More Adventures in Dubai and the Quest for the Holy Grail

This Friday, after a trip to Carrefour in the morning to get some supplies for our new live-in helper, Aleixina (more about her in a bit), we spent the day lounging around the house. The kids were happy to have a "jammy day" where they played all day, and the atmosphere amongst the Ogurs was relaxed.

Having spent Friday doing nothing, we woke up on Saturday with a mission to get moving and out of the house. We have been trying to explore all the major parks in Dubai. So far, we have been to Safa Park, Creekside Park, Satwa Park, and Jumeirah Beach Park. Saturday, we crossed another one off the list and went to Zabeel Park. Zabeel Park is still under construction in several places, but it has lots of pretty flowers, green grass to run on, some small playgrounds, a cricket pitch, and a space maze (which was Alex's and Ty's favorite). At the space maze, the center of the maze had a sculpture of the sun complete with a Calder-esque wind powered mobile. That was my favorite thing in the park. Eventually, Zabeel will also have "Stargate". Stargate will be a family edutainment complex complete with buildings shaped like planets and alien mascots with Arabic writing on their antennae (wonder what they say...). We had splendid weather, blue skies and temperatures in the 80's with a slight breeze. The kids got to play on a series of giant slides for a half hour while Scott and I chatted under the palm trees. For everyone enduring the east coast gloomy weather right now, I wish I could send a little Dubai sunshine your way Some photos from Zabeel...









Around 6pm, Natalie picked me up to head over to Safa Park for The Predictor. We were both excited, and this week was an interesting race. Once a year, the Predictor turns into the Predictor Pursuit race. The organizer for the Dubai Road Runners, handicaps each runner based on his or her times for the year so far. Then, the slowest runners get a head start and the faster runners try to catch them. The first eight people across the finish for each category (one lap, two laps or juniors) win a prize. Many runners ran in festive attire, too. There were elves, santas, and even an elf in a French Maid's costume (I didn't quite get that one). Before and after the race, I donned the perfect Santa hat I found here in Dubai. It is embroidered to say Ho! Ho! Ho!, but the embroidery is upside down and backwards, so instead it says !OH !OH !OH. LOL.

Every week, when I leave for the Predictor, Tyler says, "I hope you win, Mom", and every week I assure him that I am not running to win. I am running for fun and exercise. This week, I won. I was the second runner to start for the one lap runners, but I overcame the first runner and held on to cross the finish first. I always imagined I would have to run until I was 80 to win a race, but thanks to DRR I now have a trophy that looks like the Holy Grail, much to my children's glee (they have been watching Indiana Jones). Alex and Ty were so excited that I had won that they each made me a homemade trophy. It was a fun race, and I can't wait to see the time results because I know I ran much faster than usual.

Afterwards, one of the members hosted a social where I celebrated with a few glasses of "Fat Bastard" wine and enjoyed hanging out with Natalie and meeting and chatting with some of the other runners.

The proof of my victory is below. It had to be the hat. Thanks goes out to Natalie for the post-race photo.