My Priceline Staycation (Part III)

This is the third and last installment of “My Priceline Staycation.” Read the previous episode or start at the beginning of the series.

III.

Arabian Nights and Corned Beef Days

What’s funny about Dubai, I realized in the wee hours of my second morning in the country, is that it never gets dark at night. Not completely. The desert sky naturally takes on a glowing orange-gray hue when the sun is down; lights reflect off the glass buildings causing an array of trippy effects. Filmmaker David Lynch is known for enjoying just this sort of quality about the Los Angeles sky, and as I lay awake I wondered if he had ever made it out to these parts.

If he had, however, I have a feeling that he wouldn’t have found the breakfast buffet at Dubai’s Century Plaza — an homage to the famous L.A. hotel shown above — to be a good value. It was something like $26 (American) just to have your way with a bunch of heated trays of runny scrambled eggs and accoutrements!

“Man,” I said to the Saudi hostess “Doreen” who showed us to our seats, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but your prices for breakfast are way out of whack. Did you know that in America, we are all suffering through a major recession?”

Doreen was empathic, so we couldn’t fault the hotel staff; we just needed to find another place to fuel up for our Last Full Day on this side of the planet.

We called for our car to be brought up from the mysterious underground garage and waited in front of the the stylish entryway. The valet then arrived with our rented Sentra and emerged offering Lina a hand into the luxurious cabin.

Instead of taking his calloused paw, however (clearly he had had a hard life before winning this plumb job), Lina stood still and bowed from the waist.

“Kind sir,” she said, “Can you give us some guidance as to where we might find a delicious yet affordable morning morsel?”

“How about Nate’n Al?” the valet asked with a casual chuckle.

“Nehtanyal?” Lina asked. “Is that local fare?”

“Sort of,” he said. “It’s a Jewish-style deli. I am most admiring of their corned beef, Miss.”

“Solid,” Lina replied, jumping into the car and revving the engine. “Thank you… ‘Stewart.’ I have to say: I am up for a little adventure, and checking out some of Dubai’s local Jewish culinary traditions was on the top of my list!”

I looked at Lina and touched her left cheek gently. I knew that we were in Dubai — just look at the exotic cityscape — but I had never seen this semi-vegetarian so enthusiastic about corned beef.

The roads were quite empty — to the point of creepiness — over Labor Day Weekend in Dubai. But before we knew it, we were parked in a spot right outside the deli. Thank Goodness the staff quickly let us in, providing protection from the potential dangers of the neighborhood, which looked a bit like Los Angeles’s sketchy Beverly Hills. Still, we had to remember: This was a Jewish deli in the Middle East. One could not be too careful.

As the friendly hostess Shaniqua ushered us past a veritable smorgasbord of smoked fish and knishes encased in bullet-proof glass, we caught signs of some of the regular customers, including American talk show host Larry King! Not only could that guy marry a new chick every few years; he apparently drove from LA to Arabia so frequently that a restaurant here offered a doctored version of Matzoh Brie in his honor.

As we perused the menu — a panoply of salted cured meats along with blintze dishes and fresh Gulf sturgeon — we then made the acquaintance of our waitress, Charlieu.

Wrinkled and horse-voiced with skin reminiscent of an old catcher’s mitt, she quickly let us know that she would not rush us “one bit.” She had grown up in Brooklyn, New York, she said, back in the 1960s, and she knew what it felt like to be an outsider.

We soon ate extremely authentic versions of New York-style omelettes and French toast, with sausage.

“Pigs on a cushion,” Lina said. “It’s awesome here. You can order Jewish-style food with all kinds of pork products. They couldn’t care too shits about being Kosher.”

Charlieu didn’t bring my bagel with my eggs, unfortunately. (One of my many pet peeves.) Her excuse was that it was still toasting, but I interrupted her, hoping not to seem like too rude of an American, saying that I didn’t really like my bagel hardened under the heat of a salamander.

“Oh, you must be from back east,” she said.

“Actually, a fair bit west,” I replied.

But we couldn’t spend the whole day clogging our arteries. We were really tired, and regardless of the fact that this was our last Full Day in bumpin’ Dubai, we needed some ZZZsss.

Back at the hotel, we zipped right past the Starbucks — the coffee at Nate’n Al was pretty average, but I didn’t want to spoil the experience with some American Solution.

Inside our plush room, we fell onto the pillow-top, king-size bed — was this a Sealy Posturepedic in Dubai, I wondered? —  and quickly spent the next hour and a half slumbering away.

Clearly, an afternoon by the pool was next. We’d seen so much of this country already. Who needed to explore when the hot sun offered such reliable warmth and relaxation by a crystal, concrete-lined lake of expertly chlorinated water?

The desert sun was, in fact, super-hot. But that just meant that we were in need of ice-cold drinks. The waiter offered a concoction specific to our Dubai neighborhood. He called it a “Mojito.” We didn’t care that each one cost $20 (American) this time. We’d saved so much on a quality indigenous breakfast that it was time to splurge. How often are you in this part of the world anyway?

This afternoon, the pool was nearly empty. I guess those families — American, European, Asian, and Arab — had to return to get their kids ready for the first day of school, post-Labor Day. So Lina and I actually jumped in, submerging ourselves in the highest quality pool water this side of Persia.

“I swallowed some of it after diving in,” Lina said, as she wiped tears from her eyes. “But it tasted so different than the supposedly clean water of Malibu. I want to drink a bottle of it, to sip this pool dry!”

Confession: I blame some of Lina’s outrageousness on this Dubai-style drink we downed — you know, the “Mojito” — but I will say this here and now. I have never been embarrased by my wife. She slaves back in Los Angeles, working on psychological research concerning Latina immigrants. If anyone deserved a trip to another country, where all kinds of cultures met and mixed, it was her. I was proud of the work she did, and it was evident how skilled she was with all kinds of people from all kinds of lands, given how well she had taken to this weekend abroad.

It was nearly dinnertime after a few lazy laps, though, and even if it was the “rum” in the “Mojito” that made us hungry, there was no doubt in our minds that our stomachs were rumbling.

“How about we see how these people actually imitate American fare?” Lina asked.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“Well, are there any steak houses in this city?” asked Lina. “I want a tasty petit filet, perhaps with some french fries and a ginger-pineapple Margarita.”

I understood her specific flavor requests. She had become inspired by the exotic selection of toiletries in the hotel room, including body lotion and soap infused with Dubai’s best White Ginger.

“I know of this one place here called Mastro’s,” I replied. “Many top American businesspeople and celebrities frequent it looking for a taste of home. The original is actually in Beverly Hills.”

“Dig it,” Lina said. “I want me some of that. Part of understanding a culture is understanding how they make other cultures feel at home.”

So we embarked on a luxurious night of bone-in, prime-aged steaks, accompanied by the high-level sort of creamed spinach and french fries one might chow down on in New York’s Peter Luger.

At this point in the story, I will absolutely have to skip beyond all mentions of romantic action in the Century Plaza’s most happening guestoom. I’m afraid that yes, that stuff is private, but let me assure you that this once-in-a-lifetime travel experience had us both in exactly the state  that a married couple enjoys before really having some serious fun with each other.  Hey, you would do it too, especially if you’d gotten such a sweet deal from Priceline to travel to an entirely different continent.

The next morning, it would be a cold return to reality. We knew we’d have to exit the joint by noon, and according to Priceline, our Sentra was due back in Los Angeles by 1 p.m.! Oddly that was the same time, on the Tuesday following Labor Day, that Lina would have to see a patient, being an expert cross-cultural psychologist. So we actually got up pretty early the next morning and put ourselves together.

I won’t lie: It was a pretty harsh goodbye. I woke to short-order requests from a number of respected magazine editors, and Lina had plenty of messages to answer from her academic advisors at the local Los Angeles university where she was finishing her doctorate.

But that’s what’s so comforting, in a way, about Dubai. You don’t necessarily feel like you’re leaving an Italian island for a workday life back in the old American sweatshop. The place is so familiar in a sense that transitioning back to your regular life is doable. Sad, of course, but doable.

We then made our last call to the valet to request the appearance of our rented Japanese chariot. We had a technically long but driveable trip back to Los Angeles in front of us, but Lina was cavalier enough to accept the driver’s seat for the journey, and I gave her a thank you smooch.

“I love Dubai,” she said, welling up. “But it will be good to get back. Maybe we will approach our own Little Tokyo and closed-air markets with a newfound optimism. I hear that our Century City isn’t so bad, actually.”

“What do you mean by ‘Our Century City?’” I asked.

“You know, that unnamed no-man’s land between Beverly Hills and West L.A.,” Lina said.

I did a doubletake as we zoomed home on Dubai’s Santa Monica Boulevard, passing what looked like a replica of our city’s Beverly Hilton and eventually a faux-Rodeo Drive, with its own Louis Vuitton boutique.

“You mean to say that L.A. can be as fun as a foreign, Middle Eastern country?” I asked. “Then why do we ever travel? Why did we go on Priceline to find a hotel room for this weekend to begin with?”

We were nearly beyond the space-time-contiuum that would shoot us back into our home neighborhood of Los Feliz, Los Angeles. Dubai’s Franklin Boulevard was about to cross and merge with our Franklin Boulevard just past their Scientology Celebrity Centre Branch.

“You need to get away from your city, even on a budget Staycation with limited time,” Lina said. “Life is hard. We work soooo hard every day. A break from our reality is necessary every now and then just to continue productively for the next few months. Did you know the French get over a month off every year?”

I nodded. I knew that much about the dreaded French. But I also knew that my wife made sense and that this foreign getaway had in fact done us a large bit of good this Labor Day Weekend.

William Shatner definitely didn’t seem trustworthy on TV, especially with those karate chops and creepy winks. But I was already thinking about how we might spend our Columbus Day, and I won’t lie, the Priceline Negotiator was at the top of my list.

This is the third and last installment of “My Priceline Staycation.” Read the previous episode or start at the beginning of the series.