Five reasons to spend summer in Dubai

Yes, it’s hot. Like, really, really hot. Even I think so. And, yes, the children are on school holidays. Every day. Yes, most of our friends have left town. Yes, this year summer has happened to coincide with Ramadan, so even if there was something to do, it couldn’t involve the public imbibing of fluids or eating of food (although bending over and pretending to tie your shoelace while surreptitiously swigging from a water bottle is working out quite well for us so far).

But there are a few wins to spending the summer holidays in Dubai. Here are five of them…

1. There are no queues

Now is your chance to visit every Dubai attraction that is normally too crowded to enjoy. Put off taking the kids to the ice rink because of the crazy teenager speed skaters playing tip between the toddlers with over-sized penguins? Worry no more. They have all gone home to Europe or Africa or wherever, leaving the ice free for your precious offspring. Don’t want to spend half an hour in the line for every ride at Wild Wadi? Visit over summer and the whole water park is yours. Etcetera. WIN!

2. There are no cars

Honestly, the roads are like Nowra on a Sunday afternoon. Vacant. Empty. Deserted. Over summer, you only feel like you are about to die once a day. It’s a big improvement. WIN!

3. Your family will bond

In Australia, summer holidays mostly consisted of driving the kids to their friends houses, or else picking the kids’ friends up to bring them to our house. In between, there were trips to Sydney, people to stay, work and all sorts of other reasons to spread the five personalities in our family around more thinly. But at the moment, we really only have each other. Okay, Graham actually has a life, but the rest of us don’t so much right now. No one can say I am not spending enough time with my children. And actually, we quite like each other. WIN! (Now, if I could just convince them that lying on a bed reading a book all day was a good use of holiday time, we’d all be happy.)

4. Lunch is the new breakfast…

We’re encouraging serious sleep-ins, seeing as the hot, empty days are harder to fill in than the relatively pleasant evenings (only 39 degrees. That’s under 40!). Turns out cricket after dinner is quite possible in the park by that time of day, finished off by an evening swim in the pool (which currently is for our exclusive use). This means that the first meal of the day, for those of us without livelihoods, is more like a (very slightly) early lunch. The kids eat afternoon tea, and then a good dinner, but so far no one has noticed the fact that we’re eating one less meal a day. This saves both time and money. WIN!

5. …And you can eat it in your jimmy-jams

If it has to be done in the morning, then it has to be done in pyjamas. That’s the new rule at our house. Whether we’re playing cards, playing Wii, playing Trivial Pursuit, cooking, cleaning (oh wait, that’s just me) or building houses both real (Lego) and imaginary (Minecraft), our pjs are de rigueur. And, because there’s no one in town, there’s no chance of the front doorbell ringing. WIN!

And finally, if I ever start counting down the days to the new school year, I just have to look at our friendly Springs 14 lifeguard (what? You’re pool doesn’t come with one?). He spends the whole day outside in temperatures around the mid-40s, and not only is he fasting for 16 hours a day (that’s no water, folks. NO WATER) he does it all in long pants.

What are your surprising holiday upsides?

Zombie apocalypse in Dubai - true fact

Yes, yes, it's been a while since my last post. Blame the end of the northern school year. Blame summer vacation. Blame Cyprus. Here's something to read....

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Wes on the Sky Trail at Playnation. No queues!

Almost every time I go to the mall (Aussies, that’s what I now call shopping centres – I’m sorry, peer pressure) I don’t buy anything to eat or drink. I happily do the groceries, run errands or window shop without feeling either thirsty or hungry.

But today, my throat is parched. My stomach is rumbling. And why is that?

It’s Ramadan.

Meaning, I can’t eat or drink (or smoke, but that's somewhat less relevant) in public for another three weeks. And it’s precisely because I’m not allowed to, according to the law of the land, that I really, really want to.

Some cafes are open with screened off areas to purchase food or drink, but I can’t figure out where I’m actually supposed to do the imbibing/ingesting part, in private. I bought a drink for my son at my small local shopping centre the other day and got told off for letting him stand where people could see him. I suppose I could just brazen it out, but I’ve heard of people actually calling security or police in these instances, so it doesn’t really seem worth it. And I really do want to be respectful of the people around me, who are mostly fasting. But I don’t want to stay at home all day, every day, in the middle of the school holidays. And there’s only so long I can go without a coffee. I’ll be sneaking into the bathroom cubicles any minute now. It’s high school all over again, but (thankfully) without the need for breath mints afterwards (which are not allowed during Ramadan, anyway).

We returned home from a trip to Cyprus the other day and it was an eerie feeling to enter a city you have lived in for months, but is now missing a key component – human beings. The combination of Ramadan and summer holidays (during which all ex-pats hop a plane for home) means the streets are deserted. It’s like the zombie apocalypse has been and gone. We are Legend. As Graham said when he went back to work on Sunday, he almost expected to see a tumbleweed roll down the highway.

Woooo-ooooo. That’s the sound of the wind through the ghost town.

Okay, not totally true. It comes back to life a bit after sundown, when all the restaurants and cafés open up again and do a roaring trade with starving, dehydrated locals. But by that time, we’re tucked up at home, in our neighbourhood of absent ex-pats. At least we have the pool to ourselves.

I’m attempting to shift the kids’ sleep patterns so that they fit in better with the current situation, but – while the older two have 10.30am sleep-ins down pat – Archie still wakes at 6.30am. And a family is only as happy as it’s youngest member, which in his case – on a night out – is not very.

I was curious to experience both Ramadan and a Dubai summer. It’s only been three days since we returned from Cyprus (where, by the way, Ramadan is also observed in the Turkish North, but with absolutely no impact on the non-Muslims. Even The Pork Shop (that’s what it’s called - true fact) stayed open, and all the supermarkets sell grog) and I think I’ve satisfied my curiosity. Bring on August 9 (which is not just a reference to mother’s birthday, but also my mother-in-law’s birthday – amazing coincidence – and, of course, to Eid, the end of Ramadan 2013).