Wacky Weather

The temperature here is still hot. Every day it seems like the highs are around 105 degrees with lows in the 90's. To be honest, we haven't been out much at night, so we don't get to appreciate the lows. It is also humid, like an oven with a pot of water boiling in it. One day, while waiting by the playground for Alex to finish school, I sat on a bench in the shade. I closed my eyes and envisioned that I was in the steam room at a fabulous spa, and it felt pretty realistic. Along with all the heat and humidity, the air quality changes from one day to the next. Sometimes, the lack of visibility is due to fog, and other days it is the construction dust and blowing sand. I am glad that we have not experienced a sandstorm, yet! Here are some photos to show what I mean. The clear one was taken yesterday morning, and the dusty one was taken this morning. It is the view from our kitchen window in the apartment.

Tyler: model, soccer player, mower.

About two weeks ago, I got a call from school. When my heart stopped palpitating from fear that there was something wrong, the person on the other end of the phone asked my permission to use a photo of Tyler for a brochure, and of course, I said "yes." When I arrived at Back to School day in Tyler's class on Wednesday, Sept. 10th, I was presented with the product of his first modeling gig. :-) He insists his career path will be "soccer player / mower". We have suggested he could mow the field before he plays....

Other photos of Tyler's classroom from Back to School day can be found here.

Fancy a drink?

Driving to the curtain store in Karama to pay our deposit for window treatments for the villa (yes, we have a villa lined up... details to come) yesterday, we passed numerous "saloons" . Too bad I couldn't buy a drink at any of them.

Souk Madinat Jumeirah

Tonight was an adventure. After countless nights of staying home, cooking or ordering in, we all went out for dinner. Wary of finding a child friendly restaurant with food our children would actually eat, it took us a month to take this step. I wanted to visit the Souk Madinat, a mall made to look like a traditional souk (market) on a series of man made canals. After some searching on the Souk Madinat website, I found an Italian restaurant, Toscana, that advertised being child friendly. Yeah! Off we went. Arriving just as Iftar began (that's the signal for sunset during Ramadan when those who are fasting may eat), we were seated immediately, ordered and were served in a jiffy. We all ordered familiar food, and we all enjoyed the meal, as well as the dessert that followed. We'll definitely go back!

After our meal, we meandered along the "canal". Traditional boats, called abras, sail the canals taking hotel guests from point to point. They also offer an abra tour, which Tyler and I took. It is about 20 minutes of sailing on the canals ending with a stunning view of the Burj Al Arab. It was a delight. The evenings are starting to cool here, and we can't wait for the 100 degree temperatures to ease so we can enjoy more of what Dubai has to offer.

Alex the Earthquake Psychic

This morning, Alex asked me about earthquakes. Alex likes science and thinks about various scientific events and mechanisms all the time. So, at breakfast we talked about fault lines and plate tectonics. I even looked up a picture of the San Andreas fault to show him on my laptop.

Around 3pm our time, an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale happened in Iran and was felt here in Dubai. Earthquakes supposedly have never been felt in Dubai before.

All the people and buildings in Dubai are fine, and none of the Ogurs felt the quake. At 3pm, I was happily listening to Alex lead me around his classroom for Back to School day. Scott was not in his office building. He was in a meeting in another part of town, and he did not feel it either. Scott's co-workers that were in his office did feel it, although it was slight.

Our driver reported seeing a large jet fly out of the Dubai airport flanked by two other planes. We suspect it was Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum getting out of Dodge, which is exactly the thought that crossed my mind.

When you gotta go...

If you are squeamish about potty talk, read no further.

Today, I was on a quest for some of Alex's favorite foods. Most of you know that Alex likes about 8 things on the entire planet. They are, in no particular order, American cheese, pizza, Lucky Charms cereal, frozen waffles, pancakes, Tostitos hint of lime chips, Ritz crackers and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. Up until today, I had still not found American cheese, Lucky Charms or Tostitos. Today, was Alex's lucky day. Thanks to expatwoman.com, this morning I had a lead on where to find Lucky Charms. Tyler and I rode 40 minutes out to a Lifco grocery store in Mirdiff, and low and behold, we found them. Yay!

On a whim, after I dropped Tyler off at school, I went to LuLu's hypermarket which is a huge supermarket and department store next to the Mall of the Emirates. Before I went in, I needed to go, if you know what I mean. Imagine my surprise when I entered the stall and found this...
I had read about these, but I had no idea I would encounter one so soon. Yes, the toilet is flush with the floor. Ha! Hmm. Most of us ladies hover over public toilets anyway, so this really wasn't as awkward as I initially thought. Conveniently, there are treads to help you get your footing, and it was sort of fun to aim. All in all, LuLu's was a great success. I didn't pee on my shoes, I located Tostitos, and they even had Sara Lee American Cheese at the deli.

On the way home from LuLu's I saw the best mud flaps ever. As we passed the truck on Sheikh Zayed Road, I could see the entire cab of the truck was decked out in velvet and jewels. If you have to spend all day in a truck, may as well do it in style. I really loved the mud flaps, through. They were like Keith Haring goes to India. Art is everywhere.

A meltdown, flat tires and snow.

Last night, I had a total meltdown. Tears and all. Mostly, I have felt very positive, or at least neutral, about my Dubai experience. Last night, all I could see was the negative, which is not like me. Scott worked pretty late for the 2nd night in a row (tonight makes 3 late nights in a row...he walked in at 11:30pm tonight), I was having renter's remorse about the villa I chose, and I was feeling isolated in our apartment. When Scott got home, the floodgates opened.

I woke up puffy-eyed, but feeling better today. Tyler and I spent the morning just hanging out, and we left for school around 11:40am which is our usual routine. On the way to school, Antony, our driver showed me that a light was on in the car. The display told us that the tire pressure in the front right tire was low. Once we got to school we discovered just how low it was.

The tire was about as flat as it could possibly get. I retrieved the manual from glove box, emptied the back of the SUV, and lowered the spare. Neither Antony nor I could figure out how to get the spare off the cable, though. Aaaargh. I called the rental car company whose response was "Don't you know how to change a tire?". Now that is customer service. Asking a woman to change a tire in the 105 degree heat. Nice. Antony and I piled into a cab, he dropped me at the apartment, and he saved the day by convincing a friend to come and repair the flat even though the shop was closing at 1pm for Ramadan. Crisis averted, and oddly enough, I made it through the experience without a second meltdown. Scott was relieved that I didn't head for the airport.

After a less than spectacular morning, I was determined for us to have fun after school, so we headed for Ski Dubai at the Mall of the Emirates. What a blast! The boys have been begging to go to the Snow Park at Ski Dubai, and it did not disappoint. We cavorted around ice sculptures and ice mazes, they went sledding and tubing, and they exhausted themselves. When they were tubing, 2 boys were making sure everyone took turns. One boy asked Alex where he was from, then decided we should pretend there were snowballs firing over the sled run, since there is so much gunfire in America. LOL. When I told him I was American but had never seen gunfire, he responded, "Don't you watch CSI: New York?". I convinced him that I had even lived in NYC and never seen gunfire. Gotta love the images portrayed in the media. Turns out he and his friend were from Glasgow and Australia.

Of course, now I have the itch to go skiing...

Photos from our icecapades are posted here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/CathyOgur/SkiDubai#
Enjoy!

Villa hunting.

This week, I started looking for a house. Although in Dubai, they are not called houses, they are called villas. We want to rent a villa for a year, since we are not sure how things will go, and we think the property market here is headed for a correction. Unfortunately, finding a villa is not easy. One of the difficult decisions we have to make is where to live in Dubai. Dubai, like many cities, is made of smaller communities, much like where we used to live in Queens. Within Dubai, the children go to a school in Jumeirah. From various places still in Dubai, the commute to school could be as long as an hour. When you have to have a seven year old fed and to school by 8am, an hour long commute is not optimal. Harumph. So, I think we will be looking in the neighborhoods of Jumeirah & Umm Suqeim, for now. I saw a villa that I liked today, only to call the broker back to be told that it had been rented. It is almost unimaginable that villas are rented as fast as they are, since the price for a villa the size we would like starts around $7,000 (USD), a month. It pains me to think about the type of house we could have in the US for that price, even if we are getting a housing stipend. Keep your fingers crossed that we can find something close enough to school that Alex won't have to wake up at 6am and that I won't spend all day riding in the car!