Dubai Forums Dubai Discussions Dubai General Chat

1. You can't answer the question, "Where are you from?" (And when you do, you get into an elaborate conversation that gets everyone confused and/or makes you sound very spoiled.)
2. You flew before you could walk.
3. You have a passport, but no driver's license.
4. You think California is cold.
6. You run into someone you know at every airport.
7. Conversations with friends take place at 6:00 in the morning or 10:00 at night.
8. Your life story uses the phrase "Then we went to..." five times.
9. You can speak with authority about the quality of various international airlines.
11. You get offended when someone turns down an offer for food.
13. Car horns are actually toys for big boys
14. You have ever had to wait for prayer call to be over to finish shopping.
15. You are fascinated by any wildlife bigger than a gecko.
17. You know that it truly is a small world.
18. You have ever gone to the "hammam" or endured a "shamal."
19. You get all the jokes in Aladdin.
20. Rain is still one of the most wonderful sounds in the world.
21. You haggle with the checkout clerk for a lower price.
22. Your wardrobe can only handle two seasons: hot and warm.
23. Your school memories include duck-and-cover drills.
24. You are used to being stared at.
25. You think VISA is a document stamped in your passport, and not a plastic card you carry in your wallet.
26. You call a chicken burrito a "shwarma."
27. Your dorm room/apartment/living room looks a little like a museum with all the "exotic" things you have around.
28. You've heard of or tried "hubbly bubbly."
29. You've woken up in the middle of the night to watch the Superbowl on cable.
30. You have sat in a "men's" or "women's" section in an airport, hospital, or restaurant.
31. You know the geography of the rest of the world, but you don't know the geography of your own country. (Isn't Philadelphia its own state?)
32. Your best friends are from 5 different countries.
33. You're spoiled. You know it. You're VERY spoiled.
34. You ask your roommate when the houseboy is scheduled to come clean.
35. You have never spent a summer with your friends from high school because you all go back to your home town/state/country June - August
36. Camping involves duning, getting stuck, and counting how many camels you saw.
37. A sports tournament involves flying to another country in the Middle East.
38. You remember when the first McDonalds in your country had its grand opening.
39. You got days off school for Christian and Muslim holidays.
40. You secretely wished the rulers of other Middle Eastern countries would die so that you got days off school.
41. Not being able to eat in public during the day during the holy month of Ramadan.
42. Traveling to the states required buying candy, CDs, and Abercrombie and Fitch clothing for your friends back overseas.
43. You are used to giving directions according to landmarks, not street names.
44. It's normal to wake up and have four or more Pakistani men fixing your AC.
45. You didn't know how to do your own laundry until you left for college.
46. How come the houses in America don't have servants quarters?
47. You are used to seeing Arabic commercials dubbed in British English about Lux soap, Carnation condensed milk and Dove shampoo.
48. Seeing police drive on the shoulder of the road and cut people is not unusual.
49. You understand that being addressed as "ma'am/sir" by Filipinos is not an insult.
50. You know someone is referring to Pepsi when they say "Bebzi".
51. Having a walled in, cement house is standard.
52. Ford Explorer sized cars seem small compared to Toyota Land Cruisers and Nissan Patrols
53. You have an inbuilt hotel radar and can automatically detect how many stars it has
54. You can insult fluently in English, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam, Tagalog, Pashto, and of course, Arabic
55. You think speed limits are only advisory
56. There is no such thing as a dangerous high-speed chase in Dubai. Everyone drives like that.
57. Wednesday's rush hour starts Tuesday morning.
58. If you slow down at a yellow light, you will be rear-ended and then given a ticket by the Dubai Police.
59. All unfamiliar sights are explained by the phrase, "Oh, we must be in Sharjah!"
60. You don't look twice when a $250,000 car drives by.
61. You got kicked out of school for having a fight outside outside school during the weekend.
62. You think the guy that designed the road system was smoking pot when he did it.
63. You know a friend who won a free car from the local mall. Twice.
64. Some dumb ass American asked you if you rode a camel to school. And you told him that you've seen more Ferraris, Mercedes, BMW's, and Porshce's on the streets of Dubai than you've ever seen in the USA.
65. You had satellite TV and never heard of cable until you came to the USA.
66. Every fast food chain delivers until 4 in the morning.
67. If the AC stopped working you had to stay in a hotel.
68. You had to look both ways crossing a one-way street.
69. Airport workers offer to carry your bags for you and you say no.
70. Friday was the official weekend.
71. Your parents told you it was too hot to go outside.
72. Your car or your parents' car was equipped with dual AC's.
73. Casio G-Shock: the only watches you've ever owned.
74. Almost every McDonalds was two stories tall. The rest were three stories tall.
75. You got proposed by dish-dashed men in Nissan Patrols with tinted windows.
76. Most people on the road don't realize there is a speed limit. Neither do the police.
77. You've been to the worlds greatest Gold Souk.
78. You got back at your friend by pointing at him and yelling, "Yahood!" when you were in a Rashidiyya Mosque during Ramadaan. Your friend was hospitalized for the worst slipper-beating in recorded history.
79. You owned Titanic, Jurrasic Park, and Star Wars Episode 1 weeks before they were playing in U.S. cinemas.
80. You currently own a cellphone that will be sold as the "latest technology" in the USA... in a year.
81. Sports stores were always 90% football gear, and every kid ended up buying a number 9 Ronaldo Brazil shirt.
82. You know for a fact that the guys from the Dubai Mens College can drive a Nissan Patrol 28 times around a roundabout on two wheels. And they learned how to do it on the bicycle cars in Safa Park.
83. You've seen a sword dance. At a wedding.
84. You know that bedowins can make random, completely unsynched clapping into something that actually sounds like music. Especially if they are waving a sword around.
85. You know that the Greeks took shawarmas from the Arabs and just renamed them gyros. And you're outraged.
86. You've been in a sand storm. You know that sand stings, scratches cars, and can blind you if you keep your eyes open.
87. You cried when you realized you couldn't buy pasteurized camel milk at U.S. super markets.
88. You know that monsters do exist. They are called camel spiders.
89. You rode ATVs, dirt bikes, and jet ski's... when you were 8 years old.
90. Top 3 uses for your chupls (slippers): Kill cockroaches, smack or throw them at your friend, and actually wear them when the asphalt is too hot to go bare-foot.
91. You know that just because guys are holding hands doesn't mean they're gay. Unless they're on the Russian Beach at night.
92. Security guards let you do whatever you want if you shouted at them in Arabic and told them you knew some Police brigadier's cousin.
93. Traffic accidents were the country's strongest tourist attraction and only entry in the Guinness Book of World Records
94. You never saw a building made of wood until you went to the USA: everything is made of cement, brick, and marble.
95. People refer to your nationality when they call you out.