The start of our vacation....

It's Thursday night here and our vacation officially has started. Seems a bit surreal that we won't be working for six weeks. But that's one of the perks of living here. We've not packed anything yet.

The weight restrictions are quite limited for checked and carry on baggage so we won't be taking many personal things with us. Besides we still have many clothes in storage that we can use when we arrive in Edmonton. Much of what we'll be bringing will be gifts for people. So we'll have room to bring back things with us too.

Last week we drove back to Sharjah's Blue Souk and bought more carpets and gifts. We went with two friends who are leaving the country. We also went to an interesting historial themed mall called Ibn Battuta on the outskirts of Dubai. The mall is ostensibly the largest themed mall in the Middle East. But it didn't seem overly ostentatious as it had many educational exhibits.

I was impressed with the exhibits of historical figures including the 14th century Arabic explorer Ibn Battuta. I'd never heard of him despite being a History major in university. The explorer travelled far more than his contemporary Marco Polo. The Chinese section of the mall featured famed explorer Zheng He whom I'd also never heard of before. His fleet's ships dwarfed those of later European ships and were modern marvels. A replica (not to scale) of one of his ships instantly reminded me of the Santa Maria vessel at West Edmonton Mall. There were many other famous Oriental and Asian scientists whom I'd never heard of. Sadly this is due to a lack of exposure or interest in the West combined with a lack of Arabia promoting their heritage and history to the West. I hope that their works have been translated into English so that I can buy them for our library.

There was an interesting article this week in the Gulf News about the political and economic stability of the UAE vis-a-vis the Middle East. I suppose that I am biased since I'm living in the UAE but I agree with the author. The country does have its faults such as deplorable working and living conditions for tens of thousands of poor laborers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The humidity has been unusually low of late which has been refreshing. There's a building close to us that is about to be torn down. We're hoping the demolition will occur when we're gone! Below are photos of the PI dinner party from a couple of weeks ago and a recent photo of me wearing my new Pierre Cardin shirt. I'll be sure to wear it on St. Patrick's Day next year! So this may be our last posting for a while. But we'll bring our laptop so we may have time to post an entry or two with some photos. Au revoir...

A gift for Darcy

On Thursday June 7 The Petroleum Institute hosted its annual Family Gathering Dinner Party. It was held this year at the remodeled InterContinental Hotel. I had been working only a few days when it was held a year ago so I didn't go. It was free of charge and was a chance for us to meet other people so we decided to go. Attire was formal so I wore a suit and Darcy looked stunning as usual. It was the first time that I had worn my Jose Banks jacket that I had bought at my brother's store in Denver last year. Many people came and each employee got a free 1 GB flash drive with the PI's name on it. It's the identical one that I bought a year ago before leaving Florida. The price has come down dramatically and Darcy recently bought a 2 GB drive that is half the size of mine for about the same price. Dinner was a buffet and it was delicious. There were local men that danced a traditional style of circular line dancing while holding each other's arms. They also did rythmic foot stomping so it interesting to watch. However, we were sitting at the last table in the hall so we couldn't see up close. There was a drummer and a man in a kilt playing the bagpipes! The bagpipe sound is apparently commonly heard in the music but I don't think that kilts are normally worn. Many photos were taken so I'll post more in our next entry.

After dinner the giveaways began and my name was the first drawn. I wasn't paying attention thinking they would not call my name. So I ran way up to the front of the room and picked a prize number. It ended up being a Krups Espresso maker! Darcy's Starbucks Espresso maker that I got her is in storage so this was a great gift since I don't drink coffee related beverages. Below is me receiving the espresso machine. Work was very busy for me last week with managing the free ejournals that come with my library's print subscription. I'm also trying to get the records from full-text journals from the EBSCO database loaded into our online catalog. There are close to 5,000 ejournals that we can add to the catalog. This would make their accessibility easier for students and faculty. Here's an example of one test journal record called Chemical Week that has a record for the electronic version and a merged print an electronic format record. Our librarian friends likely know what I'm talking about but this whole issue is difficult because we don't have an electronic resource management system. This will change in the next year or so Inshallah. In the meantime I, and staff in Technical Services, have to rely on maintaining countless excel spreadsheets. I'm becoming a Jack of all Trades librarian as we don't have a Systems and Acquisitions librarian.

Darcy was also busy at work as she made road trips to attend training sessions. She's also had to complete paperwork for her new three year full-time position. Darcy was very busy with her play rehearsals and the three live performances. I attended the four one act plays on June 14 with friends from work. They were quite good and I took video of Darcy's performance. Watch for it in an upcoming posting!

The recent events in the Gaza Strip are arguably one of the most significant since the Six Day War. The victory of the Shite Islamic Hamas Party in Gaza over the more secular Sunni Fatah Party was not predicted. So there now appear to be two separate Palestinian regions: Shite Gaza and Sunni West Bank. Hopefully there won't be sectarian violence in both places like what Iraq is experiencing.

The humidity is rising as the windows tend to collect condensation on the outside. Evenings are worst to be outside. We've both seemed to fought off our colds and I went on my bike for a 45 minute indoor ride. Hopefully we won't get sick on the flight to Canada. Only two weeks until we leave!

Odds and ends

We recently learned of the Global Peace Index from the association called Vision of Humanity. Apparently it is the first ever attempt to measure nations' and regions' positions of peace. We were pleased to see Canada rated 8th, the UAE was 38th and the USA ranked 96th out of 121. I'm not sure how much the results will influence public opinion and foreign policy of nations I think that the data will be studied by in the fields of academica and think tanks.

Despite my undergraduate degree being in History I did not know much about the Six Day War in June 1967. It's been interesting to read about it from an Arabic perspective this week due to the battle's 40th anniversary . The Israeli-Palestinian problems stem largely from the aftermath of the short battle which is why you hear the phrase of regions returning to pre-1967 borders mentioned a lot by the Palestinians. I believe that solving that problem is a key to defusing the flames of war and rhetoric that have engulfed the Middle East.

Other regional news is that the UAE has the highest country Internet connectivity measure ranking in the Arab world. Meanwhile the latest reports state that Cyclone Gonu killed 35 people.

We went to the mall today and I bought a 49 litre Samsonite carry-on bag, 5 Pierre Cardin dress shirts, 5 Cardin ties, and an Apple international power adaptor for our laptop all for just under 1,400 AED or about $380 USD. I hadn't bought a new tie in over 7 years. They are pretty phat (slang for cool) plus they are fatter/wider and stiffer than my old ones. Maybe ties soften up over time after being tied so many times.

I was looking at a neat book called Earthcam that had images taken from the same NASA satellite that took the photo of Cyclone Gon. On page 150 of the book was a satellite image of Hurricane Wilma's eye passing over south-east Florida on October 24, 2005. What an eerie reminder of being in the center of that terrible storm!

Below are photos of some of the things that I bought at Sharjah's Blue Souk a few weeks ago. The two darker colored kilims are from Afghanistan the lighter brown one is from Iran. The incense burners are traditional Middle Eastern design but are surprisingly hard to find. The post modern ones are more rounded in shape. Darcy and I are still sick. I'm stuffed up and achy while poor Darcy is constantly coughing. Hopefully she will recuperate for the play next week.

Cyclone Gonu

One of the main reasons that we left Florida was because of the increasing number of destructive hurricanes. But guess what? The biggest cyclone to hit the Arabian peninsula (since records began being kept in 1945) will narrowilly miss hitting Abu Dhabi. There's only a couple of news stories about the category 4 Cyclone Gonu due to tightly controlled media in the region.

NASA's Aqua satellite took a photo of Gonu. The front page of today's Gulf News brought back memories of the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons in Florida! The weather is calm in Abu Dhabi but the skies are hazy. The storm is likely a culprit of climate change but I hope that no more will hit near here. Although the same can't be said for other parts of the world.

I'm very sick and should not have gone to work today. But there's only one more day until the weekend. Darcy's also been very sick in the midst of rehearsing for her play. Tomorrow (Thursday) is my workplace's annual free dinner. It's supposed to be an extravagant affair with many prizes to give away. But it's also a dry event. The countdown to beginning our summer vacation now stands at 24 days...

Trip to Liwa Oasis

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A montage of clips and photos from our trip to the Liwa Oasis and Liwa Hotel in March 2007.

Happy Anniversary!

Darcy and I arrived in Abu Dhabi one year ago on June 2. I made dinner reservations at a posh restaurant called Finz which is at the Beach Rotana Hotel where we lived for six weeks last summer. We both feel pretty run down at the moment and I hope that we'll feel better by tomorrow night. Darcy has been very busy with bellydance classes and her play rehearsals at The Club. The two plays that she is in will run from June 13 to the 15th. After that many date Western expats leave the city for the summer.

We can't wait for our vacation to start. Darcy has seldom left the city in the last year and I have only taken one day off since we arrived here. Two librarians will be leaving late this summer so I will be really busy in the new academic year. Four positions will be posted: Associate Librarian; Acquisitions Librarian; Systems Librarian and Information Services Librarian. I also realized that I'm the only person at the library who has not taken an extended vacation in the last year. So I definitely need a break!

I went for an hour and a half bike ride with two friends last weekend and I was pretty tired afterwards. We followed a loop three times in a residential area at the outer edge of one of the corners of Abu Dhabi City island. I've never had much stamina for long cardiovascular endurances. So I lagged behind them most of the time but at the last open stretch of road I pushed myself to the limit until I could pedal no more.

My indoor bike is working out well too and I try and use it once a week. I've been going to the school's gym twice a week (Sunday and Thursday) for the past five weeks. It's felt good to be lifting weights on a regular basis. I hadn't done that since we left Florida.

My mom and stepdad moved to Saanichton, B.C. earlier this week. Darcy and I look forward to visiting their place in mid July. So my family is even more dispersed now. But I guess that's common with many families now.

I went with two friends last weekend to Sharjah's Central Market or Blue Souk. I bought three kilims (can be hung on a wall or placed on a floor) that had shades of brown. Two are from Afghanistan and one is from Iran. We're planning to go back there on June 22.

Darcy got me hooked on using the del.icio.us website to save and tag favorite sites. I've known about it for a couple of years but I didn't make it a priority to see what it was all about. So I'm going through my dozens of bookmarked webites that I've collected over the years. I've been adding several boxed dvd sets like all of the Star Trek series and Looney Tunes. I don't know how many I would buy when I visit Canada. Darcy and I have several dvds that we have yet to watch. We've told ourselves that we need to take a week or two off and relax in our apartment and watch our movies.

May 30 was the third anniversary of my proposal to Darcy. Sadly the Everglades Park Hotel where we stayed has not reopened since the devastating hurricane season in 2005.

library stories

With spring in full force now the temperatures and humidity are rising. I have stopped walking outside at night and cycling on weekends. I've used my new bike trainer a few times and the adjustments are pretty good now. The first few times I had the resistance wheel too tight (despite what the bike store staff told me). It was shaving off rubber from the bike's rear tire and leaving rubber powder on the floor. I've moved the bike by a window so I can see outside plus I can listen to my iPod. I could also move the bike by the television so I could watch the Al Jazeera English news station. I don't think any North American stations have picked it up but it's worth viewing. One certainly gets a different perspective of the news and especially in the Middle East!

Abu Dhabi has been in the news lately as Vice-President Dick Cheney visited here and then made a bombastic comment from the safety of a U.S. aircraft Carrier about 20 miles off the coast of where we live. Then the following day Iran's President visited the city! I think that it was a shrewd move by His Highness Shaikh Khalifa to host those two in short succession. The UAE is definitely a moderate country in the Gulf. I learned that the UAE is Iran's biggest trading partner. Also read in the Gulf News about the tiny, exotic Iranian island called Kish. I wouldn't mind visiting it for a weekend and Kish Airlines has a direct flight from Abu Dhabi. The island is in the Arabian Gulf so it would be a very short flight. It's a popular destination for Iranian tourists and UAE tourists who want to renew their travel visas.

Today I discovered a very interesting online diary from Saad Eskander, Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive. He was recently interviewed by the American Library Association and his comments about daily life in Baghdad are sobering. The war/occupation there is bad enough but also the Middle Eastern bureaucracy is incredible! I know a bit what that's like with my proposal of creating a blog and a RSS feed for my library meeting resistance from our IT Department.

Darcy is busy with her bellydance class and rehearsals for two plays. Meanwhile I'm trying to maintain my twice a week workout at my school's new gym. So far my wonky back is holding up with the weight lifting. My Chinese accupuncture and massages are probably helping.

The last bit of news is that we have registered this blog with a RSS (Real Simple Syndicate) feed. Notice the orange icon near the top right of the blog's home page. What this means is that you can subscribe and receive blog entries in your feed that may be connected through your email account. This also means that I don't have to pester everyone with emailing updates! You don't have to remember the URL for our blog and just simply check your RSS feed for our blog.

So I think this will be the last time that we will notify people of a new posting by email!

ParticipACTION

After almost one year of relative inactivity I'm finally back to having a somewhat regular work out schedule. A week ago a friend convinced me to use my work place's new gym. It opened in December but the university has not promoted it too much. I had known about the new building since December but procrastinated with walking to it after work. For some reason I had thought that it was much farther than it was. I went twice with a friend who had his car and today I walked over after work and caught the late bus home.

I'm done work at 3:30 and can be in the gym warming up within 15 minutes. My work out lasted just over one hour before I walked back to the library to catch the 5:30 bus home. It makes for a long day but I already feel better and have more energy after just three work outs. The place is practically deserted so there is no waiting to use machines. Unfortunately there is no pool but that may come in phase two of the expansion project.

Darcy and I were watching episodes from season three of the Canadian sitcom Corner Gas and one show featured a parody of the old 1980s ParticipACTION Do It tv ads. I hadn't heard the catchy theme music in about twenty years so naturally I had to check online for the ads. The University of Saskatchewan has a great archive of them.

Yesterday I got up at 7am and drove to Dubai to the country's only decent bike store to buy an indoor bike trainer. The mark up is about $50 USD more but it's worth it with not having to worry about having it shipped overseas. It's getting pretty warm outside now so my days of walking on the corniche are coming to an end. But now I can cycle inside in my exercise sanctuary room.

I paid for the last of our plane tickets for our summer vacation in Canada. It's not cheap flying domestically in Canada and the money that we had left over from our travel allowance with flying home from Abu Dhabi is used up. We leave in two months!

Adventures in the Arabian Desert

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We travelled to the second highest mountain in the UAE and then took a half day safari to the desert.

2007 Abu Dhabi Terry Fox Run

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Annual Terry Fox Run in Abu Dhabi on February 16, 2007. It's approximately 7 kilometres that follows part of the Corniche. This year had about 8,000 participants and a majority were not Canadian expats.

more news...

As I write this (11:00 pm) the UAE has just defeated Saudi Arabia in the semi-final game of the 18th biannual Arabian Gulf Cup. The celebrations are reminescent of National Day in December. Cars honking and engines reving and backfiring. I can see that traffic on the Corniche is backed up too. The host team (UAE) was an underdog going into the tournament and they barely squeaked into the playoffs. The UAE has never wone the cup so the country is pumped up for the final. I don't know who they play though. The defeat of defending cup champions Saudi Arabia is obviously cause for celebration. Despite the loud celebrations it nice to know that virtually none of it is alcohol induced. Just good, clean fun unlike professional sports victories in the West!

I forgot to mention that we just started subscribing to the Gulf News newspaper. It reputed to be the best English language daily newspaper in the UAE. It features several articles from the New York Times along with good European and Arab coverage. It only cost about $100 USD for the year so it's pretty cheap.

That's all for now. I better get to bed as tomorrow's Sunday and back to work. I have to get up at 5:15 am....

What's New....

We've been busy digitizing our music CD collection since we bought a 500 GB hard drive. It cost about $300 USD and is more space than we need at the moment. But over time I'm sure that we'll take advantage of the storage capacity. The first bit of news is that there will be a Formula I race here on February 3. It's not an official F1 event but is organized by the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority. However, the cars will be barreling down the Corniche so we'll have front row seats. So we'll try and take some video of it.

A friend lent us his dvds of the Canadian television sitcom called Corner Gas. It's pretty funny and the character of Hank seems like a younger Joe Pecsi. The latest new Canadian sitcom is the CBC produced Little Mosque on the Prairie. At the moment it's blocked in the UAE due to it's "controversial" content. The first episode is at Google Video. It's generated a lot of news in the U.S. as it's the first television comedy about Muslims.

A couple of weeks ago we bought a sofa bed for the spare room. I also put one of our carpets from the Caucuses in there so the room looks a bit more comfortable.

Darcy cooked a delicious picnic dinner that we had on living floor. This was before we moved our two carpets to our guest rooms. We turned out the lights and burned a bunch of candles so it really felt like being in a Bedouin tent in the Arabian desert. Below are some photos of the dinner.

I found an interesting article published in the New Statesman...a special report on the world's top ten dictators. I was a little surprised to find that Dubai's Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum was on the list! You can read their analysis of the "Ceo of Dubai, Inc" on this page

Now that Darcy is working we decided to split doing chores. I now sweep and wash the floors and will also try and cook dinner sometimes. We bought our plane tickets last week. We depart on June 29 and return here August 12. We also booked three nights at Alpine Village in Jasper (our secluded honeymoon site). Unbelievably they only had the one room cabins left for that date. The site just began accepting reservations at the beginning of the month so it's good that we reserved now! That's all for now.....

Friday Muslim Call To Prayer

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A twelve minute recording of the Friday Call To Prayer taken from our apartment bedroom window.

Update!

Well, not long after I wrote my last blog post, I got an email from the HCT asking me if I could start work Monday. So, I guess I have the job! I still don't know much about it, and I'm feeling nervous and a little out of my depth at the moment, but I just keep telling myself that they know they are getting someone with no experience and that I will pick things up and do fine.

Now I need to go clothes shopping! And fast! I got rid of most of my old worn-out work clothes before we moved and have not done much clothes shopping since we got here. Plus I will have to adjust to working again...it seems so strange but I've been unemployed for almost a year now. 2006 as a whole went by so fast it seems a blur.

More news next week on how things go.

Post holiday

Sorry it's taken so long for me to upload our Christmas photos and post them...they are on my flickr account now so you can take a look at what our Christmas was like by clicking here!

We are slowly getting back to normal after the holiday season. We ended up quite busy through the holidays with Christmas and New Year parties, so after all the eating and drinking and socializing it's time to get back to a more moderate routine! We are going to take our Christmas tree down this weekend. Late to have it up still, I know, but with few of the regular "holiday season" markers--weather, street decorations, and so forth--we feel like we just put it up!

I have spent a lot of the post-Christmas time taking care of pets and plants for people who are currently on vacation. Some better behaved than others! My friend Rachel's tomcat is a real hellion and is even learning how to open doors himself, so that one has been quite a "challenge". My Arabic conversation class has also started up again, so I am in the middle of learning how to say "hello, how are you" and count to 20. I have also started doing the exercises in the Henna Page's Index of henna pattern elements in an attempt to improve both my skills and my atttempts at creating original patterns. It would be nice to get proficient enough that I could do henna as a part time independent business someday.

I have also had a few developments on the job front. I met some people at the Higher Colleges of Technology Library this week, and actually ended up in an impromptu interview due to their critical need for new staff. The job is in Acquisitions, Cataloguing, and Technical Services. I really have little to no practical experience in those areas but it sounds like they are looking for a willingness to jump in and learn the job as much as prior experience, so I think my chances there are good if our previously planned vacations for this year don't get in the way (the contract is a temporary one for six months, so I'm not sure what the vacation rules are like). I also met the Dean at the Zayed University library this week, and while they don't have a specific opening right now, she encouraged me to send in a resume for their files in case of future vacancies. I would really ideally prefer something part time, but if I don't start working soon I will have a lot of difficulty getting back into the field, so I am starting to feel like in the short term at least I should take what I can get. Especially if, as in the case of the HCT job, it will provide me with a lot of new skills and experience I would be unlikely to acquire elsewhere!

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2007! To back track a bit, we had an ejoyable Christmas as I had the day off unofficially. Officially I was on call but no Christians or very few came to work on Christmas Day. I managed to make my Mother's French Breakfast Puffs and my Grandfather's Sin Fizz drink. They were delicious but quite filling. Darcy spoiled me with buying lots of nice gifts including the new iPod Shuffle. I spent my four day New Years and EID long weekend copying old Napster songs to iTunes. The songs weren't recognized by the software so I had to search many in Google to get the names.

I also got books from Darcy and her parents. One is called The Middle East From Space. Another title is a revised edition by HVF Winstone called Howard Carter and the Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankahmun. We took some photos on Christmas Day and Darcy will shortly post a link to them. We spent New Years Eve at a friends place and it was a fun time. So this was our first holidays spent outside of North America and it was an interesting experience celebrating the season in a Muslim country. We hope that the new year wil be full of happiness and good health for everyone!

Forgot to mention...

...The Sheik was at the mall when I went to go grocery shopping today!

I didn't see him...just the entourage of black cars with single and double digit licence plates accompanied by police. But, it's my first brush with royalty so I will milk it for all that it's worth ;)

Yuletide

So, the Christmas Pantomime is over and I can finally turn my attention to other seasonal preparations. The play literally seemed to come together at the last minute--we did not have a good run though with all props and costumes and lines remembered until the dress rehearsal 3 days before the performance! Missing cast members and some disorganization throughout rehersals all contributed to the last-minute crunch. But, we pulled through and the whole thing seemed to go pretty well. Only a couple of my friends saw this one. A fellow Edmontonian from the PI said that I was "disturbingly good at playing a lecherous man", so I guess I managed to pull my part off. I was worried a little, because I had never done a panto before--or even seen one!--and so I was unfamiliar with the stock characters, mannerisms, and conventions. I seem to have got enough thigh-slapping in there, though, and ultimately if the audience likes it then you can't complain.

The one thing I was really worried about was making it through all the shows and rehearsals wearing the Instruments of Torture: four inch stiletto boots. I thought they fit when I first tried them on, but something must have been off because while I have worn heels that height or almost that height before, I have NEVER had such pain from shoes. After some of the rehearsals my feet were still hurting two or three days later! And that's from just going on stage for my scene, going off, and sitting down until I have to go on again. Anyway, FORTUNATELY I finally got enough padding and "stuff" inside them to make them marginally wearable. It took cotton balls in the toes, three pairs of insoles, gel cushions, foam padding for the balls of my feet, and thick socks, but I got there. I was still uncomfortable when wearing them, but when I took them off the pain went away shortly. The only other explination I can think of is either nerves exacerbating the pain beforehand or adrenalin helping me ignore it during the show.

I have too many photos to post as a blog entry, so I posted the pictures I took in my Flickr gallery. You can see them by clicking here.

Since then, I've been busy with other Christmas activities. I baked gingerbread cookies, and made ginger almond biscotti. I think I have finally finished my Christmas shopping, and almost done wrapping. I have also been out getting things for Christmas dinner. I was originally going to roast just a turkey breast, but I couldn't find one (turkey is not a normal product here). So we are getting the whole stuffed bird again this year, which means shopping for dishes and other necessities as well as for food and drink. We've also got a few more party invitations this weekend. It's hard to believe that Christmas is only a few days away!

Season's Greetings!

I can't believe that Christmas is less than two weeks away! Luckily the cooler weather and shorter days make the season feel a bit like the holidays. I went Christmas shopping today and a helpful clerk from Lebabon wished me a Merry Christmas. It probably doesn't sound like it's worth mentioning but it's the first time that I've heard the word Christmas spoken by a non Christian. I didn't expect to see as many signs here proclaiming Christmas and having photos of Santa. I saw one sign that had Happy Holidays in English and Arabic. A Marks & Spencer store has a three story Christmas tree! There's also a large model of Santa with his sleigh and reindeer.

We've had our Christmas tree decorated for a while and it looks nice. I haven't had a tree this big since 1993 while this is Darcy's first large fake tree. We're able to use diffusing pine scented oil in order to make our tree feel more natural. I need to wrap presents and put them under our tree. Darcy wants to do some Christmas baking next week. It's too bad that we both didn't bring our family recipe books!

Darcy's Old King Cole play finished its three day, four performances yesterday. It was interesting to be a backstage hand from my standpoint. However, my brief involvement in the play was a time committment whlile Darcy's was much bigger. I don't know how people can memorized lines and act at the same time. It was difficult enough for me to remember which props had to be moved around in between scene changes!

That's about all for now....

Catching Up

I see that Michael has not been posting on the blog...well...guess I will have to take on the burden of bringing everyone up to speed.

We spent the weekend of American Thanksgiving having a traditional turkey dinner with friends. Much good food was eaten, much wine was drunk, and much fun was had playing cards. I do have some incriminating video from the night in question, but I will be nice and not post it online for the world to see :)

Believe it or not, we have had MORE rain!!!! Last weekend it absolutely POURED all day Saturday. There have also been a few other scattered showers in the past week or 2. I think we have now had the equivalent of over a year's worth of rain...and all in about 10 days! Michael and I always seem to bring atypical weather with us wherever we go.

The rain put a bit of a damper on the National Day celebrations here, which took place from the 1st to the 3rd. National Day is the anniversary of the UAE becoming its own country independent from the British--previous to 1971 it was a protectorate. It's strange to think that the country is only about as old as I am, and that all this urban development has taken place in so short a time. Wind the clock back two decades and there was not much more than sand, small fishing villages, and beduin tribes living off dates and camel milk. It's amazing how much this area has accomplished in so little time.

Michael got a long weekend for National Day, which was nice. There were fireworks on Friday night...we could see them from our apartment building's front door, but sadly I forgot to bring my camera down with me when we went to investigate what "that loud banging noise" was. Both Friday night and Saturday night the Corniche road was packed to a standstill with people out celebrating. Cars full of people all hanging out the windows cheering; people standing up through the sunroofs and riding on the roofs and hoods of the vehicles; loud music playing, and lots of noise as people spun their tires or gunned their engines until they backfired. Some people were dressed up, and some people had decorated their cars with hearts in UAE colours, flags, and pictures of the late Sheik Zayed and his two oldest sons, the current ruler of the UAE and the crown prince and ruler of Dubai. There was dancing in the streets--even some women who uncovered their hair and tossed it around Khaleeji style!--and much fun. We captured some of the chaos with my camera, and posted a rough video of the night on our video site at darcyandmichael.blip.tv. Blip.tv does allow you to imbed your video on blogs or other sites now, but I haven't been able to get it to link up to this blog properly yet, so for now you will have to click off Inshallah to see it.

The rehearsals for the Christmas Pantomime continue, though I am starting to be afraid that we will NOT be ready for our opening on Wednesday! Michael has been recruited to work backstage, so he will be back there with me during the shows, which is nice even if it will impede our ability to get photos of video of the show in progress. I have all my costume bits finally, and with the waistcoat, ruffled shirt, four inch stilletto boots, and tricorn hat with feather I look more piratical than Lord Chamberlainish, but my costume is less embarassing than some so I am DEFINITELY not complaining. Just this week, we finally managed to find a song for me to sing...Woman in Love from the movie version of Guys and Dolls. Cutting it close much? whew! I am also a little worried about the fact that I have to spend much of the first act hopping in high heeled boots that don't seem to fit very well. BUT, the show goes up on the 13th, and three days later it will all be over, so I am trying not to worry about the incidentals too much.

Last night we attened a wine tasting hosted by one of the local liquor shops, which was fun. It was in the same hotel we were staying at when we first got here. They provided grazing food and desserts, which were quite lovely, and there were 10 tables of wines from different countries to be tasted and compared. Nice to be able to sample some expensive wines, chat with the experts, and compare all the different varieties. I know, what a decadent life we lead :)

Apart from that we are just trying to get ready for Christmas. We have finally mailed our cards, and we are putting up our tree this weekend. We do have a couple of parties to go to already, and after the play is over I will have to seriously start cookie baking and planning our Christmas dinner. Michael is being his usual UNHELPFUL self as far as Christmas wish lists goes...he always asks for boring things like socks or shirts or other things he "needs." I keep on trying to tell him that presents are not for things you NEED but things you would LIKE--fun rather than necessity--but he seems to remain unconvinced. Well, at least he can't ask for a cheque this year! Any money I gave him would be his already!

Enough for now...hopefully Michael will provide the update next time!