um, really?

[aruan]

Hubby and I finally got our curtain situation sorted (yes, we have lived in the apartment for almost a year), and on Sunday the good men from around the corner at Al Rehab (yes, Amy Winehouse does pop into my head with alarming frequency) will come by to install them.

Until then, dreamed last night that they showed up while I had to leave the house, and Brandon let them do whatever crazy thing that passes for interior design when an Indian man is trying to visualize what a Western couple would find fashionable. Needless to say, I came home and burst into tears because everything was covered in red and mint green overlaid with shimmery black lace. They even hung curtains on the living room wall that has no window.

That was probably not normal, but with this country, you can never take anything for granted.

Comments

[copracat]

and Brandon let them do whatever crazy thing that passes for interior design when an Indian man is trying to visualize what a Western couple would find fashionable

Hee! In SE Asia the preferred indoor lighting is surgical strength white illumination. In Australia, it is a dull yellow. You can imagine how much an Australian expat's eyes are shocked by turning on the lights in their new SE Asian home and how dim and dingy an Australian home looks to a SE Asian expat. (Generalising, of course!)

At the end of my time I was really liking the reds, oranges and golds of Chinese New Year. They'd stopped being sense-assaulting and become celebratory (and a promise of yummy, yummy food).

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

o.O How interesting! Culture shock has so many flavors. But yes, that's the sort of thing that has me worried. Furniture is not a thing for traditional Emiratis - most Bedouins don't bother to drag a sofa across the desert - so they buy cushions and carpets and that's about it, so in many of the non-franchise furniture shops it's all garish velvet-upholstered Colonial-style stuff that looks like it came off a British ship in the 1800s, since the Brits were the only ones buying things like sleigh beds and coffee tables. Hilarious!

I look forward to experiencing Chinese New Year sometime. The color scheme, at least, is right up my alley (as is yummy food!)