We decided to spend a quiet evening in for New Year's Eve. The $1200.00 per person (beverages extra) New year's Dinner and party at the Atlantis hotel was tempting. Beckham and Posh are in town, so perhaps we might have been able to dine with them.
Actually, any New Year's eve planning was for not. The Sheikh decided today that all celebrations had to be cancelled out of respect for the the residents of Gaza.
For those of you who might be worried - we are completely safe here in Dubai. Any hostilities that are going on in the other countries of the Middle East are not affecting us here.
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Monday, 29 December 2008
Season's Greetings
Just a quick note to say Season's Greetings.
I realize it has been a while since my last post. We have recuperated from our National Day trip. We spent the rest of the vacation doing touristy things around town and getting ready for Christmas. I'll fill in more details and post some pictures soon.
Zoe's birthday was the Friday before Christmas. We surprised her with horse back riding lessons. You can imagine how thrilled she was. She took her first lesson on Christmas eve (not quite "dashing through the snow on a one horse open sleigh") and was surprised at how much was involved.
Our first Christmas in Dubai was wonderful. Santa bought the kids bicycles and they were able to ride them in the vacant parking lot next door. Rick cooked a traditional Christmas meal (complete with stuffing and cranberries this time) and we had a friend over to share it with us. I was able to go in late and leave early on Christmas day but it was strange to be working. Surprisingly I was busier than I have been in a long time. Sunday was the day that the Islamic New Year was celebrated, so it was a 3 day weekend.
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
UAE National Day
December 2nd was UAE National Day. For several days before, the excitement was building. People put small flags on their car windows, and full size flags over their trunks and hoods. They put red, green, white and black decals all over the cars, painted "UAE" on their cars, even glued gems all over their cars. Several cars have patriotic windshield advertisements (like the ones on bus windows).
Our local friends invited us to go to Abu Dhabi (about 1 and a half hour drive) for the day and to watch the fireworks. Against our better judgement, we agreed.
We planned to leave town at 11:30 sharp - and left at 12:30. We followed them which initially was okay because traffic was light. After a while, we stopped for a pit stop at a gas station. Then, 30 minutes later, we stopped at another gas station, and they went in the lube stop for an oil change! It turns out that they had invited 2 other families and that was where we were meeting. We waited for about an hour before they finally arrived. Now, we were a caravan of 4 vehicles. When we got into Abu Dhabi, it became clear that no one knew where we were going. Eventually after several wrong turns and a few stops for discussions, we found the park. We had a picnic and the kids all played on the playgrounds. It was a beautiful park with lots of play structures, grass, trees and walkways. At about 5:30, we quickly packed up to head to the corniche for the fireworks, which started at 8:30.
The drive was absolutely insane. Traffic was bumper to bumper and moving along at a crawl. People had silly string and some spray foam stuff and were spraying it out their windows at passing vehicles. Some got out and ran between the 3 lanes of traffic spraying in peoples windows. At least every second vehicle had people (mostly kids and teenage boys) standing through the sun roofs, sitting on the roof or sitting out the windows. I must admit that I was convinced to let the kids stand up and look through the sun roof while we were caught up in the traffic. Interestingly, we saw lots of teen age boys, young men, and children. The only Emirati females we saw (other than young children) were a group of 5 adolescents. Most of the cars windows were too dark to see in, but I assume there were some families because of the young children. I would have taken pictures, but it would be impossible to capture the extent of the crazyness and I was reluctant to open the windows for fear of getting hit with silly string. Everyone was happy and honking their horns in rhythm. The buildings were decorated with strings of lights. One even had a video projected on the walls. There were festive lights decorating the streets. It was really quite an experience.
We were quite certain that we would never get to a place where we could park to see the fireworks. We appeared to be on an island, but I'm not sure. Unbelieveably, we made it to a mall shortly before 8:30 - and all 4 vehicles met up there!
The fireworks were like nothing we have ever seen before. They were set of from 2 sites in unison - stereo fireworks and lasted for 45 minutes!
After the fireworks, we thought we might be better off by going to the mall for a bit (to get a coffee for the drive home) and letting the crowd thin out. That was probably not a good idea because as it got later, the traffic did not thin out and the people got more and more out of control. These young men driving their ultra expensive, new Land Cruisers and Lexus SUVs were constantly revving their engines. It seemed that they were trying to blow their engines - and from the sounds of the cars and all of the backfiring, they were relatively successful. It is a good thing that alcohol and drugs are not prevalent here, because, I can not imagine how wild it would have been with intoxicated people. They continued to run through the streets barefeet. They opened their doors and stood (one out each door) rocking the cars as hard as they could. They jumped in the back of pick up trucks (presumably of strangers). It took us about 2 hours to drive the approximately 10 - 15 kilometers to get out of town. Every street was packed with traffic. The intersections where the police were directing traffic were completely congested and almost impossible to get through. At one intersection, they made the traffic turn so we weren't able to go the direction we wanted to to get out of town. We had never been to Abu Dhabi and fortunately our GPS made no mistakes in directing us out (we didn't even try to keep together with the others). Fortunately, almost all of the celebraters were from Abu Dhabi and the drive home was not in too heavy traffic.
Chase had fallen asleep almost immediately and slept the entire way home. Zoe refused to sleep and was awake until we were well on the highway again. We finally arrived home at 2 am.
Our local friends invited us to go to Abu Dhabi (about 1 and a half hour drive) for the day and to watch the fireworks. Against our better judgement, we agreed.
We planned to leave town at 11:30 sharp - and left at 12:30. We followed them which initially was okay because traffic was light. After a while, we stopped for a pit stop at a gas station. Then, 30 minutes later, we stopped at another gas station, and they went in the lube stop for an oil change! It turns out that they had invited 2 other families and that was where we were meeting. We waited for about an hour before they finally arrived. Now, we were a caravan of 4 vehicles. When we got into Abu Dhabi, it became clear that no one knew where we were going. Eventually after several wrong turns and a few stops for discussions, we found the park. We had a picnic and the kids all played on the playgrounds. It was a beautiful park with lots of play structures, grass, trees and walkways. At about 5:30, we quickly packed up to head to the corniche for the fireworks, which started at 8:30.
The drive was absolutely insane. Traffic was bumper to bumper and moving along at a crawl. People had silly string and some spray foam stuff and were spraying it out their windows at passing vehicles. Some got out and ran between the 3 lanes of traffic spraying in peoples windows. At least every second vehicle had people (mostly kids and teenage boys) standing through the sun roofs, sitting on the roof or sitting out the windows. I must admit that I was convinced to let the kids stand up and look through the sun roof while we were caught up in the traffic. Interestingly, we saw lots of teen age boys, young men, and children. The only Emirati females we saw (other than young children) were a group of 5 adolescents. Most of the cars windows were too dark to see in, but I assume there were some families because of the young children. I would have taken pictures, but it would be impossible to capture the extent of the crazyness and I was reluctant to open the windows for fear of getting hit with silly string. Everyone was happy and honking their horns in rhythm. The buildings were decorated with strings of lights. One even had a video projected on the walls. There were festive lights decorating the streets. It was really quite an experience.
We were quite certain that we would never get to a place where we could park to see the fireworks. We appeared to be on an island, but I'm not sure. Unbelieveably, we made it to a mall shortly before 8:30 - and all 4 vehicles met up there!
The fireworks were like nothing we have ever seen before. They were set of from 2 sites in unison - stereo fireworks and lasted for 45 minutes!
After the fireworks, we thought we might be better off by going to the mall for a bit (to get a coffee for the drive home) and letting the crowd thin out. That was probably not a good idea because as it got later, the traffic did not thin out and the people got more and more out of control. These young men driving their ultra expensive, new Land Cruisers and Lexus SUVs were constantly revving their engines. It seemed that they were trying to blow their engines - and from the sounds of the cars and all of the backfiring, they were relatively successful. It is a good thing that alcohol and drugs are not prevalent here, because, I can not imagine how wild it would have been with intoxicated people. They continued to run through the streets barefeet. They opened their doors and stood (one out each door) rocking the cars as hard as they could. They jumped in the back of pick up trucks (presumably of strangers). It took us about 2 hours to drive the approximately 10 - 15 kilometers to get out of town. Every street was packed with traffic. The intersections where the police were directing traffic were completely congested and almost impossible to get through. At one intersection, they made the traffic turn so we weren't able to go the direction we wanted to to get out of town. We had never been to Abu Dhabi and fortunately our GPS made no mistakes in directing us out (we didn't even try to keep together with the others). Fortunately, almost all of the celebraters were from Abu Dhabi and the drive home was not in too heavy traffic.
Chase had fallen asleep almost immediately and slept the entire way home. Zoe refused to sleep and was awake until we were well on the highway again. We finally arrived home at 2 am.
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