Johannesburg - Dubai
My goodbye luncheon with friends at Rosebank left me heavily intoxicated; thanks to my brother – who packed my stuff - I only collected!!
Got to the airport, sobered up rather quickly when I could not find the forex branch of ABSA bank to withdraw and exchange money. The forex apparently doesn’t exist anymore as they didn´t get the tender (an airport official said) – which left me irritated and confused as exchanging money became a bit of a hassle. Got on a flight anyway – very sober :) !
Emirates is certainly a world 1st class flight – it was my first time in it and it was gentle , the entertainment options are many with top technology, how many airlines give you 10 movies to choose from?!?!
When I landed in Dubai my high expectations were very much shattered, people who I have talked to while visiting or on transit at the Dubai airport always talked about how amazing it is and well…I found it rather superficial – huge paintings with gold frames on the walls, pine trees with a fountain in the middle – giving a it a jungle look and very expensive stores but the contrast was that people were sleeping on the floor like in the Indian train-stations and the luggage trolleys looked like the grocery trolleys used at supermarkets. I had to change money so I can go to McDonalds and the interesting thing was that the coins were all written in Arabic – was not sure how much to pay for my meal and had to therefore give all the coins to the cashier so she could sort me out.
While waiting for my connection flight at the other side of the airport, I passed through a group of guys from West Africa (I assumed west as their body features looked typically west African i.e. tall, masculine-heavy looking, and dark skinned) and sat a couple of benches in front of them, then some Arabic guy (I assume he was an airport official) dressed in a white traditional veil was going around to the black people only and asking for their papers and the ‘West African’ group was rounded-off – he came to me and by then I was highly irritated by what I had seen him doing – he asked for my papers and I gave him my passport with a look that he is disturbing me and it took him a minute to waltz-off but I felt bad for guys even though they probably are not innocent.
Dubai – Istanbul
Obviously my first time to the middle east region even if I was not there per se but in a flight over it. I made sure I watched the screen showing the map in the flight and got a bit nervous when we flew over Baghdad in Iraq, I was wondering if they are not going to shoot the plain from the sky – I know that’s highly unlikely but hey I am the kinda guy who thinks about a plain crash everytime I fly.
When I got to immigration at Turkish airport, the 1st official looked at my passport then looked at me then passed it to the 2nd official who then invited another official to browse through aswell. They kept on looking at me and my passport picture, then scanned my passport if it’s not fake, I then offered my identity book aswell to confirm that it’s really me but I had to submit my ticket aswell. The people behind me in the queue were getting restless and then I finally asked if there is a problem – the official asked me what I am doing here and finally before handing me my passport he said I look too young to be here on a business visa – weather that was a compliment or not, I was just highly irritated and annoyed for keeping me for so long and saying that I am a kid.
Istanbul, Turkey
Merhaba (Turkish for hello)
…don’t know where to start – I have been here 5 weeks and can write a book. Well I’ll start with work and then write about my personal experiences and opinions.
Microsoft
It took me a while to understand what we do exactly – there are so many things going on but now it’s atleast starting to make sense. I am a Community Affairs coordinator for the middle east and Africa region – the work involves strategy development, project-budget-plans coordination, software donation, and etc… The company is great so far, besides getting and using all the latest software which are or will run our lives e.g. the other day we were demonstrated a touch screen model laptop made by HP – the only model existing in Turkey at the moment, you can book a massage every Tuesday for 15min, there is a fridge on all the kitchen floors stocked with refreshments – except alcohol of course, ohh and fresh fruits everyday between 3 & 4pm – so managers if an employee disappears during that time, you know where to find them :).
I normally work 9 – 6 but me and my team (an Australian girl and a Romanian guy) lately have been working until 8pm sometime as there is a project in the pipeline but all the benefits above I guess compensate for the long hours and the fact that you can work from home aswell if you ask your boss – I should try that soon.
The other things is that I work with a Turkish keyboard which was confusing at first and still is – so please forgive me when you see an email that contains characters with an I that has a dot and one without a dot, the other things is that when I get home I have to readjust my thinking as my personal laptop has a german keyboard while when I was home I was using the English keyboard…..see its confusion – confusion!!!
On numerous occasions when I have been travelling, some people would ask – after having gathered enough courage to talk to a foreigner is where are you from and what are you doing here…and my reply would be I am from South Africa (…but they always miss the South part and say ohh Africa) and I work at Microsoft (…an eyebrow would be raised & an acknowledgement sound made as if to alleviate me from a tourist pact to a class of intelligence…so funny).
Personal XP
The cats here are everywhere and soooo well-fed (fat), seems to be common practice to just throw ‘left-overs’ fodd through the window or leave it at a corner in the streets for cats to find…the SPCA in south Africa will be happy that people are actually feeding them but upset that they are not sterilized. Kinda reminds me of the many dogs running around Mumbai, India.
I found it rather baffling though that most tellers in Banks can’t speak English even at places where you’d expect, for example, I have been trying to withdraw dollars and only certain places have that option i.e. airport area, Levent, etc… and this is a city of 15 million people. I work in Levent where I’d expect dollars and English but I had to take a colleague for translation.
There is a great spice market – rather strange that its called that because it sells everything – I mean from spices to a broom and you can negotiate for everything aswell. You just have to go there early enough even though you would not have enough time still, its right by the river so you can pop-by the fish market or a fish restaurant after an exhausting shopping spree.
The transport system is well…different, but not bad at all comparing to south African system, there is a taksi (cad), metrobus (joburg kinda metrobus), metro (the one platform subway arriving every 10min).
The center of Istanbul is called taksim – that is where shops, clubs and restaurants are, then I live in osmanbey area and I go to work in Levent so the metro passes through all this places hence it takes me only 20min to get to work and can also be 15min if I run like I did the other day.
…well the pen is running out of ink and I thought I should get this out to clear way for other stuff.
Hope you liked the chaotic writing :)
