Surprises

Yesterday I got to see a totally different side of the UAE. Al Ain is a fairly conservative city where you get stared at if you walk alone in town centre (as a woman) or if your legs are showing. That's why the first part of my evening was no surprise. A group of us went to an arabic coffee shop/shisha bar called Leisure. Myself and my two friend were the only North American people in the whole place, which made us stand out a bit. You basically sit and smoke shisha (if you so choose..I do not) and watch an Arabic singer on the stage. There are Arab women completely covered yet still dressed to impress with fancy purses, shoes and perfect make up. The men often all get up and dance together in a circle holding hands, which is not something you usually see men do where I'm from. I definitely felt very infused in the culture in this moment. When we had had enough culture for one night, we left and decided to go to one of the hotel/resorts to a bar. The first bar wanted over $100 to just sit at their table in their un-busy bar, so we got our money back and moved on.

The second bar we went to is where I got to see the different side! It is called Peach Bar and is located behind the Hilton hotel. It's a small rather grungy looking building with some fairly shifty looking characters standing around outside it. When we got inside it was clear that this was the place that expats from Philippines, Pakistan, India (etc) go to party down. I have never been to the Philippines but I learned last night that there is a strong gay community there and that cross-dressing is very common in many bars and clubs. This in itself was not the shock to me, as I have been to several gay bars in Toronto and Hamilton where there are regular drag shows and performers at the clubs. Here though, in a staunchly Muslim, extremely conservative small city in the middle of the desert, I was surprised to see a drag performer and lots of love of all sorts going on in the bar. The atmosphere was actually great. The performers played for most of the night with current and 80's hits, while DJ songs were interspersed throughout. They even slowed it down and had slow dance songs every once and a while. It was like a drunken, crazy version of a grade 8 dance in a school gym. The people next to us had a birthday and even gave us some cake. People were clearly there to just dance and have fun, which is refreshing compared to the other clubs here where people are always looking to pick up. There were a few lurkers and some creepers like any bar, but overall it was just for fun!

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Today was a day of me driving into stuff, which is not great since my car is a rental. First I drove into the parking pole at my gym, then coming home there was a giant water jug on the road. I went into the left lane to avoid it and in that moment, a strong desert wind swept through and blew the jug right in front of my car. So naturally, i drove directly over top of it annnnd it got stuck under my car. I pulled over and put my hazards on. I found that it was, of course, stuck under the middle of the car, impossible to reach, so I grabbed a tire iron from my trunk to try to fish it out. I was laying on the ground poking around under my car when I heard "Uhhhhh...Madam, you need help!?" I looked up to see a smiling Emirati man standing beside my car who had stopped to help. I showed him the stuck water bottle and he entirely blew me away when he laid, face-down on the road in a stark white Kandora and slid under my car to fish out the water bottle. When he got up his perfectly clean Kandora had crap all over it from the road, and he just chucked the bottle to the side of the road, smiled, and got back in his Cadillac Escalade and drove away as I was profusely apologizing and thanking him. He flashed me a toothy smile and gave me a thumbs up as he drove away.

This place never stops surprising me!