Food for Non-Muslims

In the grocery stores, there are small rooms that carry food for non-muslims. Primarily, this means the ingredients contain pork. There is a surprising array of food that you wouldn't have expected to see in the "Pork" section, including:

Canned Tuna
Pop-Tarts
Campbell's Chunky Beef Stew
Soda crackers
Turkey Sausages (hmmm. . .)
Pot Noodle
and (reassuringly) Walker's bacon flavored potato crisps/chips

Ro-o-o-lling Along with the...

...tumbling tumbleweeds.

In the last week before we moved, Lyra and her good friend Clara took dance camp at the Danceworks studio. The theme of the week was "Happy Trails" (or something like that). Unfortunately, the numbers in the class drastically dwindled until it was Lyra, Clara, and one other little girl, Ava. So, the girls got the dance instructors and art instructor to themselves for a week. Attached are a few blurry photos of their recital on Friday. It is very hard to get good photos of dancing & whirling 4-year olds.

Here they are galloping madly about on their horses.

I love this one!

More On Lifts

Why, oh why, am I obsessing about the elevators/lifts in this country.

Our temporary apartment is on the 6th floor of a 13 story building (yes, they do have 13th floors here). This is the call button in the lobby on our floor. What is wrong with this picture? Come on all you Encyclopedia Brown fans - I've given you enough information to figure it out. Evidently the builders in 1970 knew that we would have no friends on the 7th through 13th floors.

And I've already mentioned the fact that the lift numbers will light up from right to left as the elevator ascends, but I thought this one deserved a photo. I'd just like you to imagine the look on the security guard's face as I emerged from the lift into the lobby. Surely the flash of my camera caught his attention on the security camera. I'm sure he really wants to know what secret information I am collecting by snapping a photo of the inside of the elevator car.

Hopefully, this is my last post about elevators. I will try to let go and move on.

All Safe & Sound

In the early hours this morning (2:00am) Basil, Peter, and Jet Girl arrived safe and sound to our flat.

We hired a pet transport service to help bring them over. The process included sending full inoculation records, rabies vaccination records, and micro-chip numbers to the Ministry of Health here to get them a certificate to enter the country. With this certificate, they didn't need to go through any quarantine process - just a check by the vet at the Dubai airport and they were cleared.

The transport company came to pick them up in Milwaukee last Friday and they were boarded at a kennel in Milwaukee until their scheduled departure on Monday. We prepared their carriers with blankets & padding from home to try and give them some measure of comfort during their journey. Basil - of course - just went into his kennel like usual. He is one of the most well-traveled dogs (this is his 3rd continent) and we weren't worried about how he would manage the trip (except for the number of hours he would be caged without a chance for taking a walk). The cats, especially Jet Girl, were a bit of a worry. We got them in the carriers without any fuss, but then Jet Girl began her meowing. Overall, though, she seemed to be worried, but not highly stressed.

They flew on Lufthansa out of Chicago through Frankfurt. I'm not sure whether Basil got a walk or what the arrangements were in Frankfurt. They arrived in Dubai around 9pm last night. But it took nearly 4 hours for the airport vet to come to the holding area to conduct his health check. The transport company had someone there to manage the clearance process - so luckily we didn't need to wait around for 4 hours during the middle of the night.

When they arrived, we opened the carrier doors. Basil came rushing out to greet us. He was very glad to see us and needed to make sure that he ran back and forth to both of us. Peter also emerged right away, but he was more interested in scoping out the flat. Jet Girl was a bit slower, but within the first few minutes she came out and also started scoping the flat. Basil needed a quick bath - obviously he hadn't been let out to do his business. By 2:30 everyone seemed fine. All had taken a few drinks of water, eaten a bit, and the cats both found the new litter box.

Whew - what a major relief. This has been a worry for me for so many months.

Red, huh?

As our plane landed last night -

Lyra: Is this Dubai?
Me: Yes.
Lyra: It doesn't look like Dubai?
Me: Really? What did you expect Dubai to look like?
Lyra: It should be more red.

So it begins . . .

Our adventure as a family in Dubai starts today. We arrived late last night (or early this morning). I guess I hadn't checked our tickets closely enough, because what I thought was a non-stop from JFK to Dubai turned out to have a lay-over in Hamburg, Germany. Uggh.

Our itinerary had us flying on Midwest Airlines from Milwaukee into LaGuardia. Saturday was one of the most beautiful days to fly into New York. I've never seen such clear skies! It was a once in a lifetime view of Manhattan. Upon our approach to LaGuradia, we had to make some wicked banking turns to get the plane lined up to the landing strip. (I guess that is pretty normal for LaGuardia). Just as we were getting ready to touch down, the pilot guns the engines and begins another steep assent. He came on to tell us that there was an airplane that had stayed too long on the taxi way, and that we were instructed to abort the landing, circle around, and do it again. Turns out it was a twice in a lifetime view of Manhattan. As we were circling the end of the island, I saw some smoke coming out of the area that was "ground zero". I had to look twice to make sure it wasn't my eyes playing tricks on me. Later, I read in the paper that there was a fire in an abandoned sky scraper that killed two firefighters. Duh-dee-duh-doo, duh-dee-duh-doo. Rod Serling - get away from me! Eeerie!

From LaGuardia, we had a driver pick us up and take us to JFK. We arrived at 6pm for a flight that left at 11:15pm - so we had plenty of time to kill in the Emerites business lounge. Very nice lounge and great food. From JFK to Hamburg and then to Dubai. We landed around 11:30pm and got to our apartment at 2:00am. I slept fer-schtunken and am now nearly catatonic.

Before I collapse into a quivering heap, I need to take Lyra to the pool and run some errands to get the house ready for the arrival of Basil, Peter, and Jet Girl tomorrow.

Elevator/Lift Bells

OK - I never would have imagined that one of the things I'd need to get used to is a different system for elevator bells.

Imagine the scene. You are in a large office tower with a bank of 6 elevators. You press the call button for the lift. Instantly, the light above one of the doors lights and the bell rings. Like Pavolov's dog, you position yourself in front of the doors to wait for the car to arrive. Your mind wanders, you are thinking about work or trying to remember where you parked the car. You are responding to the bells and lights like you have been "trained" to all your life. But nothing happens. After a while, the light above your door goes off and across the lobby a light and bell go off over a different set of doors.

I have now learned that the way elevators work here is that they try to predict which car will bet the first to arrive to your floor. This is the first light and bell that you hear. However, based on who gets in the elevator on other floors and how many different stops the car needs to make, the car that was predicted may not be the one to actually arrive first. Hence the second light and bell above a different set of doors.

I guess the reason I find this so irritating is that so much of this response is unconscious and I find myself standing in front of a set of closed doors for several seconds before I realize that nothing is happening.

However, I was just in Brussels and I've decided it is much better than no light or bells at all. In Brussels, the lift would arrive, the doors would silently open, and I would completely miss it. I had pressed the button and then was staring/daydreaming about something else and would miss the arrival & departure of the lift. I would only notice when I looked to see that the call light was off - and would have to press the call button again - this time telling myself I need to pay more attention. For those of you that know me, you know that it is completely possible for me to miss the second arrival of the elevator car because I have yet again drifted off thinking about something else.

OMG - We own a lot of CR*P

Well, I'm back home for about 2 weeks. I arrived in Milwaukee on Saturday night. Still dealing with the jet lag. My plan is to try and get the house sorted and ready for the movers to arrive on Friday & Saturday. So far, we're working on it, but there is a lot of stuff in our house. I wandered down into the basement yesterday and was a bit disappointed to realize that the work to clear out clutter has hardly begun. Never mind about the garage. Really, what are we going to do with all this cr*p?

Even though our house in Mirdif is plenty big, we don't have a basement or a garage. So, there's a lot of storage space that we'll be missing. If we don't clear out and purge now, then we'll be in a heap of trouble if all that stuff arrives at our new place.

Well, if you arrive to visit in Dubai and find that you are halted at the door by piles and piles of stuff, you will know why.

House in Mirdif

OK, I finally remembered to bring the cable with me to download photos off the camera. Here are pictures of our new villa in Mirdif. This is a picture of the six villas in our compound. There are 3 villas along the right and 3 behind them. Ours is the last one on the right.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.




Russell is actually standing in front of the neighbors door and garage. Our front gate is the next doorway along and our garage door is the partially open one. There is a single garage door beyond that which is for the neighbor's parking area of the villa that is behind ours.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

When you enter through our gate, there is a small front area with parking for 2 cars and the front door. The reflective doors on the right are the entry for the Maid's quarters. The room is quite small - I don't even know how you would fit a single bed in there along with a dresser and have any place to walk around. There is also a private bathroom with shower. The shoes in front of the maid's quarters are from one of the workmen. The house is still under construction and they are using this room for break room during the afternoon. There is a law that during July and August, all workmen must have off from 12:30 to 3:30 (due to the heat.) The workmen at this site have a nice place to escape to and take an afternoon siesta to recharge for the hot afternoon ahead.





When you walk in the front door, you enter into a great room which is a living room/dining room space. I'm standing in what would probably be the dining room and taking a picture toward the back of the house and the back patio with the pool. On the right, the stairway railing is covered in plastic to protect the decorative railing from dust and construction damage.

For those that asked, we will be keeping the tiles. They are not extra with this flat. They are actually very nice marble tiles..
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Here is a picture of the kitchen from the doorway. It is actually very unusual to have the appliances included in the apartments. Typically, the tenant is required to provide their own. As in Europe, the laundry is in the kitchen. This is a combination washer/dryer unit. We had a unit like this in London. Really, the intent is to get the clothes damp and then hang them on drying racks.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Here is another picture of the kitchen standing over by the washer/dryer. There is a piece from the stove hood that hasn't yet been installed.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
This is a picture of one of the bedrooms. I think it is the one that we plan to be the guest room. The door on the left leads out to a nice balcony overlooking the front of the house. They all look pretty much like this. Two or three of them have balconies. Each one has their own bathroom - some bigger than others.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Here is a picture of the rooftop terrace that is connected to the master room. I told Russell that we can put a carpet, some chairs, and a sisha pipe (hookah) out here for a nice relaxing evening retreat. Unfortunately, I'm standing right next to the airconditioning unit, so we'll have to put up some screening or planting to block that view. I'm planning to put some bouganvillea up here to grow over the pergola and help create some shade for the area.
.
.
.
.
.
Here is the backyard pool area. As you can tell, it is a pretty small patio area. But it is nice to have a private pool. All the other villas we viewed had either shared pools or no pools at all. The pool is quite deep - the same depth all around. It's hard to tell exactly, maybe 6 feet?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.