Sitba

Sitba as multi purpose cargo vehicle!

 

Yes, that's a lawnmower. 

Ahhh, home.

Really, I wasn't even gone for that long. But poopin on your own toilet, drinking your own (delicious, strong) coffee, doing laundry, drinking the homemade fuzzy water from your Sodastream rigged to a 5 pound cylinder, showering in your own shower, troubleshooting your own fucking piece of shit Comcast high speed wireless. Yeah, the good life.

On the list for today:
take CRV containers to recycling center
mow my lawn
mow mom's lawn
recycle corks
go to the library
clean up garage to get ready for brewing this weekend!

The Lufthansa Senator Lounge at DXB

 

This is the small, but very, very pleasant Lufthansa Senator Lounge at the Dubai airport.These are reclining lounges. They felt good after a long day. 

electricity

For a crystal clear visual on what using turning on the air conditioning does:

Guess which day I ran the A/C?

Vegan food at IAH

I forgot to mention: i was pretty dubious when web searches kept repeatedly indicating that the Houston airport was great for vegan options.
i was genuinely impressed: Zpizza, Mango Taco Truck, and a salad bar are all within about 200 feet of each other on the C concourse. And i walked by another half dozen easily workable options.

Houston airport vegan lunch!

After an aggregate of around 17 hour on airplanes, and four still to go, the "Berkeley Vegan" from Zpizza was a really nice lunch. Now I have a stupid seven hour layover here at IAH, but fortunately have access to the United Club and its showers.

This, my friends

Is some serious vegan hotel room food porn.

Tofu with wild pickle

Oh, and: bitter melon tastes like shit.

Vanity

I've been wondering for several days what is in the "vanity pack" in my hotel bathroom.

The entire contents, for the vain visitor:

four q-tips
a mini emory board
a single band aids.

Weird.

Today is functionally my last full day in Dubai, as tomorrow I check out of the hotel, wander around in broiling heat and humidity,  then sneak back into the hotel for a present to my seat-mate on the 13 hour flight back to the US: a shower in the fitness club locker room.

Vegan hotel room snackie wackies!

More Dubai style.

The camera kinda washed it out and didn't do this pretty plate justice. Stuffed grape leaves,  hummus, hummus with eggplant,  bread, and Indian "pickle."

The triple whammy of jet lag, intense heat and humidity, and being woken up every fucking morning around 0440 by the call to prayer have really kicked my butt. I had to take a three hour nap this afternoon, so now I need to stay up until midnight or so.

Vegan hotel room snackies - Dubai edition!

All over the incredibly hot and humid Dubai today, and still have to go back out to the souqs in search of the illusive wild coffee mug (most of my readership knows exactly what this is about.)

Today:
Jumeriah Beach Walk (sucked, but putting my feet into the Arabian Gulf was nice)
Burj Khalifa (for being the world's tallest building, the trip to the top is only worth doing if you're a check it off kind of person)
Dubai Centre For Special Needs Charity Shop (total fail: doors locked,  complex deserted)
Ibn Battuta mall (surprisingly beautiful interior architecture, but it's still a shopping mall)
Karama Shopping Centre souq (meh - lots of crap, but no coffee mugs)

Still got a couple souqs to try for mugs, but it's looking dire.

The food is interesting:the hummus is almost more tahini than chick pea, the weird quasi-ganoushj so-so but edible,  the grape leaves eh.

Foot wash at the top of the tallest building on earth

My feet were kinda dirty from the beach parking lot. A bidet is a great foot wash!

Just 'cause

I wanted to figure out how to do screenshots with the tablet.

Confidential: it's hot as fuck here. Time to go wander around again in the heat!

Dubai!

I know,  incredible picture,  right?!? Actually just testing out blogging with the blogger app on my tablet. And about to walk out the door to visit the tallest building in the world. So some better blogging may be on the way!

But it is awfully nice to have a full kitchen in my hotel room. Haven't eaten out yet...