Miscellaneous Ramblings & People Watching

I have realized that the malls...any of the malls here...are a hotbed for people watching!!  You'll be happy to know that I may NEVER run out of material as long as I keep shopping!  Chad, Mitchell and I were at Mall of the Emirates Thursday evening eating dinner.  Mitchell had to go to the bathroom in the middle of dinner.  That's where the fun started:

·         Most restaurants DO NOT have bathrooms in them here so you have to leave the restaurant and find the nearest public "toilet".

·         On the walk to the bathroom, I saw a woman in an abaya being followed by her nanny pushing her baby in a stroller and holding the hand of another small child.  It got me thinking; if you have a nanny to take care of your kids, why drag them all to the mall?!?!?  Leave the nanny and the kids at home and enjoy the mall in PEACE!!!

·         While waiting for Mitchell outside the men's room, I saw a man push his shopping cart ALL THE WAY INTO THE MEN'S room!  Not sure what he did with it while he was in there.  A short time later, he pushed it back out and off he went! 

·         When we arrived back at the restaurant we sat down to continue our meal and a couple and their ~7 month old baby were seated next to us.  The baby was in her stroller and the mother took a medium sized plastic bag out of the stroller and took out a small container of baby food.  She handed the container to her husband who asked the waiter to heat it up.  She handed the EMPTY PLASTIC BAG TO THE BABY TO PLAY WITH!!!!  SERIOUSLY!!!  The first thing the baby did was stick it straight into her mouth!!!  Chad and I looked at each other and shook our heads in disbelief.  We almost asked them if they wanted our knife so she could play with that too!  UNBELIEVABLE!!

I was walking down the hall in our office building today and saw a man with a bucket of water and a wash rag cleaning the baseboards in the hallway!  You gotta hand it to them here...they like to keep things spotless!

·         Pizza delivery includes LOADS of ketchup!  There are countless people here who eat ketchup on their pizza.  YUCK!  YUCK!  YUCK!  If you ask me!

·         A lot of restaurants have a box of tissues on the tables instead of paper napkins.  Not very useful since they fall apart easily!

·         Dubai Mall - LARGEST MALL IN THE WORLD has machines by all the elevators in the parking garages where you push a button and get a ticket reminding you where on EARTH you parked.  There are so many different entrances and parking garages it is VERY handy.

·         Other malls make you pay for parking if you're there longer than 4 hours on weekdays.  You have to take a parking ticket when you enter the garage and REMEMBER to pay at a machine near the mall exits BEFORE getting into your car and leaving the garage.  When you pay it validates your ticket and spits it back out so you can put it in the machine at the exit.  It may be a surprise to many of you that I have NOT been at a mall longer than 4 hours in the time we've been here!  Even when watching a movie!