French Fries and Ghutras

When people travel the world they tend to explore cultures and places to satisfy curiosity, and to expand their knowledge and understanding of others. When I travel the world, I look for Burger King and a movie theater!

My first week at the Schlumberger Middle East Learning Center (MLC) has been organized chaos. The best way I can describe where I'm staying and what I'm doing is to say that it's just like the MTC. I am in a 6 week course with 15 other people (from Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Mexico, Ireland, India, and more). I am one of two Americans and we both happen to be Mormon! We all wake up, eat breakfast in the cafeteria, go to class from 8 to noon, eat lunch in the cafeteria, go to class from 1 to 5, then go to dinner in the cafeteria.....together. The primary purpose of the class is to teach us a specific data processing computer program. I get to stay in a single room which is quite nice, although I have yet to figure out what this is for....

Typical meal...

Tuesday was a day off so we were all able to leave the MLC compound. Yes, it literally is a compound with guards at the entrance and a 15 foot wall going around the MASSIVE complex. The shuttle took us to the upscale Marina Mall, from there people went to tour the Grand Mosque, the Emirati Palace, and the beach......I toured the mall. It had tons of great stores, but even more interesting people. Everywhere you look there are immigrant workers (primarily Indian and Filipino I believe) ready to clean, guard, fix, wash, hold the door, check you out, or anything else. I never saw one native Emerati worker. However, there were plenty of Emerati's shopping for Louis Vuitton bags, Gucci Sunglasses, and Rolex watches. Men and woman Arabs were never seen together unless they were husband and wife. The accessorized women would be seen walking the mall and the men would all be hanging out at the water fountain. Of course, all of this people watching made me very hungry, so I decided to scout out the food court. To my delight, Burger King was the main attraction. Yes it had the longest lines, and the most noble of customers (some of which could probably buy up the entire fast-food chain). Burger King is like the LDS church, it's the same no matter where you are in the world. You can never go wrong with a few french fries, especially after having lamb 3 meals a day for a week! I topped the day off with a good movie at the mall with a bunch of guys in Thobes and Ghutras...now that's what I call traveling the world.