So far, Dubai has treated me well. Other than my slow-ass Mitsubishi Lancer, “She-Devil,” I have literally no complaints. Even the 104° weather this week hasn’t really bothered me at all. But every now and again, like when my cold water turned hot, Dubai reaches out and smacks you in the mouth.

Today I dropped off laundry at the local Champions Cleaners in the nearby Spinney’s, and stopped into the bookstore to look for a small guide for Cairo. Of the 900 Lonely Planet books they did have, Egypt was not one of them. On a lark, I looked in the Diet section for the new Shangri-La Diet book. (That’s a long story that I’ll get into in another post.) I was surprised to find they had it, so I picked it up. Out of the corner of my eye, I was another westerner perusing the magazine section. Then I looked at the magazines and noticed Maxim, FHM, GQ, and other assorted American men’s magazine, complete with large breasted cover models. This is unheard of in Dubai! Everything censored. Below is a photo of the front cover of the FHM I HAD to buy because I am so starving for American cleavage.

You might notice the price tag in the upper-right corner after you finish ogling Tera Patrick (porn star, in case you don’t know her). Yes, is says 60.00, that’s AED, dirhams, and even with the exchange rate, it’s very expensive at $16.33. I figured it’s the price to pay for imported black market magazines. So I splurged.

On my way home, I went to the Burjuman mall to look for Canon lenses for my camera. I am hoping to pick up a wide-angle lens before the Cairo trip, but I don’t have much time. The reviews for this Canon EF-S 10-22mm USM F3.5-4.5 are fantastic. It costs around $700, and I have no idea how much in Dubai, so I’m not sure I am going to get it just yet. At one store, they had this Sigma EX 12-24mm F4.5-5.6, which has reviews that make it sound like the poor-man’s version of the Canon above. In the store I found it, it was $756, but it’s only $639 at Amazon in the US. Ugggh.

It was around 8:00 on my way out so I stopped for dinner at this french brasserie in the Burjuman center called Paul, which boasts “Dubai’s best bread,” and where I have eaten some great sandwiches before. Tonight, in honor of the start of the Shangri-La Diet (long story), I ordered the Duck Confit with balsamic reduction, mashed potatoes, and peas. Fuck it, you know. Well, after nibbling on some DELICIOUS bread, the meal came. Dear god. Inedible. Actually burnt on balsamic reduction tasted like someone shit in a bowl of molasses, and then put in the broiler for 45 minutes. At 62 dirhams ($16.87) I shouldn’t have expected much, but the bread lulled me into a false sense of culinary security, and I fucked up. I over-ordered AT THE MALL! I should have known. I never do this, but I sent that fucking thing back with a stern, “This tastes like shit and is burnt, please get me a menu because I’m not eating this.” That is VERY rare for me. In any case, I went the safest route for entree #2. Since they obviously baked on the premises, I went for the mini-margherita pizza. You CAN’T fuck that up.

Yes you can. What came out 10 minutes later was, I swear to god, an 8″ Elios frozen pizza, with a slice of not-melted, sweating parmesan cheese on top, to “spruce it up a bit.” Parmesan doesn’t melt, for the record. Literally, frozen fucking pizza.

By this point I was just completely defeated. So I ate half of it and took the rest home. The picture below is the last remaining quarter of it on the beautifully designed Paul takeout box.

So now I’m home, and I am thinking about homehome, so I decide that some FHM breasts are going to save my evening.

I crack it open right to the Tera Patrick centerfold. And low and behold, the Dubai censors got there before I did!!!

Yes, that’s Sharpie marker. Yes, it is scribbled on Tera’s ass and breasts. Yes, it’s the same on every fucking picture in the magazine where any piece of bulbous flesh touches up against any other piece of bulbous flesh.

Fucking Dubai…