The honeymoon 'EID' over!

EID Mubarak!

For 45 years I've followed the calendar which follows the sun. Now they want us to bark at the moon! Everything we have done for the past 5 weeks has been according to the moon, it's shape, size, rotational gravity, alignment to Mars and phases - OK I guess it's more accurate but it's pretty hard to have no advance warning of holidays. Last week we were told that the moon is now in it's perfect spot to start EID (celebrating the end of Ramadan) and we were off for 5 days. Great!! We didn't have anything planned!!.... not that we were really anxious to go on vacation in the middle of our temporary living. So it was a chance to catch up on shopping instead. Like everyone else who after starving themselves can now eat, drink, smoke, dance and play loud music, we headed for the malls of Dubai to get a blender, juicer, rice steamer - oh and a couple of cars.

Aric has decided on a FJ Cruiser by Toyota, sort of a mini Hummer look-a-like and let's face it - perfect for riding the 100 foot desert dunes. He is clearly not influenced one bit by his colleagues who go out for weekend rides, cruising around in a giant sandbox and pretend they are 6 years old!

More practical - I opted for a Toyota Prado (it sounds sort of like "Prada"...I like that!) a nice 4 wheel drive which now allows me to compete with the other crazy expat moms you read about in previous blog postings. We only have to wait another 2 weeks before the cars are delivered, but that's the least of the efforts. Catapulted about 20 years back in time we are now faced with a new (or old) way of financing. Direct Debit seems to be too much for Dubai's modern banking world, so we have to handwrite 120 checks (60 each for the 5 year term of the loans) - I'm boning up on my bicep curls so I can get through the signing without cramping up! Aric has asked for more check books from the bank and they told us unfortunately they could only issue a 100 checks at one time, so they are making 'an exception' and giving us 20 more! I wonder where they keep the checks after we sign them....probably in a wooden drawer of the bank manager's desk and then he takes out one check every month. I'm overwhelmed by this high tech, out of the box thinking, new way of making our debt payments.

Now that Ramadan is over I fully expect people to be more productive and efficient and just plain working again. The honeymoon is over and hopefully we can start getting things done snap snap! We've had time for some play during the days off. The family went to Atlantis, the new 117 star hotel which just opened on the Palm Jumeirah. Touring the lobby (which is still under remodeling from the fire in September) the halls and the giant aquarium inside, it was as I expected, totally over the top. The aquarium has thousands of species including a whale shark, several groupers, rays, and nurse sharks. There are 4 full-time divers cleaning the tank inside every day.

We could not get a room as we had previously planned to try, but that turned out to be a good thing - we heard of chaos check-in, people turned away who had confirmed bookings, elevators not working and no running water! That's no surprise...all the water was in Aquaventure water park, where we headed. Three huge water slides (one totally vertical, going through a shark tank) and a long not lazy but rather Torrent river, fuelled by giant wave making machines and rapids every 50 feet. It's the first water slide I have ever seen going up and up, rather than just down....you get in your inter-tube and then get transported on a conveyer belt just like a rollercoaster. Once at the top, you go down fast only to get catapulted up by a giant spray of water, to yet another conveyor belt. Finally you are so high that there is only one FAST way down, through dark tubes...it was some of the best fun we have had for a long time.

It only took my adrenaline junkey son (Hunter) an hour to be bored with that slide though. Well what can I say? He and Aidan started to go around the Torrent river without their inter tubes and thus body surfed the waves until the lifeguards caught them. Pretty soon everyone dropped their tubes and surfed around...the guards gave up!

It was a perfect day both in and out of the water. Definitely a place to head when friends and family come to visit us!