I have blogged about elements of this before, but today I received an email from a colleague, supposedly issued by the Dubai Authority, that contains an list of prohibited public behaviour for the Emirate. I am not sure how recent this is, I think it was probably originally written after the sex-on-the-beach Britons scandal, but its still relevant, quite interesting, and rather hectic, take a look..
We returned from our 10 day holiday on Monday (yes it was lovely thank you) to discover that we had been victims of crime! And this after we had been feeling a) very smug about the fact that there is little to no crime here in Dubai and b) rather relieved to have escaped Johannesburg relatively unscathed in the first place. We had left our garden gate unlocked whilst we were away so that our gardener could water our lawn, which was vital given that we spent a small fortune on replacing said lawn a few months ago, and it was going to be rather warm and dry whilst we were away (well what’s new right?). Anyway, we got home to find that our sprinkler had vanished, along with the connection for the garden hose along with it.
Stu had planned a small braai for friday. His rationale was twofold, firstly we wanted to invite a new couple, who had only been in Dubai for a few weeks, to give them a break from apartment living, and secondly we figured we would make the most of the last of the “cooler” spring weather. So of course as luck, or murphy probably, would have it Friday was particularly hot and humid. In fact when Stu went to the supermarket in the morning it was already about 35 degrees Celsius. We were feeling rather depressed that it meant that summer was about to begin and that we had several long months of hot weather, followed by indescribable heat in July and August, to look forward to, at least if last year was anything to go by. Happily, according to the Gulf News website today, this weather is in fact unseasonal and not the start of summer.
Dubai: Though the temperature will shoot up this Saturday to 31 degrees Celsius, the pleasant weather will continue through March and the blistering heat of summer is still far away, according to weathermen.
Winter, it seems, is officially over. Last week my car told me it was 35°C which was rather depressing indeed. The side effect of the increase in heat is the corresponding increase in humidity. This leads, some mornings, to a rather thick fog that persists until about 9am. It is not the best time to be on the roads as not only is visibility virtually non-existent but people don’t slow down either.
The view from the bedroom normally:
The same view this morning:
The only up-side is that it gives you a chance to have another cup of coffee before leaving the house whilst you wait for it to clear. Because lets face it the stuff in the office pretending to be coffee is not worth the milk and sugar!
There has been an email doing the rounds in the last few days containing pictures of a Mercedes that has a white gold body, which were apparently taken outside the Mall of the Emirates. These can be seen here. Of course its completely over the top, but somehow that is something I have come to expect living here, and whilst it is rather extreme its probably not that unthinkable that someone does own such a vehicle here. No, my real issue is why would you bother? Not in terms of the cost and effort, but in terms of the fact you could never really practically use that kind of vehicle here.