A Little Taste of Home

Absolutely worth the five hours round trip.


I < 3 Anthropologie.  Now if only we could persuade them (and Chipotle and Ikea) to move a little farther north...

The New Necessary

Maybe we're tired, maybe we're nuts, or maybe we're just really easily amenable to the power of suggestions.  Whatever the case, I'm not sure if it's really safe to let H or I go shopping this week.

After a marathon of Downton Abbey, I came home with this claret.  For 3.89 GBP, I couldn't resist.  I did resist the crystal goblets to drink it out of (you're welcome H).  But I wouldn't say no to a butler to serve it; sadly I never did unwrap one for my birthday.  Alas, if I got my butler, I would probably need to get some appropriate glassware.

Not to be outdone in weirdness, after a glorious lunch of dim sum, I found H at the checkout line of the neighboring Chinese supermarket with these two giant bamboo steamers:

 

Apparently these are necessary to steam the frozen dim sum he had also selected.  Forget the fact that the rice cooker has been used to do the very same thing for the past three years and the fact that we have two small cabinets in our tiny kitchen to store all cookware and containers in.  Two steamer baskets + one lid, each with a diameter of ~16 inches = NECESSARY.  However, as the official sous-chef/chief taster for Master Chef H, I can't really object to his kitchenware selections.

One day I'll have to do a pictorial inventory of our overseas kitchenware titled either What Our Kitchen Cabinets Look Like After Moving Overseas in Four Suitcases and Leaving Behind All of the Gorgeous Items From Our Bloomingdale's Wedding Registry or Expat Kitchen Essentials.  Either way, prepare to be astounded.

The Ultimate Test of a Loving Marriage

After over a year of living in our flat, I realized yesterday that we don't have a single full length mirror.  This cognizance came when I excitedly went to try on two new pairs of pants that had arrived in the mail and couldn't find a single appropriate mirror to see how they looked.  Fast forward eight hours to when H walked through the door from work:

Me: "H, I need you to be my mirror and tell me how these two pairs of pants look."

H: "Umm, maybe you can stand on a chair?"

Me: "No, I need a full length, 360 view, just be honest."

H: "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Me: "Yes, they're just pants, tell me how they look."

A mere ten minutes later (which is quick for me and pants), we had jointly decided to keep the pair I had assumed would be returned and to return the pair that I had been most excited about ordering, thanks to a poor fit.  And not a single mean word or hurt feeling.  Major bonus points to my awesome husband, who also happens to have excellent taste.

Another Good Reason to Get a Hairy Coo

Gchat with H this morning: 

H [10:33 AM]: "What are you up to?"

Wife, Anonymous [10:34 AM]: "I just walked two miles round trip to get a pint of milk.  I feel like Laura Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie."

H [10:37 AM]: "To be like Laura Ingalls you would have to milk a cow."

Touché H, touché.  I guess I really should restart my efforts to learn how to drive our manual.  Otherwise, if anyone wants to get me a baby hairy coo, I bet I can learn how to milk a cow faster than I can learn how to drive a manual.

Seriously, how cute is that face?

Où Est Votre Bébé? AKA Dude Where's Your Baby?

A couple of weeks ago, while abroad, I met up with an old friend and her baby.  Given that we were in a nice city, instead of catching up at home, we took the city by storm and spent our days packed full of site-seeing and shopping.  At one point, my friend took her son into the restroom and I kept walking around with the stroller, which may or may not have been laden down with my shopping bags.  As I meandered around the site, another tourist stopped me and said,

"Pardon, où est votre bébé?"

"Umm, with his mother, my friend, in the bathroom."

Did you think I was stealing a stroller or that I forgot my child?  I'm not sure which is worse.

An Infidel’s Guide to Living in the Middle East

Our friends came over for drinks last night; fortunately we tippled so much that I don’t think they minded the overwhelming scents I was exuding from spending the afternoon slathering myself with all of the samples at Lush.  H came home and Anonymous Friend started telling him how I walked home doing jazz hands courtesy of my gold glitter coated hands that came from picking up a glitter encrusted bath bomb to smell. 

“Actually,” she said,  “you have a little bit of the stripper dust left on your face.”

I went to wipe it off and remembered the nice face cream(s) I had sampled at Lush.  So I promptly stuck my face in front of H’s and made him feel how soft my skin was.  Which promoted a Middle East flashback, this time not triggered by the pervasive smell of pork.

 “If you guys ever get transferred to the Middle East, you must promise to do one thing.”

“What?” Anonymous Friends asked.

“Well, you know how Chanel and La Mer and all of the other expensive face products are always behind lock and key at cosmetic counters and you can never sample them?  In Doha, Sephora has all of that stuff out and every time I went to the mall (which was at least once per day since that’s all there was to do in Doha), I used to slather very generous quantities of them all over my face.”

H piped in, “One day I finally asked AE why she didn’t just buy the creams and then I saw that they were a couple hundred dollars each.  So sampling them in store was a much better option and one of the limited perks of living in Qatar.

Anonyomous Friend, “Haha, that’s amazing.  You guys should write an insider’s guide of tips for living in the Middle East.”

H, “Wow, that would be fun….we could call it “An Infidel’s Guide to Living in the Middle East.”

Me, “Done.  High end face cream samples at Sephora will get it’s very own chapter.  Now if only we can think of enough other perks to write a book; perhaps we should aim for a pamphlet instead.”

Pound Land: The Most Depressing Place on Earth

I should preface this entry by saying that I actually enjoy bargain shopping and that lots of fun can be had in dollar stores and their international equivalents.  One of my fondest college memories is buying toy jewelry at the local dollar shop for my “pirate who has been on a very successful looting mission” Halloween costume.  And H and I went into a 99 Pence store here after well over 30 hours of traveling from Perth.  We touched everything in the shop and ended up buying soap.*

So today, while walking through the city, I remembered that we needed trash bags and popped into Pound Land to pick some up.  Biggest mistake ever.  The ‘Home’ aisle was full of crazy people.  One woman was spraying all of the cleaning products in the air and then smelling them.  She may have been trying to find a nice scent or doing something else but those things will stain your clothes.  One under 18 couple had a cart full of cleaning products and a large baby bump; I guess they were setting up house together?  And then there was the senior citizen brigade who could not stop jostling at the check-out queue, complaining about how the store ‘wasn’t doing the queue right,’ and other general grumpiness.  This was before one guy broke out into song; possibly to make it harder to hear his very loud, very grumpy wife?  I am definitely going to have to find a new place to bargain shop.

*Possibly not as weird as it sounds given that every drug store and grocery store that we’ve gone into in the UK has 1-3 bar soap options and the nicest one we found was actually at the 99 Pence store.  We had also spent about 26 of the previous 32 hours on airplanes and soap = clean = luxury.

I Don't Think I Woke Up Back in the Middle East, Did I?

While there may be some positive things about the United Kingdom that remind me of my time living in the Middle East (i.e. late night grocery shopping, kebab shops, Nando's), today I had my first wtf, are you sure I've escaped Doha moment?  Last weekend, I ordered an iron online from Debenhams.  I know, very exciting; I think I might actually be getting closer to 30.  Anyway, given that my wallet was across the room and H was sitting next to me with his wallet conveniently located in his pocket, I used his credit card to place the order.  The prescribed order confirmation timeline had passed so this morning I called Debenhams to check on the status of the order.

Upon request, I provided the customer service representative with:

• The confirmation number, "Great, thank you miss."
• Delivery destination, "Yes, thank you." 
• E-mail address, "Great."
• Name the order was placed under, "Excuse me, may I please speak with your husband?"

"Umm, pardon?"  

"I need to speak with your husband as the order is in his name."

"I have all the information and I actually placed the order; the confirmation is going to my e-mail address."

"I'm sorry miss but I can't discuss any details of the order with you."

"You realize that w're talking about an iron, right?"

"I'm sorry but the order is in your husband's name."

Ok, last time I use H's credit card instead getting up off my lazy butt to get my purse.  What did this guy think?  That I had hacked someone else's e-mail account, found an outstanding order for an iron, and called to find out when they were planning on delivering it to the address on the order?

Wow, maybe I'm missing something (like the iron came with a free person to iron everything, or better yet, a butler) but given that I had all of the order details, refusing to update me with the order status seemed a little extreme.  Sorry H, but you're going to have to add calling Debenhams to the bottom of your million item long to-do list.

While you're at it, maybe you can also do the following:

• Pre-emptively give me written permission to drive in the United Kingdom.
• Order me a sweatshirt that says, "Don't worry, my husband allows me to go outside without a headscarf/burqa/niqab."
• Write me a permission slip for buying Winter Pimm's, Baltika and Savanna Dry.  It can read something like, yes, these items are within my wife's 'allowance' and she is over 18.
• Hire a butler.  Whoops, sorry, I don't know how that line item slipped in.

Many thanks!

Perth Shopping- Gag Me

I need a new pair of shoes for work, really badly.  I’ve been wearing my current pair for the past four years, including every work day of the past two years.  I’ve worn them barefoot, in +40˚C weather, and through deserts and occasional flooding.  The sole of one is peeling off, the heel of the other is ripped, and they smell really bad.  So bad that I’ve taken to washing my feet every evening when I get home (Which shockingly enough makes me miss the two bidets in the last house.  Yes, I do know what bidets should actually be used for.  And yes, I have only ever used them to wash my feet).

It’s not for want of other shoes that I’ve taken to wearing this pair everyday.  While my closet in Perth has many fewer pairs than my closet(s) in the U.S., I do have other options.  But none are as stylish or as comfortable.  I really just want to buy a new pair of the same shoe.  Of course, Tory Burch shoes are not sold in Australia, at least Western Australian; if they were, they would probably cost three times the price.  So I have taken to scouring the handful of ‘nice’ stores in Perth for a substitute pair of work flats.

In the months, almost year, that I’ve attempted to shop in Perth, I’ve grown to appreciate the shopping that we once had at our fingertips living in the Middle East.  While it was just like home, except with no tax and slightly higher prices / less frequent sales, apparently the shopping at home is pretty spectacular.  I noticed that the inventory at David Jones has basically not turned over since we got here and found two ok pairs of shoes for about twice as much as I would consider paying for them.  Perhaps the stores have not yet realized that the Australian dollar is actually around parity with the U.S. dollar and adjusted their prices accordingly.  The salespeople have been at best absent and at worst condescending, ignorant and unhelpful.  Shockingly enough, I am still wearing my stinky, yet stylish, shoes.

Smelly feet are one thing but the unchanging, bad inventory is making me depressed.  H and I just did yet another walkabout in David Jones, the ‘nice’ department store in Perth, and were underwhelmed by the merchandise, let alone the pricing.  Never have I seen so much polyester in what is deemed to be an upscale department store.  Out of date styles by years, not just seasons, cheap fabric and bad cuts abounded.  And I’m talking about what was for sale, not just what the salespeople were wearing.

Fingers crossed that the shopping will be better in our next location.  Although the men there are known to wear 'skirts.'

Celebrating One Year in Perth

As we are celebrating our one year anniversary of living in Australia, I feel like I’m detached enough from the crappy things about living in Qatar to assemble a Qatar Top Five list:

• Thai Snack and Massage:  Thai restaurant, massage parlour, Thai karaoke and late night skype calls to the Motherland rolled up into one, what could possibly be bad?  Best Thai food in the world Middle East and while I may have felt slightly sticky after eating there, it was hands down my favorite restaurant in Doha.
• Qatari gas stations: ~$12 to fill my tank and someone to do it for me, need I say more?  Leaving the car and air conditioning running while my tank was getting filled did take some getting used to but I managed.
• Exciting Surprise Glitter Game:  On occasion, after using the restroom at work, I would reach to turn on the faucet to wash my hands and notice that they were covered in glitter.  Where did this glitter come from you might ask?  Drum roll please…glitter toilet paper!  I kid you not.
• Being able to shop (food, clothes, etc.) until 11:00 PM and sit down to dinner after 9:00 PM.  Working full-time does not allow me time to get to the shops in Perth before they close at 5:00 PM.  Our refrigerator has never looked so sparse.

Wait, that was only a top four list.  Ok, instead of struggling for a fifth item to fill the list, I’ll replace number five by sharing a few things that Qatar beats Australia on:

• Living in a rental that was ours to do what we pleased in until we handed back the keys versus our rental in Perth that is inspected every three months for cleanliness.  We must have a totally OCD realtor because our spotless (even by Anonymous Mother’s standards) apartment has gotten the following write-ups:
• Living room looks cluttered.  Well, Anonymous Realtor, you rented us a furnished apartment and we left the furniture exactly where you put it.  Did the addition of two books and a laptop to the coffee table upset the feng shui of the room?  You’re welcome to send an interior designer to rearrange the microsuede and pleather furniture.
• Too many bottles of water on kitchen counters.  Two bottles of water for two people, apologies.
• Picture hanging in office does not hang parallel to floor.  Wow, let me get out my balance.  Oh wait, I don’t have one, we moved here in suitcases.
• Nando’s: Nando’s Australia just isn’t the same as Nando’s in the Middle East.  I can’t help but continue to look for the lentil soup, hummus and chicken strips and spicy rice that are not on the menu here.
• Shawarma with tahini, and better yet garlic tahini.  Australian kebab shops have mayonnaise which firstly is not a comparable substitute for tahini and secondly is as low on my ‘foods I can’t stand list’ as tuna fish.
• Restaurants where one can eat for less than $25 per person.
• People in stores/restaurants who actually acknowledge that it is their job to help you and attempt to do so.
• Stores with nice brands of clothing and accessories.
• Tax free living versus the only thing left to tax me for is the air I’m breathing living.
• Heliports in the city (Doha) versus 2-12 hours away (Perth).

Next year I’ll work on a Perth Top Five list; it’s guaranteed to include convicts and kangaroos.  Can’t wait, can you?

Oh, America

Today I went to David Jones, an upscale Australian department store, in my quest to find comfortable pillows. I walked in and felt like I was back in Bloomingdales at home, in the beautiful home department with brand name china and other decorative household goods. I had to fight an impulse not to buy picture frames, bowls, candlesticks etc. for our fully furnished apartment when we have endless rooms full of boxes of wedding gifts sitting in their original wrappings at my parents’ house in the U.S. (Is this a familiar expat story or are we the only people who attempt to live out of suitcases over four years into an international mobile contract?) While looking for the bedding, or Manchester department as it is known here, I came across the Food Hall à la Harrods (ok, micro scale Harrods) or Galeries Lafayette which houses a handful of rows of gourmet food from all over the world. I walked through the English section (including tea and biscuits from Harrods), high-end sauces and chutneys, an end of an aisle dedicated to foods from Asia, and stopped short in my tracks at an aisle labeled U.S. Goods. I kid you not when I tell you that this full aisle was full of Baconnaise (a bacon mayonnaise spread), Aunt Jemima’s Pancake Batter, Mrs. Butterworth’s artificial “maple syrup,” Duncan Hines cookie mix, Hershey’s Syrup, Welsh’s Grape Jam, Smucker’s Peanut Butter and Jelly Mix, Tabasco Sauce, Campbell’s Soup, corn syrup, and canned pumpkin. Glad to see what’s considered to be gourmet from America…