my son, the gift attracter

so friday we went to dubai to festival city (the mall with toys r' us and ikea) because we needed to rectify some assembly issues with 2 ikea pieces. ha, that attempt was futile.

no matter, as we took full advantage of DSF (dubai shopping festival) in its last few days. all three of us got new shoes and serge finally got some new sunglasses before he goes completely blind from the blazing sun. the cool thing about DSF are the raffles and things that each place offers. festival city happened to be giving away 3 toyota FJ cruisers. you had to spend a minimum of 300 dirhams to get your ticket. but the lady was so nice, she gave us a few more than we had actually spent. and not like i even like the FJ cruiser (and we have a car anyway), but wouldn't it be fun to win?

so while we're there, we decide to eat the yummy iranian food again. only the dude manning the place is obviously alone (someone or a few people called in sick) and visibly agitated. probably not the place to be eating, because as he's prepping in the kitchen and cleaning up ("we're not open"), he's shooting death rays out of his eyes. 

before we notice that he was possessed, we figure "oh, maybe at 1pm they'll open", but we were hungry, so we stopped at krispy kremes because the sign said "hot now". we haven't had one of those in years. it was okay. but julian got a balloon on a stick out of it. then he goes over to friday's (yes, TGIFriday's - you can't escape anything - and by the way, there is like 1 store open in al hamra mall besides spinneys and the other thing open now is...starbucks. and it's PACKED) and flirts with the girls at the front who give him one balloon on a stick, then another. good thing because the first one lost air.

by the way, we had to settle for other food because i think the iranian dude spontaneously combusted. we were wholly unsatisfied with what we ate. a sad day for our stomachs.

fast forward to yesterday (saturday) when serge took julian to the bank. he got passed around to each employee and got a handful of candy when he was done. too funny!