Five things I love about Dubai

Everybody loves a list!

It may be a classic newbie honeymoon-phase cliché, but narrowing the things I’m appreciating about my new home down to only five is proving hard. I could probably write a full post on each of them, too (and I probably will sometime. It’s called recycling, and writers do it well. Dubai does it badly, but more on that later.) You’ll have to wait til next time for the ‘things I not-so-love’ list.

So... here in no particular order are five things I’m loving about Dubai today:

1.       The separate room for ladies to pay traffic fines (don’t ask). The men’s room was full; ladies’ room, empty. Now, you don’t get to write that sentence very often. The two taciturn women in khaki uniforms and headscarves could have done with some customer service training (or perhaps a cup of coffee – it was early – but maybe I’m projecting), but they were efficient. I think it’s such a good idea that they should introduce it in Australian government offices. Imagine going to renew your driver’s licence without sharing a seat with a man who spreads his knees a metre apart.

2.The call to prayer. Bet you thought that was going to be in the other list! But apart from the one that wakes us at six in the morning (we have to get up anyway), I think it’s rather nice to know what the time is when you’re out and about, and the ‘singers’ (as us non-Muslims call them) can be fantastic. Check out this one (above) I recorded at the kid’s school the other day. It’s a reminder of where we are, which you can forget when you are just wandering around Western-dominated areas. And it’s a reminder of a dimension in life that goes beyond what we can see.

Exhibit A

3.       The roads. Ha! I may well be alone in this, but there’s a weird kind of logic to the layout that suits people like me who don’t think in straight lines but rather meandering circles. I haven’t really been lost yet (I know, I know, famous last words).

 4.       After school activities (or ASAs to those of us in the know). This is a system whereby children’s activities – football, ballet, etc – are taken care of straight after school, on the school premises, often by outside providers. This negates the need for one person to get three children to diverse geographic locations at the EXACT SAME TIME. Brilliant! And if one of your children doesn’t have an activity on, they can do their homework in the cafeteria. See exhibit A.

5.       The desert. It may be everywhere (including all over the roads sometimes) but you don’t get a sense of it until you get out of town, which we did with a few new friends on Saturday. It was literally a breath of fresh air, a much-craved escape into the countryside. And although the rolling green hills of home couldn’t be more different from the wild, craggy mountain landscape we hiked through, the thrill of finding water in the desert (see pics) was worth the dry trek. Loved, loved, loved it. 

6.       Oh, okay. I know I said five, but I’ve thrown in a bonus one. The Dubai Garden Centre is my new favourite shop. It has excellent, very strong coffee, groovy, quirky home products and even a marmalade cat curled up in the sun. My coffee came in a pale green (my favourite colour) old china cup and saucer with a worn gold trim, and it made me realise – in this land of new, shiny things (even buildings made to look old are actually new – you can see the Styrofoam behind the wood veneer) - how precious it is to hold something with some history. Best of all it has a SECOND HAND BOOKSHOP!!!!!!!! (I hate overuse of exclamation marks, but I need to convey how wonderful this is.) Will be back, very soon.

Next time: the five things that have NOT captured my heart, including children without seatbelts, car parking at school (with pictures!) and those pesky neighbourhood sprinklers.

On being proved wrong

Do you want the good news or the good news?

Well, I was wrong on three counts (see last blog entry), or four if you count my unvoiced suspicions. I guess being new to a country makes you prone to being wrong a lot, especially if you are so bold as to make an assumption. (As an old teacher used to say, “If you assume, you make an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’. So true, so true.)

So what I didn’t say last time was that I assumed at least one thing would go pear-shaped this week  – either our shipment from Australia wouldn’t turn up, or something would prevent us getting to Oman in time for the visa run (we were cutting it pretty fine as it was, renewing 30-day visas on day, well, 30). Many people have warned us of the general Dubai inefficiency and chaos, so I thought I should keep my expectations low.

But at 9am on Tuesday (an hour early) the Australian stuff turned up. So wrong there. And, after a bit of shuffling furniture around, the lounge room looks just fine and not the cluttered wreck I expected. So wrong there too.  On the other hand, this is how my wardrobe looks:

How quickly our plans to become a super-organised neat-freak fall apart. Wherever I go in the world, there I am.

And we made it to Oman last night with no trouble at all. Not only that, while the first part of the trip was fairly geographically and aesthetically dull, as I gloomily predicted, we pretty soon entered a region of rolling, golden sand dunes and camels, starkly lit by the low sun. I had good reason to curse the fact we were in a rush and I only had my phone to take pictures with. The dunes looked miles away and uniformly grey through my phone’s lens. As we got into more mountainous regions, though, the landscape leapt up to greet us and I got a couple of cool pics (including the one at top):

Will definitely be going back with a real camera and a bit more time very soon.

It was a very welcome reminder that we have come not just to an amazing city, but to an ancient and fascinating region. The whole Middle East is spread out around us waiting to be explored. I can’t wait.
Finally, I was wrong about that list I promised you. Next time! No, really! Just trying to have a spare moment to record that call to prayer - I always seem to be too busy when I hear it (I wonder if there is something deep in that about busyness not making way for spiritual opportunities. What do you think? Hmm. I think so. When we first got here I was using the call to prayer as a reminder to do just that, only not to who the guy on the loudspeaker was suggesting. Now that the call has faded into the background, I'm losing the habit. The new normal.) 

Through the fog

Dubai through the tired, confused eyes of a brand new ex-pat

It’s been a month. A month since we stumbled off the plane in Dubai from Sydney, 12,000 kilometres and 14 hours of straight movie-watching behind us. A whole complicated life disentangled, unravelled, rolled up and stuffed badly into boxes, ready to spill out in a new place.

This means a couple of things. The first is that we have to take a short evening drive to Oman this week to exit and re-enter the country. This is in the absence of a resident’s visa for me and the kids, which has met a few hurdles. Nothing I can’t stagger over (even if I have to knock down a fence or two on the way). The fact that I have not met anyone who didn’t have to do an Oman visa-run at least once is also reassuring.

Now it might sound sort of glamorous, visiting another country in between Eve’s gymnastics practice and dinner and homework on a Wednesday afternoon. Where you would maybe fit in a visit to the gym or the supermarket, I will be swanning my way around the Middle East, poking my nose across the border of a land of beauty and mystery. But in reality, it will look like this:

for about an hour or so heading east, then much the same for an hour or so heading west. In between, we will go in and out, twice, of a small building on the border.

We are hoping to make a more substantial visit to Oman quite soon, in the April school holidays (or ‘spring break’ as I am now required to call it. Funny how quickly you adopt the words and practices around you. I am now quite naturally asking for people to pass the ketchup at barbecues, although calling thongs flip-flops keeps slipping my mind. Some strange looks there). Then we will see landscape that looks more like this:

Yay! Now that’s glamorous (cue jealousy on other side of the world).

The other thing being here a month means is that our container from Australia will arrive tomorrow. Am I longing for my precious keepsakes and framed family photos? Do I want some relief from the six dresses I have been rotating for two months? No. I want – I really, really, really want – my coffee maker (or my happy maker, as I now realise it should be called). The first two weeks involved some shameful imbibing of Starbucks and the similarly insipid Tim Horton’s brew, until a canny Scot (thanks, Carol-Ann!) pointed out that a fancy providores nearby sold Byron Bay coffee, made properly by a real barista who did more than press a button. That has been a lifesaver, but unfortunately they don’t open til 7am, and since my antipodean sleep patterns are still not quite reversed, I often want something before then.

Apart from that I’m actually a bit worried about how I’m going to fit all my boxed junk back into my life. Streamlined living has rather suited me. So much less clutter. Okay, I don’t have exactly the right kitchen implement or a t-shirt in the exact shade of green I might need, but I’m willing to put up with that. Here is a picture of my lovely new lounge room now:

(Mind you, it’s the absence of kids that perhaps makes the room look good). Tomorrow I will provide one when it is full of unnecessary bits and pieces. You decide.

I started writing this thinking I would provide – for my very first blog entry – a list of five things we love about Dubai, and five things we love perhaps slightly less. But I’ve rambled on too long already. Much better to leave it for next time. I’m hoping next time will include a recording of the call to prayer (or the ‘man with the annoying song’ as Archie first referred to it) and our neighbours’ unbelievably obnoxious sprinklers, recorded at full-force at 4.50am tomorrow morning. I think you can probably guess what category they will fall under.