Weekend Update.

If only Tina Fey was helping me write...

Gentle Readers,

The second weekend has come and gone much more enjoyably than its predecessor. Thursday night brought wreckless drivers, an immaculate shopping mall, and sheesha. Also known as hookah to those of you in DC, and those really tall pipe things to those unfimiliar with the whole concept. Its enriched tobacco laced with sweeteners so its like a swisher weest from a pipe. 8 of us piled in to an SUV for the evening when I was immediately made aware that it was extremely rude to wear a seatbelt as is means you don't trust the drivers abilities. However, the reason the university collects our blood type is because so many students die in car crashes (Official statement). I think I'll be wearing my seatbelt from here on out regardless. I'm 'A' positive by the way.

Last night I accompanied Kelly and two of her friends to the Outside Inn, a tavern on the beach north of campus. The sign on the door kindly stated that those not wearing "casual western attire" were not welcome. Racism in kind words I guess... The place, located on the beach of the Persian gulf, was full of western nationals (Among us were French, Germans, Russians, Australians, etc...), was very cozy, and very cheap. The sort of place you'd see in a movie like Syriana. I can definitely see myself frequenting the joint in the coming months. Later in the evening, I met up with a friend from class and we went to yet another immaculate mall (They're everywhere). We met a friend of his, an American born Saudi from Arizona, very good people. We decided to see the movie Rogue Assassin. Terrible movie. Terrible. I returned at 2:30 (curfew is at 1am) and with the help of my new friend from class swooned my building supervisor into being ok with my being late on the weekends for the rest of the semester (something about letting me experience the full Emirati culture, most of the negotiation took place in Arabic. I was clueless). Officially sanctioned late nights. yesssssss.