My Early Wintereenmas celebration

Wintereenmas..

Who doesn't know about Wintereenmas? It is one of my favourite times of the year. Usually it is celebrated between 25th and 30th January. However, I decided to celebrate it early this year with my other videogaming partner who talked about my visit here.
So, I have decided to invite myself over (actually its more of colonize) KJ's place. This week was just exactly what I needed in serving many of my personal motives, including finishing the horrendous Silent Hill: Homecoming (Gosh, I still can't believe I got the UFO ending) and another mindless co-op zombie bashing game where KJ picked up the only girl character, as usual, and I picked up the black businessman (seriously, I can't comprehend the idea of fighting zombies while wearing a shirt & tie). Overall, it was fun especially when you are attacked by hurdles of zombies.

a very normal scene that our comrades had to face

there is a good reason why they call hiim the boomer

So how do I rank the hospitality? Well, my mom said after she saw me: "OMG, what happened to you? You lost weight.". KJ said as he was dropping me to the airport:
"you know hamza, this week was horrible. I didn't eat well and I didn’t have breakfast all this week"
"e7m e7m"
"oooh…sh!t…this means that you…"
'YES damn it"

Yea it was that bad. I had to go twice by myself to the gas station below his house to grab Burger King. It was unfortunate (or so he claims) that there was always something wrong. He cooked for me one of his delicious pastas but he had no parmesan cheese, so instead, he gave me some weird cheese similar to the ones that they give you on cheap flights and said: "this is your parmesan replacement".
The other day, he actually managed to convince me not to eat outside and that he'll cook me onf of rice & fish dishes. An hour later, he was like: "hmmm…I burnt the rice…I could cook again..are you willing to wait?"…I looked at him and tried not to question what happened and just submitted to my fate. An hour later, he came: "hmm…by mistake, I spilled all the spices on the rice and it ruined the meal". That's it. I couldn't take it anymore. After 3 hours of unbearable hunger, I went to Burger King for one more time.
*hamza is thinking.. I better find something good to write about KJ to appeal to the appetite of his fans*
But overall, I should be grateful for him coz despite his work schedule, he managed to have the time to take me all the way to the 7he sevens avenue to watch the friendly game of acmilan vs hamburg. which was pretty far. I appreciate his planning in leaving 3 hours in advance so that we find good seats. I was fasting that day because of Ashoura so I brought with me some food snacks and juices. At the gate, they forced me to take out all the liquids I had. The security guard was shocked when he took out a bag that I was supposed to leave at home and said:
"Shampoo & shower gel…? Why would you carry with you a shampoo & shower gel to the stadium?"
Surprisingly, the avenue was free-seated and we managed to find good seats. Although the game was not played at a high level, I enjoyed watching my favorite players of the team that I've been supporting for last 14 years live on field. This includes Beckham, Ronaldinho, Pato, Shevchenko, Maldini, Pirlo and many more. As usual, the crowd have added their own touch as our section was pivotal in arranging Mexican waves.

the stadium 2 hours before the match

the players are warming up

and here they are greeting the fans. :P

The major hassle was in the post-match traffic. It seems that it is the norm in Dubai that in such events, you will have over 5000 cars or more trying to exit the stadium at same time on only a 2 lane road. We remained stuck for more than 50 minutes in a bumper to bumper traffic where our only source of entertainment was in KJ's attempt to entertain me with synthesized non-human melodies of videogames music  like "eternal sonata" and Final Fantasy Remixed tracks. Everything was ok till the Humanitarian side of KJ kicked in when he saw a car stuck in the sand and he said:
"oh poor people..They need some help. I've always wanted to help people who get stuck in the sand.."
"dude, please don't do this."
"don't worry kupo. I trust my nyx, we helped many ppl in the past"
10 minutes later, I was with 7 other ppl trying to push "nyx" which got sand stuck instead. 50 minutes later, we were back on the streets:
"you know what? This is the first time that my car gets sand stu.."
"just shut up and drive"
"wallah I swear to Go.."
"I said, shut up and drive"
He just cannot make perfect moments
Despite all that and in highlight of the updates he has on the campaign for the Gaza Donations, I decided to entrust him to be the custodian of my donations where he'll participate with the others in the campaign for buying the food and medicines to help the victims of Gaza. Our chat the next morning was not as encouraging as I have wanted it to be:
"leehoz"
"leeehoz…how u?"
"so far so good. So tell me, Did you manage to buy the stuff for the Gaza Relief campaign?"
"oh yea that thing….hmm, I hope that you don't mind, but I kind of used some of your money to cut my hair"
"you WHAT?"