Final Sharjah day

Before I left for this trip, I thought I would be able to hang out on the beach or poolside for the entire time after I hung my show. We humans are almost purely delusional creatures! I got to the pool once before the show opened and to the beach on my very last morning. This was the section with less plastic trash.

I had taken my final PCR test, which was so easy. One of the heritage institute men who organized the cars rode with me and the driver took us to a nearby drive-thru testing location. SO EASY, no appointments, never got out of the car, results back in four hours or so. When I got back, I wondered what to do and walked the shore for a bit before sitting near the pool to dry my feet in the sun and then back to my room.

Once I could confirm that there was availability for a massage that afternoon, I asked for another car to head to the Sharjah archeology museum. There are so many museums that I knew I couldn't go to them all but as I love looking at old things, it was the obvious choice. Aside from the weird loud audio that came from who knows where of things like wild animals roaring, it was pretty quiet. As this country is on the water, it makes sense that much of the excavations would involve shell piles from eating.

I also love that even thousands of years ago, humans were stringing bits of shells to make adornments.

This judgement was hilarious to me. I love when museum tags don't try to be 100% "neutral."

Can you guess which is the poorly fired jar by an unskilled (and likely unnamed) potter?

This is the kind of tag that I also love, because it's honest: “Ivory bird figurine fixed to an ivory handle of unknown function, perhaps for a mirror, from the tomb at Tell Abraq, 2200-2000 BC”. It's always best to say you don't know when you don't.

And more lately, things that I love to see: bits of spindles,

needles. I returned back to try and prepare final gifts before my massage. I was so glad to get Patty again, and like my first massage with her the weekend prior, she put me right to sleep. I didn't get to relax too much afterwards because I had to scurry to get ready for my final night at the show.

There were always two employees of the heritage institute who had to watch my exhibit, and we'd often let each other take breaks to get coffee or snacks. One of the favorite ones was luqaimat, fried balls of dough covered in sweet syrup (I don't know exactly what it was) and garnished with sesame seeds. This evening, Amal had gotten the ones with cheese inside without telling us and Marwa and I definitely almost burned our mouths trying to eat them whole.

I never got the exact details, but it's clear that to be respectful, you don't take pictures of people's faces unless they've allowed you. At the cooking booths of the people making traditional food, where they were seated on the floor on mats and the booths were made of date palm leaves and rope, I had seen one woman wave at someone to make sure they didn't photograph her. As I waited to get more pakora from the most popular stand by a Bahraini woman, I watched again as the adjacent booth's chef (because that's what they are) put a dollop of batter on a flat hot plate, used a flat plastic tool to spread it very thinly (thinner than a crepe).

Then you ask for whatever fillings you like: cheese, hot sauce, nutella, etc. It's giant so they fold it up and put in on a plate but really you just kind of fold and grab and eat it in it's many hot crunchy layers. I had this twice and that night could easily have had another but had to save my appetite for dinner. I am not used to such late meals but that's the custom here.

The final time I would hear these men drum and dance together with what had become a very familiar song.

Then the three women who had done the lion's share of the work from December to get this entire trip and exhibit together took me out to a grand Thai dinner. Good god, I couldn't believe how many dishes Mariam ordered for us! I love pad thai so I ordered it just to try, which you can see Khadijah at the side pick up to try and feed her daughter, who was past bedtime and didn't like seafood.

Which, as you can see from all the giant shrimp and lobster and so on that this was not going to work out for her, but it was fine since all she wanted to do was sleep.

Mariam did a great job ordering the papaya salad "juicy," which means with plenty of sauce. So much better than versions I've had back home (though we all know the US is not the center of Thai cuisine).

The curry in this coconut was also really lovely, and everything from the starting chips to the right and the edamame to the left was delicious.

This pineapple fried rice also put ALL similar dishes back home to shame. Beyond the fancy garnishes, it was like nothing else I've had with the same name.

Mango sticky rice for dessert. I was surprised after eating what felt like at least ten dishes, I wasn't grossly stuffed. Just looking at these pictures makes my mouth water and feel sad I can't have more.

I had been warned about the intense AC and my friends were right. But we asked them to turn down the AC so that being indoors wouldn't feel like an icebox. It was cold outside, too, and windy. Though cold is all relative, since it would be considered balmy by northern US folks. We were encased in bamboo and rattan.

When I got back to the hotel, I still had tons of packing to do and only got about an hour an a half of sleep before I had to check out at 4am. I don't really think I needed to be 3 hours early to my flight but since I flew business, I was able to nap a tiny bit in the lounge in Dubai. I knew they'd feed us very well on the plane, so I tried to go easy on food, just tea, sparkling water, a fruit cup, and chocolate ice cream. The lounge was so enormous that it made no sense to try and use the last bits of my cash to get last-minute gifts after napping. Because I managed to sleep a bit more on the flight than usual, I thought I'd be okay during my 6+-hour layover in Boston.

I didn't realize until I arrived at Logan that my flights were not actually connected, so I had to take my bags to check-in at ticketing and make sure they had my info correct. This was my first time using Global Entry (I had gotten TSA precheck right before knowing Global Entry was a thing, so I had to wait 5 years to switch over) and it was wonderful to not get interrogated by border guys trained to be harsh. Weeks ahead, I had asked Michelle if she'd be willing to meet me to kill time. By the time I got checked in, I was really drooping, so she was kind enough to come all the way out to the airport while I scouted a location at the attached Hilton lobby. She brought all kinds of amazing and necessary fresh snacks and Korean food and a fabulous book, and somehow put up with my babbling and repeating myself while I got more and more sleepy. After saying goodbye, I headed to get closer to my gate only to find the entire Dartmouth lacrosse team. There were probably more than twice the number pictured there. It felt both scary (bros in training) and hilarious (while most were on phones, I saw at least 4-5 reading real books and talking about what they were reading!! They were studying! What?!).

The next day, after breakfast courtesy of Michelle's generosity, I still wasn't ready to get groceries. So for lunch I unpacked the pakora mix that I had gotten at the Bahraini booth, cut up some onions, and mixed with water. I didn't fry with much oil but it was still SO good. I didn't have the sauce but read that they also ferment anchovies like Koreans, so I used some of my Korean fish sauce with a bunch of other things. It didn't quite work but my hosts back in Sharjah told me instead to try yogurt, mint, lemon, salt, and chili. I did that a couple days later and it was divine.

In the mornings I've been adding cardamom that I grind to my oatmeal to remember. I'm sure that I'll stop later when it feels like I don't have the time for the extra step of dropping a pod into the mortar, but for now I feel satisfied. On the final ride to the hotel after dinner and farewells, I saw we were passing the House of Wisdom, it's iconic sculpture lit up. You can barely see it here.

But I finally downloaded my camera pictures, so here it is from the prior week. A few months before I got this invite, I had a vision of going to a place totally foreign to me, which is one of the reasons I accepted. It was nothing like I thought and certainly not easy, but definitely rewarding and exactly what I needed.