It’s true what they say, time waits for no man…uh…time flies… no no time marches on! Either way you look at it I have now spent my third Christmas in Dubai, I can’t actually believe it. Seems like only yesterday I was doing the whole family thing times three (yeah divorced parents and one in-law). I can’t complain however, we spent a very merry weekend with some great friends here and had a wonderful time all in all, even if I did miss the fandamily (just a little bit).
The day before Christmas Eve I braved the Mall to do a last spot of shopping – it wasn’t as crazy as I was expecting, but nevertheless Stu would have lost his mind. I can deal with the crowds, tyre-kickers, babies in strollers, you name it (if I have to) but the thing that drives me slowly insane is being bombarded in each and every store by a different cheesy Christmas carol or stars forbid, Boney-M. This year was no exception and seemed actually worse than last year, or maybe I wasn’t this silly last year and had stayed away this close to day.
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Blog
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festive sand dunes
[our lovely Christmas table] -
good enough to eat
We received a small Christmas gift yesterday at work from one of our suppliers – a clear plastic bauble filled with hand-made choccies – the idea being that you could hang on the tree (well you could if you didn’t devour them all in 1 nanosecond like I did).
Anyway the company that makes the chocolates are a local firm called Chocolat or, as they also like to be known, your Swiss Chocolatiers of the Desert.
Passion has a Taste
I have to say the chocolates were some of the nicest I have had in a while.
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sand between my toes 🙂
I am loving this winter weather! Well ok it may be true that one woman’s winter is another woman’s pool party, especially when I look at the “BIG FREEZE” pictures on Sky News every morning (and thank my lucky stars I am not travelling to Europe for Christmas) but seriously it’s cold here. I even wore a polo neck today; it was 16 degrees when I left the house. Brrrrr!
So whilst we may not be having a white Christmas in Dubai it’s certainly perfect weather for braais and sitting outside, opening windows (at long last) and camping in the desert. We have been three times in the last couple of weeks, most recently this last Friday night, and it was pretty fresh let me tell you. The tent and chairs were soaking wet from the morning dew when we got up and the sand was ice cold on my toes, I had to wear socks even.
[lovely sand]
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happy birthday UAE
I wrote this post for work’s website, but I thought it was pretty interesting so I am going to share it with you here as well (cheeky I know). Think of it as a guest blog, by me. Haha.
If you would like to read it in it’s original setting please click here.
On the 2nd December the United Arab Emirates, or UAE, will be 39 years old. The UAE is a federation of seven states, or emirates (so called as they are ruled by Emirs), which are Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Quwain, Ras al-Khaimah and Fujairah. The capital and second largest city of the United Arab Emirates is Abu Dhabi. It is also the country’s center of political, industrial and cultural activities.
[UAE 39th National Day logo]
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gorgeous design..revealed at last
I have talked before about the exciting developments planned at Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, we spent some time looking at the plans when we were in Abu Dhabi in February this year. Whilst Saadiyat Island is intended to be the largest single mixed-use development in the Gulf a great deal of emphasis is currently being placed on the cultural nature of the development; five buildings (Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim, Jean Nouvel’s Louvre, Zaha Hadid’s Performing Arts Centre, Tadao Ando’s Maritime Museum and Norman Foster’s Zayed National Museum) will transform Saadiyat Island into “an irresistible magnet attracting the world to Abu Dhabi, and taking Abu Dhabi to the world”. But it is the Zayed National Museum, perched on elevated ground in a central position, that will take centre stage. And the design of the building has finally been revealed.
[courtesy of The National newspaper]
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