Dubai to Date

So I've now officially been in Dubai for 4 days. The first day probably shouldn't count because I spent it catching up on sleep (damn you Air Canada) for 15 hours straight which might be a new record for me. I did manage to drag my butt to the Mall of the Emirates that day - or the MOE as we call it - to buy groceries (more to come) but that's about it.

When I got in I cabbed it (the hotel sent the driver on the wrong day ... ah Dubai) to my hotel. We are staying at the Corp Executive Hotel (http://www.corp-hotels.com/). We've all been given one bedroom apartments that have a bedroom separated out by a 3/4 height wall, a sitting room with couch, chair, side tables, entertainment unit with plasma TV and a laptop to use kitchen with washer/dryer, microwave, stove, fridge all. If you look at the pics on the site they're bang on. It's a brand new hotel so everything is fancy and new. The hotel also has a great little gym and pool that opens really early so I've been partaking of that in the mornings before work. Just a head's up Maunique!!!! So far the only problem with the hotel is that there is not a single taxi driver who knows it's there. The hotel has only been in operation since May of this year and is still a mystery to most of Dubai. They build things so fast here that the poor taxi guys have no chance at keeping up with all the new developments so I think they've just given up entirely. Who can blame them?

My trip to the MOE was interesting (http://www.malloftheemirates.com/). It is the biggest mall I've ever been in. Lindy Zucker, my fellow box office person and Torontonian, told me not to panic when I went in and not to try and take it in all at once. I thought she was crazy but she was right on the mark. I walked for 20 minutes without stopping and had only reached the midway point of the mall. I hadn't even tried going down any of the tributaries that feed into the main hall.

MOE contains Dubai Ski which is an indoor ski hill (I don't know why). It's awesome to watch folks who are completely unfamiliar with snow play in it. I will try and load some video of it. It's awesome! MOE also contains Carrefours which is a grocery/department store - think a Superstore on crack. This is where I did my first grocery shopping. The place has a million of everything and yet nothing all at the same time. There is an entire aisle devoted to fresh olives - blech! I did manage to find something that was kinda like Cream of Wheat so overall I'm pretty happy. Plus they had Biopot yogurt which is the best yogurt in the world. If they sold it in Toronto it's all I would eat. Soooo good. Anyhow, shopping trip successful - Yay Dot!

The next day Lindy, Sydney (also a Toronto gal) and I went to the LuLu Hypermarket (totally, not making that name up). Driving up to LuLu was kinda like driving the strip in Vegas. It's huge and it's totally covered with bright shiny lights that flicker and move. It's divided into 3 floors. We spent most of our time on the second floor which had groceries and housewares. This is a more foreigner friendly environment than Carrefours. They even have a section of UK/USA food. They know we're slow and kind dumb - bless their heathen hearts! We did venture to the third floor which is the department store. What I loved most about this floor is that every electronic device had it's volume up full so it was just a barrage of sound. My ears felt like I had just been at a Metallica concert but it was cooly weird all the same. The best part of our trip though was the Magic Corn kiosk. That's right folks .... MAGIC corn. It's kinda like Kernels but with real corn niblets. Soooo weird. Soooo yummy. Lindy is in love with LuLu's. We will go back and I will tell you of our continuing adventures.

Despite how it sounds I actually have been working. I started on Monday by sitting through 4 hours of interviews. It's a very different world here. Folks came to the interviews in suits and had proper CV's with them which never happens when you are hiring for the Toronto festival. Soooo weird. Human Capital (that's what they call human resources here) seems to think we are looking for bankers or Russian supermodels for the box office because that's what the majority of the folks they sent us resumes for were. We did meet one little gal who had been studying in Ohio (she's from Dubai) and is a huge football fan. She was very impressed that I knew the team was called the Buckeyes. We love her.

Actually, Human Capital (HC) here is crazy. For an example one of the positions DIFF is hiring for is Print Traffic. This person is responsible for getting all the film prints to the festival in a timely manner, in the format required and then getting them to where they're due next. It's a hugely intricate job and requires a knowledge of shipping and of film (industry and technical). HC sent the person hiring this person a resume for a former police officer..... because he had experience directing traffic. Yes, someone had explained the position to them ahead of time. Pray for us all.

So far all is good. Lindy is a goddess and had everything totally under control by the time I got here. I'll try and update a little more often now that I have internet access.

Hope all is well in Toronto.

Dubai time: 4:22pm Current Temperature: 37 degrees and sunny