Beer and duty-free shopping @ Beirut airport, and Amman so far....

Today was mostly interviews. The final member of our team arrived today, so we are now 6. Kelly from New Brunswick, Tarek and AbdelAziz from Cairo (But AA has been living in Jeddah for 20 years), Wally, canadian but living in Dubai, and Moses, living in Seattle but also Canadian. The group is diverse but we seem to be gelling well. Tomorrow we were planning to go to the dead Sea, but the guys realized it is the Euro Cup final (Spain vs. Germany) so that's been postponed till the day after tomorrow) then on Canada Day, we are off to Petra, which I am really excited about. Here are a few more pics from Beirut (our flight was delayed, so we amused ourselves shopping and drinking beer) as well as a couple from the first day and a half in Amman. Okay I MUST sleep now...too many late nights and early mornings are catching up with me.... xoxo c

Ma'asalama Beirut, Hellooooo Jordan...

My last post about Beirut wasn't so positive-- mostly because we were interviewing in a sauna all day-- thankfully both the interview venue and my impression of Lebanon improved immensely over the last few days. You can definitely see very obvious signs of the recent troubles- tanks and soldiers everywhere, bombed out buildings, barbed wire etc- the Lebanese people seem tense, and many of the people we talked to are trying to find work outside of the country, but for the most part, life is going on as usual. The recruiting agent took us around so we could see some of the hills surrounding the city, and of course, we ate a lot too- Lebanese food is excellent- especially the fruit!!! We also saw the Rawche (or pigeon rock) which has a huge hole in it-- it reminded me of the one on the Gaspee... (Piercee Rochee or something like that...).


We just arrived in Jordan about an hour ago, and the drive from the airport was dark so I can't comment on it at all yet, but the visa is pretty.

Here are some more pics of Beirut- I'm going to bed!

Miss you!

xoxo C

Beirut

So we arrived in Beirut yesterday- we flew Omani Airlines from Dubai, and it was probably one of the worst flights I've ever been on- the service was terrible!

Beirut so far has been mixed... the town is beautiful, it's right on the Mediterranean and is surrounded by hills- sort of like LA- and the shopping is great (I am currently in fierce negotiations with a local merchant for a replica Coach purse- it's a bit too much now, but I know I'll be able to wear him down by the end of the trip...) but the recruiting has been what can only be described as a "gong-show" (I never use that word, but here it seem like the only appropriate discription!). In most of the other countries we had a large room for the presentation- usually about 100-200 ppl- and then the candidates would wait there and drink coffee and eat fruit and croissants and other such things, and we'd interview them individually. Well here, the recruiter seemed surprised that we needed room for more than 5 people. Also, another unique thing about Lebanon is that the municipal electricity turns off for 3 hours each afternoon (I KNOW!!), so many companies use generators to bridge the gap... but the generator where we were didn't work very well, so our powerpoint presentation only worked intermittently, same with the A/C- both our team and the candidates were dripping with sweat the entire day. Also, I'm not sure if you've heard of the recent troubles in Lebanon...most of them aren't in Beirut, but there is definitely a feeling of tension in the city- on our way to the interviews we drove past quite a few tanks, and a lot of the candidates will take any job, just to get out of the country. It was a weird day. The agency is taking us out tonight to a cafe into the mountains so hopefully we'll have a better "second impression", but so far the first one has been a little strange...

Here are a couple of pics I snapped from the cab today...

Gotta go, more later,

xoxo C

Building, Building, Building...

Someone told me that over 80% of the world's tall cranes are in Dubai at the moment, and after a drive around tonight I definitely believe it- everywhere you look something is being built. Today actually wasn't very relaxing- I went to the gym, met Kelly for breakfast, went to the GAP, took a tour of the colleague village -which has everything from a grocery store, 2 swimming pools and a Karaoke room, then we had a meeting about Makkah, then dinner then coffee by the pool, then we took a driving tour and walked around a little. Here are a few pics.
-Tarek and I in front of the Burj Al Arab
-Burj by itself
-Today's amenity
-The city at night
-Some lobsters in the restaurant- they were fighting...if they only knew what lay ahead, maybe they would have made more of an effort to get along....
-Our palette cleanser came on a platform of ice that had coloured lights inside- they changed colour as we ate!
-On a tour of the Royal suite, the concierge told us that Robbie Williams stayed in that room- Kelly and I had to get a picture on his chaise lounge... (I wanted the bed but she was worried about messing it up..)
Tomorrow, Beirut.

xo C

Dubai so far

After a short flight (we took off, ate lunch and landed), I arrived in Dubai at about 2:30 this afternoon. I haven't seen much but so far the service at the hotel is amazing (everyone knew who I was- I felt like a movie star!!) and the building itself is really incredible- sort of futuristic and space-aged (the picture of me is in the lobby). They upgraded me to a huge 2BR suite, so if anyone wants to come and keep me company, you just have to get here! The amenity pictured here was waiting for me when I got back from the gym. As much as I love chocolate, I was even more impressed with the fruit basket- there were some different kinds of lychee fruits in it- one hairy pink one, which is think was a rambutan and another that I'd never had but it was pretty much the best thing I've ever eaten!

Until I moved to these parts I wasn't really sure exactly where Dubai was...wellll, here's a geography lesson for y'all {I met someone on Friday who actually says that!!} Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which is comprised of several Emirates, or city states. There are a lot, but some of the biggest and best known ones are Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The UAE is on the "toe" of the Arabian Penninsula (I think it looks like a ski boot).

Tomorrow I'm going to hit the gym (the treadmills have personal tvs that you can plug your headphones into - today I watched scrubs), read the paper, sunbathe in one of the two pools (the have one on each side of the building, so you never lose the sun) and go shopping at the GAP since we don't have one in Cairo (I KNOW!!!)...also, since this is actually a work trip, the rest of our team is arriving tomorrow afternoon, so we have a meeting about Makkah before we fly off to Beirut together on Tuesday.

Hope you're all doing well! Miss you! xoxo

Over and out from CatinDubai.

Day in Alex

Today we were in Alexandria (they call it 'Alex' )- one of our co-workers lives there, so he, his wife and adorable 6-year old son showed us around. It's not quite as crowded and dirty as Cairo, and it's on the Mediterranean so it has a different feel. We saw some historic stuff (a fortress and the catacombs) and ate some seafood at place on the water. On paper it was cooler than cairo but since it's humid there it felt MUCH hotter. There's not really too much to explain, so I'll just post some pics. In no particular order we have :

-Sara, Tarek and Stephanie posing at Fort Qaitbay, the site of the former Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was one of the 7 wonders of the world before it was destroyed by a huge earthquake in the 14th century. The fort was built in its place.
-Our lunch (there were 8 of us, don't worry)
-Stephanie and Omar's hair blowing in the ancient A/C system in the fort, it's not electric at all, it's all based on air and water pressure- pretty smart.
-Stephanie and I at the restaurant where we had lunch
-Some fishing boats with downtown alex in the background
-Omar in the bouncy castle
-Some locals playing on the beach
-Omar and I climbing on a ledge (the sign in arabic says "don't climb on this ledge")

Okay that's all for now, hope you have a good weekend.

C

PS: Abdou was so excited about the pineapple that he bought me the shell necklace that I'm wearing in all the pictures! (not really my style but the gesture was really nice)

public speaking...my favourite thing ever.....

My Dad always says that the Dale Carnegie course on public speaking that he took in 1908 was the best money he ever spent... he can now speak for 17 hours straight in 48 different languages on any topic in the world. Apparently doing a recruiting tour of a zillion different countries has the same effect-- I have always HATED public speaking, but look at this picture of me in front of about 250 people today..... I had a microphone and everything! I think it helped that I knew that about 85% of the people didn't understand a word I was saying, plus this was about the tenth time we had done the same presentation so by now I knew it pretty well. All in all though, the recruiting in Cairo was really successful, we found some good people to bring to makkah. Here we are writing contracts accompanied by a pianist (the girl in the sunglasses is the HRD's 17 year old wife...). Thankfully it's over now and I have a few days off before heading to Dubai to meet the rest of the team so we can travel together to Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

I actually ended up staying in the hotel for the whole 4 days we were recruiting, because we started early and finished late and I would have spent about 3 hours a day in the car, so when Abdou came to pick me up from the hotel this evening it had been about 2 weeks since we'd seen each other, and he was SO excited to see me! He kept welcoming me home and saying how much he missed me- I was actually pretty glad to see him too, the little guy! I gave him a pineapple from my hotel fruit basket (I got two) and he was even more excited! Tomorrow Abdou, Stephanie, Stephen, Kristine (you've heard me talk about Stephanie before, but Stephen is a chef from one of our hotels in Hawaii who is helping us for a few months, and Kristine is his wife who is here visiting) and I are going on a road trip to Alexandria (about 2.5 hrs to the North of Cairo, on the Mediterranean) just to see what's there. I'll report back.

Hope you're all having a good Thursday, I'm going to bed now, xoxo C

PS: Thank you to those of you who expressed concern about my allergic reaction - after seeing the hotel doctor in Cairo a couple of times I am almost back to normal- less itchy anyway!

PSS: Thank you also to those of you who said that I don't look fat...well of course I'm not going to post the REALLY fat looking pictures, but believe me, I'm definitely bigger than I've ever been, even after the winter I lived in whistler and drank beer and ate Reese peanut butter cups every single day!! But thankfully the makkah HRD and GM aren't coming on the next leg of the trip so hopefully there will be less of an emphasis on eating. And I'm sure I can run outside in Beruit, right!? {Mum, I'm joking...}

PSSS: Michael told me once that there is absolutely no reason for a PS in an email or word processed letter because you can just incorporate the paragraph wherever you want using the cut and paste function. Sorry mikety mike!

Back in Cairo (for a few days)...

So, I arrived back in Cairo late last night (well actually at 4am this morning) and will be here for a couple of days interviewing people for Makkah/Mecca (I never know how to write it!!). Since we arrived so late and I live on the other side of town from the airport, I slept at our sister hotel, which I've eaten at a lot, but never stayed at. I didn't really notice last night since I was so tired, but the rooms are really um...modern. Today we have the day off so I'm catching up on emails and laundry (well, the hotel is catching up on my laundry...)

I definitely thought Morocco was more interesting and fun than Tunisia, I don't know if it's because the team in Morocco was bigger and we saw and did more in Marrakech, or if Tunis is just more of a low-key city, but the pace there just seemed a little slower (and kind of boring!!). Here are a few pics taken on a walk last night before heading to the airport (the sunset was beautiful) as well as one of us in Marrakech, drinking cappuccinos and writing out employment contracts by the pool (see, we do work a little!)

I don't know if I mentioned it, since the plan seems to be constantly changing, but it sounds like Team Makkah '08 (...the GM wants to get us golf-shirts and matching luggage...) will be on the road recruiting for most of the next month. After Cairo, we're tentatively scheduled to go to Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, and then after that, to India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines. As you can probably tell from some of my last posts, I haven't been super happy to be in Cairo the last little while, so this is certainly a welcome change! If you told me a year ago that I'd be living across the world and traveling with really great people to all these places I'd never dreamed of going (for free!), I wouldn't have believed it for a second! I'm pretty lucky, I think!

Not so lucky, however, is the fact that somewhere on my travels I developed a really bad allergic reaction to a soap or something and have been itching like crazy the last few days...the worst part is that it's on my inner thigh- not exactly a convenient place to scratch in public, especially when you are interviewing people all day!!! It got so bad that I had to see the hotel doctor in Tunis, who gave me a shot (they looooove giving injections for even the smallest things in this part of the world..), some cream and some antihistamines to take. It made it stop for a while, but now it's back and I am going crazy!!

Okay, it's almost 4pm and I'm still in a bathrobe, so I should try to accomplish something today, but I hope all the dads out there had a great father's day, especially Tim, who is celebrating his very first one!!
xo C

What day is it again?

So, we're in Tunis now which is the capital of Tunisia- I have completely lost track of what day it is, and my computer, my watch and my blackberry are all on different timezones so I have to keep asking people what time it is. I didn't have time to do any research before I left, so I was coming here totally blind, but am pleasantly surprised- it's clean and the people are nice, and our hotel is right on the lake (lake tunis maybe??!). There are less of us on this trip so the extra-curricular activities have been much tamer (thankfully!!). Tonight we went to a traditional Tunisian restaurant, the food was okay, but was pretty much the same as the Moroccan food we had a few days ago- lots of couscous and meat.

I am pretty tired (we interviewed over 200 people today), but I will just quickly tell you the highlights of Marrakech: I had a lot of fun with the other two Canadian girls, Jen and Kelly (who both work at our hotel in Dubai), and we quickly learned that travelling with Saudi men is a very interesting experience. (The whole trip was sort of like the beginning to a bad joke.... "Three Canadians, two Saudis and a Jordanian go to marrakech...") Let me explain... In Egypt, things are quite different to canada, but Saudi is a whole other ballgame. The HRD (who is 32) was telling us about his wife, and I asked how old she is... "seventeen" he said and I started laughing, but realized quickly that he was serious...oops...they've been married over a year and they have a baby already, so you can do the math. The GM brought his wife with him, and when I mentioned to another team member that she seemed sort of young to be the mother of the teenage kids he'd referred to earlier, I found out that she was one of three wives (Muslims can have up to 4 at a time AND it's pretty common to marry your first cousins). I think she is his "traveling wife".....

The other thing about Saudi men is that they are uber-chivalrous...we were not allowed to pay for, or carry, a single thing on this entire trip.....even though the HRD is probably a foot shorter than me and 25lbs less {see photo}, he still insisted on carrying my bags all though the airport and won't let me carry my own interview binder. It even happened today with a STAPLER...they are pretty heavy you know!

Anyway, the guys had both been to Marrakech before and wanted to show us everything, so each night we had a different "surprise" planned for us.. one night it was a traditional dinner and dancing/horseriding show, another time we went to a big public market (where I made friends with that snake)....but my personal favourite was one night when they told us to meet them in the lobby and wear shorts... we didn't know what we were doing, but they took us to the hotel spa. As soon as we walked in, the spa attendant led Jen, Kelly and I into a small changeroom and sort of gestured to some flipflops on the floor- we all took off our shoes, but could tell from her face that she wanted us to take off more... apparently we were only allowed to wear bikini bottoms and NOTHING ELSE....since I had only met the girls the day before, there was a lot of nervous giggling, but we figured "when in rome..." so we stripped down. We were then led into a dark steamy room where a different woman shoved each of us onto a marble bench and proceeded to rub a sticky transparent gel (that smelled like fish ) all over us (and my girl wasn't shy with the rubbing..IF you know what I mean!)... then all three left without a word! After the initial awkwardness of being almost naked with new co-workers passed, we started to relax and chat....after about 15 minutes the women came back and shoved us into the shower. we rinsed off and then they took these rough mitts and scrubbed the heck out of us....dead skin was flying everywhere--- it was disgusting! Then we rinsed off again and they put something green on us, then another rinse and a black mud went on. After we were done we all felt really soft and exfoliated, but the process was pretty funny. Apparently Moroccan women do this weekly.

The other thing I will always remember is when the guys wanted to take a horse drawn carriage from the market to the restaurant...the driver didn't really know the way so he took a wrong turn (or maybe it was actually the way he intended to go....) and we ended up going down this super-narrow pedestrian alley...there was seriously no more than 6 inches on each side of the carriage...people were yelling and honking and had to flatten themselves against the walls of the alley..... but we were just cracking up because there was nothing else we could do! {this picture is not the alley, but it's about the same size!} Needless to say, it was a pretty fun 4 days...and it is just the beginning- it sounds like I will be having some more adventures with them over the next month.

Jeez, this was going to be a short post..... I should go, but before I do, I have to send congratulations to our amazing Canadian triathletes who competed in the worlds in Vancouver last weekend. In particular, our own Victorian triathlon sensation, Kirsten Sweetland- she didn't have the race she had hoped for (this picture breaks my heart) because of a terrible pain in her foot, but like a trooper, she finished the race anyway, and found out afterwards that the reason for the pain was a stress fracture in her heel! Most people would have stopped because of the pain, but not this tough cookie- she should be SO proud of her amazing tenacity and passion. She'll still get to go to Beijing with the team for support as an alternate and you can be sure that this isn't the last we've seen of her! Good on'ya Kirsten, hold your head high- you are a superstar :)

Okay, I'm really going now, but I hope you're all doing well. Over and out from CatinTunis.

xoxo C

More Morocco pics...

Wow, the last 4 days in Marrakech went really quickly! Now we're sitting in the Casablanca airport waiting for our delayed flight to Tunis, so I thought I'd post some more pictures. As you can see, the HRD and GM really know how to make the most of their time- we were kept busy every second we were there- I think I've seen and done and eaten more (and slept less!) in the last few days than I have in the last year! (yes, that is a snake around my neck -some dude in the market put it there- and then wanted money afterwards- and those are rose petals in the toilet!) It's good though, I don't know when I'll be back, so if I hadn't seen some local culture I definitely would have regretted it...maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday, and for the rest of my life! {sorry, I couldn't resist!!}

Although it probably looks like all we did was sightseeing, we actually had 3 solid days of interviews and we met about 400 people all together and made offers to some great candidates to join the team in Makkah. I promise I will write a real post soon, we've had some pretty interesting and amusing experiences over the last few days but to do them justice I really need more time.

Hope you're all doing well, I should write some work emails now, but I miss you all and I'll write an update from Tunis as soon as I can find some more free wireless.

xo C