sandCat in Dubai

Category: firsts

  • raining cats and camels?

    As unexpected as this wet, cloudy weather is I have to say that I am really enjoying it. Well for the most part anyway. Travelling around on the flooded streets is no fun at all, especially when people don’t slow down. Everyone knows that having your hazard lights on will instantly halve your stopping time so you don’t need to slow down, right?? Getting to work this week has been challenging, I always had an idea that desert sand was like beach sand, and so wouldn’t be muddy. Yeah right! The sand here seems to turn into something resembling soft porridge. Very sticky and sloppy. Thank goodness for 4 wheel drive. On the plus side though I am definitely getting braver, the large lake of water that stopped me just a week ago was no big deal on Wednesday, especially as I was already late and could not be bothered with turning back and finding another way. So I drove through it, despite the fact it seemed bigger and deeper this time, or maybe that was just when I was half-way through and beginning to have second thoughts. Anyway I made it. Although my car is now making a very strange noise at high revs and has no power, it almost sounds like something is stuck, so now I have the added joy of having to take it in to the dealership this week and have it checked out. Needless to say I haven’t bothered to wash it again, I will wait until the rain is completely over I think. More news on the recent weather can be read here, including pictures of hail! My picture of mud below is rather mundane in comparison :-).

    Muddy road
    [thank goodness for 4 wheel drive]

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  • waffles and WTF?

    Our weekend started off with a charity evening, namely the Feline Friends annual ball, which was held at the Crowne Plaza hotel in SZR* on Thursday. It had originally been planned for November last year, but due to some legal issues around animal charities, like they don’t exist here officially, it had to be postponed until the correct license was obtained. This was duly resolved this month, probably only after a large fee was paid no doubt, but one of the conditions of allowing the ball to go ahead was that a) it could not be advertised and b) no-one could be charged for it, any contribution had to be strictly a donation. Sadly it seems that the delays meant that the momentum was lost, and this, combined with not being able to advertise, meant that the attendance was rather dismal. The hall could have easily have seated 3 times the amount of people who showed up, in fact tables were set for at least double the number, and I found it heart-breaking to see all the empty places. I really hope it wasn’t a case of people just not pitching up on the night, but I think maybe there was some of this going on as well. Of course we managed to enjoy ourselves nevertheless, and were collected by our saferdriver bang on time.. what a great idea!

    view from the restaurant
    [the view of the Creek from the restaurant]

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  • Christmas in Dubai: part 1

    our tree
    [our tree]

    It may not be Oxford Street, London or Times Square, NY, but here and there you will find festive touches around Dubai that will remind you that we are now days away from Christmas. Being from the Southern hemisphere the fact that it isn’t snowing hasn’t made it feel less festive, we are used to summer Christmases spent swimming and braai-ing so the blue and cloud-less sky hasn’t felt any different for us, although there is a slight chill in the air now dusk and dawn which is most unexpected. Yes, temperatures have been as low as 15 some mornings on our way to the gym, which doesn’t sound that bad until you remember that a few months back we were hitting highs of 50+.  Yes, I have even decided to buy some slippers as my toes are cold. But I digress. Due to the sizeable number of Christian expats living here, estimated to be 316,000* people over 19 denominations out of a total population of 4.3m**, 3.7m of which are foreigners, stores are carrying a good range of yuletide rubbish, from your traditional (Christmas trees and stockings) to the absurd (blow-up snowmen), which should help with getting you into the xmas mood.  Christmas day itself is not a holiday here, although my company does give us the day off, whilst Stu’s doesn’t.

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  • three holidays and a wedding

    I do apologise for the rather sporadic posts this month so far, but we have had a very busy fortnight indeed. We started our leave with a 4 night trip to London, leaving Dubai on the 27th November from the new Emirates terminal, terminal 3, at Dubai International. And I must say what a vast improvement over the other, older terminals. We were off to the UK for three very special and important reasons; first, my little brother’s wedding; second, my nephew’s Christening, and last but not least I was going to see my family again after some long months apart.

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  • “goozi” and some very good art

    I have returned from my short trip to Bahrain, safe and sound. Despite the fact that I was going on business and not pleasure, I really enjoyed the visit. Sadly one night is not long enough to get a true sense of a place but I liked it nonetheless. Bahrain, or to be very correct, the Kingdom of Bahrain, is an island in the Persian Gulf, joined via a 25km bridge to Saudi Arabia in the west, and a planned fixed-link (which will be the longest in the world) will link it to Qatar in the south. It’s a a mere 55mins by air from Dubai, not counting all the unavoidable “hurry up and wait” time at the airport of course. I was warmly welcomed by my airport transfer guy, which was gracious of him considering that the flight had been delayed by an hour and he had been waiting for me a good while by the time I arrived. The first thing I noticed on leaving the airport was the weather, definitely cooler and more temperate than Dubai. Happily the trip to the hotel took all of 15 minutes, there is certainly less traffic in Bahrain, and nothing seems very far away. The chaps in the local office told me they even pop home at lunch time, it is that quiet and that close. The hotel I was booked into was on the beach once but as they have reclaimed some land in front of it now you get to look into a construction site. You can still see the sea in the distance but that part wasn’t great. We had a good meeting with our customer, well I think we did, and then we went to the mall for lunch. I stumbled across a local fast food spot called the Yum Yum Tree. Almost like a deli concept, large dishes of ready made meals on display and they serve you a portion of what is displayed. I didn’t know what was what so pointed at something that looked good and seemed popular with the locals. From the receipt I can now tell you that the dish is called goozi. Yes sounds weird but its very nice, rice with lamb, raw peppers and raisins. I had mine with a Greek salad. Very yummy.

    Goozi

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