Connected

So I'm sitting at Al Ghurair Centre testing the WiFi on my new laptop. Smooth maaan! I feel so connected and up to date with the times now.

Not such a tech savvy person, it's kinda an acheivement to have bought a laptop with no guidance; just window shopping and a million questions to make an "informed" purchase decision. :) Normally, when you have invested in something, you normally find out a few days later that you were ripped off, or that you didn't buy the best features or that nothing is installed in your computer, so you have to pay another 2-3 thousand sorting that out. But nope - so far its all smoooth :)

Anyway, so now since I belong to the upbeat, jobless, wireless community, thought I'd be hep - set out with me notebook and be the cool surfer as I sip on a latté. So I go to Starbucks, set myself up, get a grande caramel latté all ready to browse and blog.

Ofcourse I hadn't a clue I need some IZone access card to be connected. *sigh* . Starbucks doesn't sell them. No coffee shop does.

Embarassed, I quickly wrap up and set out to buy one of these cards. Spinneys, Axiom, Plug Ins, Electronics For Less - not available / sold out. Shu baba! So, rather resigned I head back to my car. I pass Caribou Coffee - a new coffee shop at Ghurair, thought I'd ask them anyway. 'You have WiFi? yes. ' You have IZone card'? No. But you don't need one! What? Buy a coffee here and we will give you an access code you can use for an hour. YAAAAAAAYYY.

So here I am, sipping my second latté, browsing, chatting, blogging, reading. There are three guys sitting in the row of seats parallel to me, they have been here for longer than I have. Doing nothing. No coffee, no reading, no computer, no smoking. Perhaps they plan to follow me and steal my new laptop. A young girl in skirt and flip-flops, alone in a mall with a shining new piece of technology - prime catch. Yikes, when did I become paranoid. Anyways, I have made friends with the staff here - surely they will save me. Perhaps I should get one of them to escort me to my car.

The sun is shining and the staff at Caribou are doing the grapevine to "Every Day People" behind the counter. I think I'm going to join them.