Shopping on jet lag

I have been to Ikea exactly three times in my entire life--all of them with people I love very much. The first two times (in the States), I got into pissy "whatever...whatever" fights with my hapless (but well-loved) companions and, in one case, ended up crying. I have nothing against reasonably priced and hip Swedish furniture. But Ikea is too much of everything, for WAY too long a time. Enough to make anyone (I think) stuff-blind and cranky.

The third time I went, however (this very Tuesday), I learned the secret to shopping at Ikea. Do it jet-lagged.

My new school is savvy to the fact that its new hires are moving across the world AND starting work. The first three days of orientation were low-key bureaucratic stuff in the morning and shopping all afternoon. We were driven around in school vans by the saintly bus driver and the whole admin team, who waited patiently and heroically (laptops and cell phones humming) in mall after mall while their newest staff members stocked up on the necessities of life. Ikea, of course, was a featured stop.

Not only did I skip through the store free of creeping irritability and frustration, but I actually found two major pieces of furniture that I wanted--yes, wanted--to buy. Neither were in stock, actually, and I didn't go home with much, but that's not the point. I made it through Ikea AND wanted to buy two, major somethings. (For those of you familiar with the catalog, it's a table called Norden with a foldout leaf and a set of drawers running down one leg. In birch. And a magic couch (I forget its name) with an entire little bed/couch extension hidden underneath that can be rolled out and popped up, transforming the whole thing into a 1) double bed or 2) place where more than one person can lounge comfortably. This avoids the one-person-can-stretch-out-one-person-has-to-sit-up-with-the-other-person's-smelly-but-well-loved-feet-in-their-lap syndrome. I love this couch. I plan to get it in dark beige.)

We went to other malls and other stores on Wednesday and Thursday...they were all full of stuff and full of UAE folks doing their shopping. I learned that I can, maybe at some point wear a tank top (since several women--both Asian and European--were sporting them in the mall), but I'm still going to be respectful and avoid it. I learned that some Emerati men will ask if you if you want to go to the front of the line at the Indian restaurant in the food court, and some will try to cut and intimidate the woman who is just trying to take your order. ( I knew they were Emerati men cause they were wearing the traditional (ie sheik) garb. ) I learned that abbeyas, while all black, come in many different cute cuts and styles, including deep pink sequins along the head scarf (and always the chic shoes peeking out from the ankle-length folds). I learned that the cell phone guy in the Carrefour (Walmart) in the Marina Mall (big, big mall in Abu Dhabi) is sweet and will tell you not to buy the fancier but ugly phone because it's ugly, install your SIM card, get you about $50 worth of free minutes AND change the language settings to English and not Arabic. (But how cool would it be to text in Arabic!)

And if you think all these "cultural" experiences are trippy in that they involve very familiar things happening in slightly different, through-the-looking-glass ways then you understand what it's like to move from the USA to the UAE at this time in history.