn't mean I'm ready to forsake regular mail.

I'm not sure Abu Dhabi agrees with me, though.

Trying to mail a letter here is a serious undertaking. There is one main post office and two (rumored) smaller ones on the island. The Emirates Post website says there are 15 post offices in greater Abu Dhabi. We have only ever seen the one main post office.

What it doesn't say, and nobody outside the post office seems to know, is how much it costs to mail a letter.

We have managed much of our correspondence by e-mail, but AT&T, that legendarily difficult organization, insists that we mail them proof that we live in the UAE. They insist on, among other things, a postmark from the country. (They also insist on a utility bill, which we don't have, but that's another story).

When we left California we had some time left on our AT&T contract. We asked them to cancel our service at the end of the billing cycle, so there would be no weird outstanding partial bills. We told them where we were going. We said no, we couldn't simply transfer our accounts to someone else. (Who wants someone else's old account??)

Many months later, they are still insisting on $150 for breaking our contract because we haven't (yet) satisfactorily proved that we live outside the country.

In any case, that was the genesis of my post office issue.

How much postage did I need to send a letter to AT&T in Baton Rouge, LA? I had a handful of stamps left over from my first weeks here, when I thought I might send postcards (that was when I thought there might be postcards of something -- anything -- to send). What I had was three stamps worth 350 fils and three stamps worth Dh2 each. I thought I could probably put all of them on the envelope and it would get there. But I wasn't sure.

So I asked a member of our office staff. Not only did she have no idea how much it costs to mail a letter, she didn't know that 350 fils is Dh3.5. She kept insisting that it was 1,000 fils to a dirham instead of 100. She went to another colleague. She didn't know either. I asked at least a half dozen other colleagues. Surely, I thought, someone had sent a letter, a birthday card, something -- home?

But no.

So the woman finally told me to call the mail room. The guy in the mail room couldn't have been less helpful. He insisted it would cost Dh90 ($24.50) to send a letter. I balked. He insisted again. I said look, I want to send a letter to my Mother (I was trying to make the point that it wasn't a business letter) and he said well, that's what it costs. I said seriously? For a letter? And he said, essentially, hey, if you want to know how much a letter costs to mail, go to the post office and leave me alone.

I went to the Emirates Post website to see if the information was there. Nope. No postage rates. Not even for a letter within the UAE. It helpfully gives you the definition of a letter, and a post card, but not how much it costs to mail one. (I did finally find that I could send an aerogram for Dh2. Who knew anybody even used those anymore?)

So I called the post office. And they were actually helpful!! The postal guy told me it was Dh11.5 to send a letter to the US. Joy! I happened to have Dh10.5 worth of 350 fils stamps, and three Dh2 stamps. I could send my letter. While I had him on the phone, I asked if there was anyplace other than the post office that I could buy stamps. He said some supermarkets carry them, but he couldn't tell me which ones. Mine, I know, does not. A small but not quite complete victory.

The post office is not near our house or the office and requires a special trip even though it isn't far by distance. It's just not in an area where we ever are. And there are very few post boxes on the street. I may have seen two since I've been here. Remember, too, there is no home mail delivery. So mailing a letter is almost as difficult as buying stamps (and requires going to the post office, just the same).

As it happened, I went to dinner with a colleague and the restaurant was right behind the post office. Which was open until 10 p.m. And which didn't have long lines. And which was staffed by someone fairly friendly.

I showed him my letter and he added up the stamps. Dh11 he said. That's what it costs (so the helpful guy on the phone was helpful ... but not right). I had Dh12.5 pasted all over it, so I was good. I expected him to hand me back the letter, and he surprised me by taking it to mail. And while I was there I bought some more stamps.

Now, I might be the only person in the newsroom who knows how much it costs to send a letter. But I might also be the only person who needs to send one, too.

A Mini Break

We went to the beach today, and it was just gorgeous.

This week, the weather has been especially cool by local standards, and it has felt very much like SoCal. Crisp and clear, with daytime highs in the low 70s and night-time lows in the low 60s.

For our shared off day, previous plans we had fell through so I asked Paul if he would go to the beach with me. He likes living near the beach, but he doesn't really like the beach itself, per se. So on the rare occasions he goes, it's because of me. But the beach, to me, is a healing and magical place. There is no such thing as a bad beach day.

I considered it my Valentine's Day gift. Who wants flowers and chocolate when you can have the beach?

The beach here has clean, fine sand and turquoise and pale green water. On a weekday like this, it's mostly moms and small children, with a smattering of foreign tourists. It's incredibly relaxing and the best part is it's like being on vacation.

As I sat on the sand I imagined I was far away, in some exotic desert island locale. I know that literally, all that is true. Abu Dhabi is is an exotic desert island. But not in a destination vacation sort of way.

Yet it still surprises me to go from the world where I live to the world of the beach -- it's like traveling hundreds of miles away.

We sat together for some time, watching people learn to wakeboard or swim a bit, although the water is considered cold this time of year. I fell asleep in the sun and Paul eventually went up on the boardwalk to read in a chair in the shade. We were both happy. Afterward, we had some ice cream.

A perfect day, and just a 15-minute cab ride away.

Baby! (It's cold outside)

It's all relative, of course, but it's a bit nippy here today.

Highs in the 60s with a brisk wind and it feels like ... well, I don't know what it feels like. Not like a SoCal autumn, that's for sure. That chill is crisp and brisk. And not like a Long Beach summer's eve, either. It's humid here, but not that damp.

What I do know is the wind went right through my thin, long-sleeved T-shirt.

And the cab driver had the heat on when I left the office.

But don't worry about me; Paul says temps will be back up where they belong -- in the 80s -- in just a day or two.

p.s. Yes, I am wearing my Ugg boots

The Cost of Living

Before we came here, we were warned that the city was expensive. We steeled ourselves for the worst.

In fact, the worst came in the form of rent prices, among the highest of any city in the world. We live in roughly 400 square feet and we pay a little less than $2,000 per month, but the apartment is furnished and it includes utilities (and, supposedly, maintenance). We'll see some of the savings, sure enough, come summertime when the A/C is all cranked up. It should be mentioned, too, that our rent is substantially lower than what most people pay for an unfurnished one bedroom in a decent neighborhood. But our space is less, too, it's true.

It's not unusual for grown people to share homes, with multi-bedroom apartments housing multi-roommates. Some of this has to do with the fact a lot of people are here sans spouse or other. But most of it has to do with the price of the apartments here and, more importantly, the scarcity of housing.

The problem is less one of high-cost housing so much as low-availability housing, and in the end, that's all that matters.

But the rest of daily living almost makes up for it. First, there are no taxes. No renter's tax, no sales tax, no income tax, no gas tax, no sin tax. (OK, a little sin tax: An alcohol license is about $80 per year, and alcohol is taxed at 30 percent). So the money I make is what ends up in my bank account and the price on the meal I'm eating or the new shoes I'm buying is what I'll be asked to pay.

It's pretty cool.

The tricky part in figuring this out, and why it has taken me three months to really come to grips with it, is the currency exchange. The UAE dirham (not to be confused with the Moroccan dirham) is worth 27 cents in a fixed exchange rate with the dollar. So there's a lot of math. This was a problem, too, when France was still using the franc. And that currency fluctuated, so prices changed all the time. Add in metric measurements for things and it takes a little work to get to the price of things. I believe I had the same three-month revelation in Hong Kong when I finally figured out the proper exchange rate there.

So I might balk at the concept of something costing Dh100, but it's actually $27, and when you figure my microwave (Indian made!) costs Dh128, then it's a wow! moment. But there's definitely a psychological barrier to a Dh100 bill when so many things cost less than Dh20 and nobody here likes to give change. This isn't helped one iota by the fact the cash machines dispense 100s, if you're lucky, and 500s and 1,000s more often.

It's like buying a candy bar at home with a $20 bill.

Which brings me back to my original concept of the cost of living. Each week I go to the bank machine, take out a whopping Dh1,300 and the machine almost always gives me Dh1,000, Dh200 and Dh100. You can't just go to the corner grocery with that kind of cash.

And after the bank machine I go straight to the grocery store to get some change. I've found myself in trouble a time or two, waiting too long to get to the cash machine and having only Dh100 for a cab to get me to the bank. That actually doesn't work, so I have to go to a medium sized grocery and buy something stupid, like a loaf of bread, which costs Dh3.50, so I can have change. I try to remind myself that everyone should have the problem of too much money.

Anyway, I've been going to the big grocery store after I hit the ATM. This has been a weekly thing, due to work schedules. And my grocery bill for a whole week runs about $60. I bought 54 items the other day, and only four of them cost more than than Dh10: Milk (Dh10), a Greek salad for lunch (Dh11.25), 8 oz of sliced butterball turkey (Dh18.50), and some cheddar cheese (Dh17.75). I also bought yogurt and sliced cheese and bread and several prepared meals, a variety of fruits and vegetables, some cookies and some bottled water and the most I paid for any of it was a little over $2.

And I thought making the transition from French groceries, which are reputed to be expensive, to US groceries, which are, was tough. Going from food prices here to those back home is going to be one huge jolt of culture shock.

It extends to other parts of my life, too. In Hong Kong, our housekeeper was cheap -- $8.50 an hour. Here, it's reaallly cheap: $6.80. And, just as is it is California, it's off the books for everyone. (My housekeeper has a regular cleaning job at a company; she does housework on her own time, and as far as I can tell cleans for at least half a dozen people in the newsroom).

After picking up some laundry the other day, I was muttering about the cost - Dh25!! Then I realized I'd had a full set of sheets and pillowcases washed and ironed, two pairs of pants and two men's shirts. Gulp. $6.80.

Taxis are a bargain. Flag fall is Dh3 (81 cents) and a trip from work to home is $1.50. With a tip, it's $2.70. Because we have our own drive to work, we pay a bit more -- a whopping $5.50 because he shows up every day at the appointed time, seven days a week.

So yes, we are living well while living frugally. And it's a nice reality.

The Provenance of Food

It's something I've been thinking about for a while, and going to the Indian Food Festival on Friday made me think of it again.

Where does your produce come from? And how do you make a choice? In France, the markets are required to tell you the provenance of the produce. Of course it usually varies with the season. Strawberries in February are usually from Spain and they don't come from France until a few months later. Just like winter fruits in California come from Chile.

But here in the UAE, it's not as simple as what's in season. They don't grow much here in the desert, although more than I had thought as evidenced by this feature on locavores in The National last week. Of course dates, but apparently carrots and eggplant and zucchini, too.

A colleague has an Abu Dhabi blog and he writes about something similar there, at Abu Dhabi Do!

I am particularly fond of bananas from the Philippines. They are sweeter and more flavorful than bananas from South America, in my opinion. (Of course, this is all just my opinion). I started eating them last year in Hong Kong, and here I have a choice. Bananas from the Philippines, from India or from South America. There are two brands: Chiquita and Estrella. I prefer the Estrella bananas.

And it's not just bananas. I prefer Indian pomegranates to Tunisian or Egyptian ones. They are sweeter and juicier. I also usually prefer tangerines (or mandarins or clementines -- they vary) from Egypt, but those from Pakistan, which are lately on sale, have been pretty good. The ones from China are very tiny, and seem hardly worth the effort.

I can choose from Omani or Jordanian eggplant, Arabian potatoes and mangoes from Thailand or India. There is a huge supply of produce from the US and from Europe, but aside from the French apples, I don't usually bother. (An exception being celery, because a lot of places don't grow eating celery, they have cooking celery, and the US is an exception).

We are seeing a lot of summer fruits from South Africa right now: Peaches, nectarines and apricots. And as the price is going down, I can tell we are getting closer to the season.

There was a better-than-usual selection of produce from India this week: Green cardamom and bitter squash and tapioca and gigantic yams. I have no idea what to do with any of this. But I took some pictures. I wanted to try some of the more unusual fruits: jack fruit and snake fruit, which looks like it has snake scales on it. But I was discouraged by someone who knows better.

But it's something to think about, knowing where your food comes from. The bigger surprise -- to me -- is that there is such a difference.

The World's Longest Palindrome

Somebody told me today that Malayalam -- the official language of Kerala, India, and a language spoken by 35 million people world-wide -- is the world's longest palindrome.

It isn't quite; it's one of a few that are the same length in English, and a Finnish word for soapstone dealer is officially the longest.

But never mind. Malayalam is spoken by over 773,000 people in the UAE, a country of only 5 million residents.

And I'm thinking about this because I learned the Malayalam word for saunf, a Hindi and Urdu word for fennel . In Malayalam it is called peruncheeragam. In Tamil it is shombu.

In English, it's called: sugar-coated-fennel-seeds-they-give-you-after-dinner-at-an-Indian-restaurant-that-taste-like-Good-n-Plenty.

This is all part of my quest to have some of the delicacies of Indian food in my home so I don't have to wait to go out to eat. I learned all these words so that I can go to the grocery store and, if I can't find what I want, I now know three different words in four languages that someone at the supermarket might understand.

Phew.