TED Talks

There's a conference that takes place every year - TED (Technology Entertainment Design) - which brings supposedly together bunch of brilliant people to share the most powerful thing people can share - their ideas. It's an invitation-only event, so what has been shared there has never before reached a wider audience. Until now.

Now you can have the presentations in audio and video, to download or watch online. Just go here:
http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/index.cfm?flashEnabled=1

There's one in particular I'd like to recommend to everybody. It's about creativity (by Sir Ken Robinson). It's full of great ideas and the presentation is going to make you laugh so many times. Great stuff.

You can download that video here: http://ted.streamguys.net/ted_robinson_k_2006.zip

If anyone..

...knows organizations that facilitate volunteering/take volunteers in Latin America that give accomodation/food in exchange for work, please drop me an e-mail or write it in the comments.

Hop Fest 2006

This was the name of the beer festival. It was a great party! Live music, beer everywhere, lots and lots of people. Felt like Europe.



















































Thats the festival t-shirt. That way you indicate how many beers have you drunk. Guys identified girls who had had 6 beers or more as easy prey.










































Aah, Skype is working again! The voice of the people got heard I guess, democracy (http://www.petitiononline.com/uaevoip/) can win even in the Middle East. Although most likely it was a business decision as Dubai is keen to maintain its image as a safe and great place for business and investments. Blocking Skype and other VoiP thingies was a way more unpopular move than the government expected.

Local telecom monopoly Etisalat is being laughed at. Check out Etisalat logos which represent how people feel about it: http://s96.photobucket.com/albums/l162/etisalad/

Sick and stuff

I've been sick for almost a week now. Some people have reacted like "how can you get sick there, its like 45 degrees!?" Well, viruses are incredible creatures (?), they live (well) in every damn climate I guess. Anyways, I'm almost recovered now. Although people catch cold here too and quite often even. Its because the AC is set to +18 usually and it blows constantly.

Talking about ACs - my AC at home broke down. So I had to sleep (only one night) in a room where the temperature was above 40. Luckily I had at the fan which was working. Next day I called my landlord and told him to do something. He sent an "electrician" over to check the situation. He asked a couple of questions and looked out the window where the compressor part of the AC is. Suddenly he took off his shoe, slammed it on top of the compressor and a huge puff of dust came out. "It should work now". And it did. That dude was an expert. There are plenty of that other kind of experts here also. I had problems with plumbing is my house - called my landlord, he sent an expert. That expert had never seen water pipes in his life and didn't know the word "plumbing". The problem is still there.

Many people who don't know anything about Dubai ask me "so it's a dry country, right?". Well, no. In fact, today after work I'm going to a beer festival. Titled as the best party of the year.

Skype blocked

And so they killed our Ferdinand. Skype is now blocked in the UAE. Before you couldn't transfer money to your SkypeOut account, but now you can't even connect to the software. Both in and out of the freezones. Bastards. Local telecom Monopoly Etisalat fears VoiP (voice over internet protocol). Calling through MSN is also not possible. So calling home now becomes expensive. Bastards.

This is summer

This summer is better than the previous one. Why? Mainly because of the weather. Its not so hot! Last year it was close to and more than 50 all the time. Humidity was in soaring heights, every day more than 90%. This year the temperature is still 40-45 on the average, but humidity is much lower, around 50..70%. This year I've been also smarter and have stayed indoors more. Good move.

If you live in a (new) place for a year, you get so used to it. It is easy to discover yourself living in a routine. Home, work, reading books, shisha, bbq, everyday small things. Haven't been writing to the blog too much recently. I feel I have to change that. Its like one of those things that keep me focused and make me be a better person in a weird way. Its kinda like one of those small things that helps me to climb my mount everest. More about that later.

I've been reading a damn interesting, compelling, educational and thought-provoking book. Anyone who wants to understand the black continent, its politics, history, why is it in the state its in right now and more, should read "The State of Africa : A History of Fifty Years of Independence" by Martin Meredith. I can guarantee you won't be disappointed, hey - you won't be even able to put it down once you start reading it.

Aah, I was on the radio this morning. In a local radio station (Dubai Eye) in the Business Breakfast show - talking about our portal. It was alright.

The invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied. I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Maybe its a myth..

..that there are only ~1 million estonians on this planeet. You get to meet them in Dubai all the time! Every now and then there is an e-mail in my inbox saying "Hi, I'm an estonian in Dubai, I would like to meet other estonians".

I've met 2 new people in the last 2-3 weeks. Yesterday again somebody wrote me. Sure, I don't mind at all. Usually when you meet a fellow estonian in a faraway place its like meeting a friend, since there's so few of us. When I was in Bahrain staying with that estonian family (hey how are you doing?), one of the family members told that meeting an estonian in the Middle East is like meeting a relative.

Hey - I seeked estonians as well when I first came here. Found one too. And then they started to find me. Piece of advice: if you want to find estonians in the country you live in (where there are not so many of them), start to blog.

Happiness is not a destination. Or is it?

The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu is the happiest place on earth, according to a new "happy planet index".

Renowned psychologist Haim Ginott once said: "Happiness is not a destination." Well, it is now, so get down the travel agents and book a one-way ticket to Vanuatu.

An englishman residing in Vanuatu one day came across a young local man who had just returned to the island after studying at Nottingham University.

"I asked him what he was going to do with his life now and he just pointed at his fishing rod and said 'this'. He could have been one of the top earners in Vanuatu if he wanted, but he was contented with his simple life and didn't want anything else."

"It was a real eye-opener for me and made me look at what life is really all about. It just sums up what the place is about."

Who says that we have to live fast-paced, stressful life in order to earn more money to buy more things? Maybe we should all go live in Vanuatu and fish.

Source article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/5172254.stm

Dubai traffic

I have mentioned before as well that traffic in Dubai is pretty awful. Ultrafast speed, arrogant and incompetent drivers are the norm here. There's a highway inside the city where the distance between the cars is the same as in everywhere in the world in cities (meaning one after another), but instead of 50-60km/h they drive 120-150km/h.

Sometimes people try to cross these roads and they have to run through the cars as there are no other means of crossing often. This results in death almost daily.

The last seven days saw an average of 2683 speeding offences a day which makes 111 speedings per hour and 1.8 per minute. Caught drivers will have to pay over 3 million dirhams in fines.

The per capita statistics show that the UAE has one of the highest number of road fatalities in the world. In 2004 it was 17 per months, 2005 it increased t0 20 per month. This year it seems that every day somebody dies in the traffic.

Welcome to Dubai.

Estonia

After being away from home for a year, I got to visit Estonia again. The whole trip was just wonderful, beautiful and emotional.

It is very hard to sum up everything that happened. Some highlights (not in any particular order):

• Nature. On our way we (me and Sarah) had a stopover in Amsterdam and saw rabbits running around on the grass next to the airport. Thats when we fully realized we're not in Dubai anymore. After one year in the Middle East you really start to miss all aspects of nature - (real) trees, grass, flowers that smell nice, wild animals and forest mushrooms.
  
  Estonia is mostly covered with forest and all the cities are green also. I couldn't stop admiring the beauty of the nature. We spent 3 days in my family summer home in the forest and just listened to the wind in the treeleaves, bird sing and .. silence. We swam in cold river (pure spring water), picked wild strawberries, talked to the trees and stared at the sky that is never so blue in Dubai.
  
  I didn't get nearly enough.
  
  
• Freedom. Another nice aspect of being away from Dubai was that we didn't have to worry about showing affection in public. We could hold hands, hug and kiss whenever we felt like it. At all times I felt I could do whatever I want (within reason) and shouldn't be worried about judging looks or police.
  
  
• Cheap and good beer. This is a combination that is impossible to find in the Middle East. Enjoying a pint of beer in an outdoor cafe (yes, its wonderful to sit outside) can be a (very) rewarding experience.
  
  
• Family and friends.
  It was so so nice to see again people dear to me. The time was not enough to have quality meetings with everybody, but it was touching anyway. At one point one of my friends told me "it feels like you've never been away". True - when we were having fun with my friends it was like the "good old times" again.
  
  Its interesting since I feel that I have grown a lot, experienced a lot and my world has changed in many ways, but I guess these are the things that will mostly remain in me and won't be directly visible to the others. It will mostly be that part of my personal iceberg that is under water.
  
  
• Nice weather. We had beautiful weather every day, 25..29 degrees C. You can enjoy walking around (without sweating) and truly take the most out of being outdoors. No humidity. Summer in Estonia is just wonderful.
  
  
• Women wear what they want. Estonia is full of beautiful women and short skirts. Refreshing. Girls don't have to worry about which clothes to wear and wether all men will stare at them and think they're prostitutes.
  
  
• Estonian food. Pork, sour cabbage, baked potatoes, black rye bread, sprouts, herring, kohupiim to name a few... I must certainly have gained a couple of kilos. Its just so good!!
  
  
• Old buildings. In Dubai something that is older than 20 years is almost prehistorical. Walking in a city full of medieval buildings and atmosphere is just something else. You can feel the soul of the city.
  

There would be much more to point out, but I don't wanna make this blog post too long. Some people asked me "so what has changed in Estonia?". Not that much had changed in 1 year in apperance, but my persperctive on some things did. Estonia seems even smaller than before. Tartu streets seemed so small, empty... it actually didn't look like a city. Although I did enjoy that it was so calm, peaceful and quiet. It was a very nice change to Dubai. Same thing applied to Tallinn - it seemed small. In Dubai I sometimes have to drive more than 50 km to reach a client or just go to some club. It can take much more than an hour inside the city to get from point A to point B.

One thing that was quite shocking was the level of customer service. In quite many times we encountered cold and even aggressive treatment (with few very positive exceptions). Having been away from home for a year I had another perspective to customer service compared to fellow countrymen who live inside this all the time and might even be used to it. I'm planning to write about it in some estonian newspapers.

Now back in Dubai. In my thoughts still at home.

Going home

Its been almost a year now when I landed in Dubai airpot the first time. One year contains a lot - new experiences, new people, new discoveries, new places, enhanced understandings. Things I've discovered about myself and things that have changed in me. "Life changing experience" is what AIESEC is saying about living and working abroad experience. Do I agree? I think I do. My horizons have broadened and I see the world differently in many ways. My self-reflection increased tremendously. I think when one is trying to figure out their place under the sun, to find out who they really are and what are they looking for in life then going away from your everyday surroundings - out of your comfort zone - helps a lot in this sense. I know myself, my personal mission and aspirations way better know. I think this is also largely because it was my main goal for going abroad and I never stoped pursuing this goal. If anyone wants to figure out what to do with their lives, I suggest going abroad for at least 6 months. Only those who seek will find.

A lot has changed, but at the same time - so many things are still the same. Most probably I will understand better what has changed and what not when I go home in 3 days, when I can observe the everyday life, my home, my friends... I think I will understand better then.

Back in Dubai on the 9th.
Picture: my first day in Dubai

Happy birthday to me!

Yay me! I'm a year older now. Last year on my birthday I was convinced and told everybody I'd back be in Estonia by Midsummer's Day (Jaanipäev). Well, I was wrong and ended up having my first birthday indoors, not on my real day and without bonfire in the last 10 years. But it was a really cool party and was great to see most of the people follow the theme: white! We also set a new Guiness record by having the most estonians (12!) in the same room in Dubai!:)

Some random pics from the party:

You should cut your hair

Because it just feels so good! What I like about cutting hair in Dubai is that every time you also get a head massage (according to my experience). Doesn't matter if its a very cheap or a fancier place, I've got my massage every time. So I suggest you all to cut your hair. Feels so good!

Real24.ae in the news

Yesterday on my way to another business meeting I got a phonecall, just when I got into a taxi. Call from Estonia's main business newspaper. I was told they found me (us) from my blog.

The result you can see here (those who can read estonian):
http://www.aripaev.ee/3252/uud_uudidx_325202.html?leht_id=3252

Fun with Dick and Jane...

..was fun, but I'm having way more fun with Peep. My name, that is. People just can't figure out what my name is. Even people close to me can't pronounce it the way it really is (I'm told I cannot say their names perfectly as well though). Mostly its sounds like Phep or smth.

When I do my business calls and introduce myself, the fun with secretaries never ends. Sorry what was your name again? Could you repeat that? Pete? Beth? Pet? And I'm stubborn usually, I repeat it as my name really is. Then I help them out and spell it Portugal-Europe-Europe-Portugal. Just today when I did that the secretary's reaction was nice.

"OH, its Peep (Piip)!?"
"...Yes" (Having given up on educating her about the real pronouncation)
"Hahahahahahahah! Hahah! What a cool name!"

Since my colleagues are Janek and Meelis, they have fun with their names as well. At least I'm not alone in this!

Nothing is for free

World cup! Football mania is also in Dubai. Everything else is like I'm used to when the world cup is on, but this time one thing is different. Here you have to pay to see it! ART bought the exclusive TV rights for the whole Middle East and are making everyone pay.

I checked with a cable TV to get the package that has the relevant sports channel - and I was told I have to pay 500 dirhams extra (1750 eek) to get that channel. A friend of mine also heard about fees higher than 1000 dirhams at some company. Ridicoulous!

All the pubs, shisha cafes and restaurants that want to show the matches live had to acquire a special license which costs like 10,000 USD. Therefore places have entrance fees or a minimum charge. The only free places are those which took the illegal way and show UK or I don't know which channels - illegally. I read from a newspaper that those companies will get heavily fined.

Okay I understand that ART wants to earn money - but couldn't they just sell air time for commercials? There's a huge crowd watching the games live all over Middle East, for sure companies would invest. Why make the fans suffer? This sucks.

Real24.ae

Want to buy or rent properties in Dubai? Check out this site. Yes, this is the company I work for. If anyone asks you about real estate in the UAE, tell them real24.ae is the address to remember:)

The website was just launched a few days ago and we are testing initial reactions. We will have new improved design in about 2,5 weeks time.

My request to you: please add your comments on site's design and features to this post (or send me an e-mail), so we can improve it. All new cool ideas are much appreciated!

Oman, again

Oman was nice as always, I like it a lot. We had a group of 4 - me, Sarah, Shady, Holly.

This was my first time in Oman in the summertime - and I have to say its not pleasant at all! Oman has always been hotter than Dubai and the sun more aggressive (can get a sunburn in 20 min), but this time it was way more. Didn't measure the temperature, but for sure it was around 50 degrees - just killer hot. When the wind was blowing it felt the same when you open the oven door and hot air strikes you in the face. It was just way too hot. I made a 3-4 minute phonecall from a payphone and got all sweaty within this time. Being outside during the daytime is next to unbearable. Humans were not meant to live in this area, at least not during the summer. Stay outside too long and you die. Without water you're a deadman in no time.

We stopped at an outdoor shisha cafe around 8 when it was already dark and sun had set, but it was still so hot. One of us got sick because of the heat. You just gotta stay indoors all the time. AC is everybody's best friend.

When we were about to leave on Sunday afternoon, I got to know that my new employment visa is not ready yet (although I was promised it will be ready by Saturday) and I can't go back to Dubai. So I stayed alone for 1 more day in Oman. As I couldn't really go around because of the heat (still took a small walk in the evening) I stayed in the hotel most of the time. Next day I killed time until it was 4pm and I could start by journey back to Dubai by bus. Meanwhile my phone battery died.

When I reached the border of UAE my boss was there to greet me and tell me the news - "you have to head back, visa won't be ready before tomorrow". Nice. No car, no bus, no taxi. So I started to hitchhike - and luckily already second car stopped and I was on my way.

The driver was an omani guy, a vegetable trader who couldn't speak much english. So we conversed just a little bit. He had toothache, I had aspirin. Next town (Sohar) was 100km away and he dropped me there to a hotel. There I discovered that its ridicoulosly expensive, so I decided to find a taxi and try my luck with the other hotel (the town only had 2). This was luckily cheaper and even more luckily for me I got the last vacant room.

Next day I started to hitchhike back to the UAE border, but nobody stopped for like 20 minutes. So I took the decision to take a taxi before the sun would suck the life out of me and so it was. Paid the biggest taxi bill of my life, but at least I'm still alive! On the border I met my boss who was there with my visa and so yesterday afternoon I made it back to Dubai.

Life's an adventure!

Taking a break

Going to Oman for the weekend to recharge my batteries. See you next week.