The Desert Life

It's been ages since I last updated, but I have good excuses... we didn't get internet until recently and we've been crazy busy with work!

Our arrival in Dubai was pretty interesting.  We flew from Charlottetown to Montreal, then Montreal to Washington DC.  In Montreal John was flagged at immigration for some reason and we had to wait in a holding area for a short amount of time... we were unclear as to the reason why, but the guy at the gate said maybe he had a "dirty cousin in Saskatoon."  Weird?  I think it had something to do with our luggage not showing up in the system though.  Anyway, we barely made it on the flight to DC.  Hoping our bad luck was over, we got on the flight to Dubai and several hours in the pilot was asking if there was a doctor on board the flight.  Someone was sick and they had to do an unscheduled landing in Frankfurt for a medical emergency.  This delayed us for about 2 hours so we arrived in Dubai late.  Luckily, we were picked up at the airport by someone on staff who brought us to our empty apartment in around 50 degree weather!

Having no furniture, we slept on stolen mats from the pool chairs upstairs, and eventually spent our furniture allowance after making lots of trips to Ikea and other stores.  A few weeks ago our packages from Vietnam also arrived to our relief.  I can finally say that it seems like we're finally settled into this place.  Here are a few pics...

Kitchen + balcony off the bedroom

Bedroom, John's bathroom, my bathroom, spare bedroom

Living/dining area

Our apartment is owned by the company that our school belongs to, and everyone that lives here is a teacher at our school or another one nearby that is also owned by the company.  It's pretty much in the desert... not much around except a pharmacy, convenience store, and shawarma/falafel shop which is pretty decent.  We're lucky we even have those things around!  There is a mosque around the corner and we can hear people praying there at various times throughout the day.

On the roof of our apartment is a small pool, and on the top floor there is a gym as well.  It's not far to get to work, but public transportation isn't really an option so we rented a car (Mazda 2) for now to get us around.

Rooftop pool with view of Burj Khalifa in the distance (too dusty to see in this pic, but it's behind the cranes)!

Rooftop views

Rooftop view of the roundabout near our building

Sunset view of the Burj Khalifa from the spare bedroom window

Work has kept us so busy that we haven't had a lot of chances to get out and explore the city, but what I have seen so far of Dubai is very interesting.  There is a strong religious culture mixed with signs of luxury like fancy cars, skyscrapers, and huge upscale malls.  This is definitely a dynamic city which I look forward to many adventures in!