a minor ghaf

Once again the week has flown, and the weekend is almost over. I realised on Thursday evening that I had reached the 6 month anniversary of my leaving Johannesburg, in some ways it feels like I have been here a lot longer, like a few years, but in other ways it feels like I just arrived. The thought of a five year stay here was rather daunting to begin with, but it seems that the time will pass quite quickly after all.

On Tuesday I met the girls for a pizza at Ibn Battuta mall, which is now the closest mall to my new office. Its a large mall, split into differently themed sections, which are all rather over the top but that is the way things are done here. The parking lot was packed when I arrived after work, but inside the mall itself it was like a ghost town. Apparently most of the cars belong to people going to the gym, not very good news for the quiet shops inside, even with the shopping festival on it seems people aren't buying. In fact when I bought myself a new handbag the week before (yes I needed it) the lady in the store had said it has been the worst shopping festival ever.

a new outlook

We moved into our new offices this weekend, which are located at the opposite end of Dubai from where we were, which means its closer in distance to where I live, but with the non-existent roads in the area and the amount of construction going on it might be further in time some days.

I have a sea-view, well that is if you can call the sliver of water I can see in the port a sea-view. Mostly I have a view of SZR (Sheikh Zayed Road), the metro rail line and the buildings in the Jafza free-zone. I am also on the 13th floor, and have not decided if this should be considered lucky or not.  Overall the office is an improvement, its nice to have everyone together in one place.  First prize would have been if they had given us new chairs to go with the new desks, the first one I had looked like someone died on it (and not from natural causes either).  And if they would get the aircon switched on and would stop testing the fire alarm every 5 seconds we might actually get some work done!

This is my new route to the office:

This is my new desk:

This is my new route home:

 

Now you see why I need a 4x4!  Isn't it lovely!!  Such scenery :-)

Me sarcastic?  Never.

SNOW!!

I have just heard on the radio that it snowed in Ras Al Khaimah yesterday, only for the second time in recorded history. In fact its so unusual that the locals don't even have a word for snow. Ras Al Khaimah, incidentally, is one of the 7 Emirates that make up the UAE.

The picture above was borrowed from the Gulf News website which carries the full story here.

andiamo!

Stu and I had the most delicious meal last night at Andiamo!, which is at the Grand Hyatt. All I can say is BELLISIMO (and I mean beautiful, and not how they mean it here)!

[our starters]

safe, and legal

This morning I received a rather frantic sounding text message from an old friend back home wanting to know if we were ok as there had been some news on the TV about Dubai, and did we still have our jobs? I would like to reassure you that we are indeed ok, and the news that has been reported on CNN and elsewhere about the US Consulate is, according the Gulf News, not true. It was a fake report about someone who was intending to do something against the consulate, at least according to Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim the Dubai Police Chief, quoted in the story.

Apparently the officials at the US consulate do not trust Dubai Police's abilities or do not believe us which led them to close the consulate.

a big storm, and remember the shopping!

Wow, I never thought I would see lightning in Dubai, but last night we had a humdinger of a storm complete with rolling thunder and flashes of lightning. The really cool pic here is from the UAE community blog, taken by Stained; I tried to take a picture with my phone but it focused on the window and not the rain outside and it wasn't so good.

Don't forget that the Dubai Shopping Festival begins today, and runs for a full month. So forget about the credit crunch for a moment and treat yourself to something nice why don't you? Maybe I will even see you there!!

"year of the ox", and an orphan

It has been a rather uneventful start to the year, in fact this year feels pretty much like more of last year so far. Work has been super busy already, so I am already rather nervous that its going to be a busy one, but then at least I won't be bored right? Our old year's eve was a quiet affair as predicted, we had a lovely prawn braai and I had plenty of champers; our guests left around 2am so we did see the new year in, but almost missed it as we weren't watching the time! I haven't done any new year's resolutions this year, mainly because Stu and I did some outcomes in August for our stay in Dubai, so we will just keep on with those. And as I never seem to keep resolutions there doesn't seem much point in setting them in the first place.