Ha: "'We have a major push into the U.S. coming up,' Clark said. 'I said to myself before that once the 'Bible Belt' starts talking about Dubai, we've won. And now, from coast to coast, everyone is talking about it. Is there such a thing as bad publicity?'"

That's from the director of Emirates airlines channeling Oscar Wilde.

Sorry I haven't written more on the blog. I recently realized there's so much to tell. So, so much.

And so I'm off to Dubai today for a three days (via Emirates airlines, surely you've heard of it!) for a job interview.

*

Adventures with Nadia, the maid (though I prefer "housekeeper")...

In Cairo, juice is cheap. They sell it freshly squeezed on the street for next to nothing. Yet for some reason Nadia, who is nice enough to go shopping for me, buys orange juice in a box, which of course is not actually orange juice at all but 50% sugar and water. Perhaps because I'm a foreigner, and she knows we foreigners all like our things in boxes and packages.

So I tried explaining to her, in the pidgin language inherited from the woman I sublet from, that it would be nice to buy the fresh juice from the street rather than the stuff in the box. So she goes out and gets a big load of oranges and squeezes me a fresh glass of orange juice.

Being thoroughly unaccustommed to being waited on in such a horrific fashion, I was pretty embarassed.

I let it rest, and later in the day I successfully managed to convey to Nadia that she had needlessly exceeded my expectations.