Nipplemania

Where to start this week....I guess I will start by continuing on about my Nutragious candy bar. My favorite store Hyper Panda now has it for sale - 1.85 AED (ABOUT 50 CENTS) what a great lesson in capitalism and competition. The UAE is a huge importer of American products. In 2010 the UAE had a 10 billion dollar trade deficit with the United States. The UAE exports two major items to the US. The second leading export item to the US is crude oil (230 million dollars) it trails the leading item...Aluminum. While the leading imported item from America is Oil drilling equipment, I am not certain where Nutragious Candy bars rank in the imports....but it is soaring...lol.
Speaking of importing things, this week two ex-pats (21 year old UK citizen and a Sudanese Ex-pat) were convicted of selling marijuana here in the UAE, they sold a little less than $400 worth to an undercover police officer and a 17 yaer old local (Emirate) citizen. They have both been sentenced to death by firing squad. It will be interesting to see if the British Gov't. can get the sentence reduced for their citizen, the Sudanese gentlemen better have his will in order. The Emirate citizen was put into drug rehab....why you would want to sell drugs here boggles the mind....
Speaking of a tough government, I shared with you a couple of weeks ago about the magazines at the book store being censored with a black sharpie, the internet is censored (no porn or Jewish websites), the movies have black dots over male nudity (not female), and the only thing not regulated...Department store manniquans.  It is suprising to me that if a woman dresses too sexily at the mall (zero tolerance during Ramadan) she will be asked to leave. If she refuses - she faces deportation. Well, the manniquans in the department store all have very prominant - well nipples...Even Fred noticed (Debbie doesn't read this blog- please don't tell her about Fred, he may not be allowed to come back if his wife knew about his wandering manniquan eye...lol. Now hopefully I won't get deported about blogging about the manniqans, I am hoping that my internet blog hits go up...(a little more than 250 per week)...thank you.
Now, the big news involving my career at Transmed....

I have given my notice. Bob and I arrived on July 5th, 2010. Well, almost all of us Americans will now be gone. First Cowboy, then Bob, then Nick...now me, and Lauren is leaving next month. That leaves Hayley as the only American (not counting a few of the Arabs that have gotten American passports - like Reem) left standing. I will miss my coworkers, but I have an exciting new opportunity. My last day at Transmed will be next Thursday July 5th. My friends are organizing a cook out goodbye party for next Thursday evening. I will let you know next week about that, and share my exciting new opportunity with you.
By the way, Hayley has informed me that this blog has gotten stale and boring, now I am hoping that she is just young lol- this couldn't be boring - sigh...You have to love reading about where we dine (IHOP opening in July!) or the strange things that I find at the grocery store...

Just so you know, this is a little bit of therapy for me, and I hope this brings a smile to your face most weeks....
Please stay in touch....