Here, we speak Arabic!!

_____________________

Jebel Ali police station can only be described as a trailer park in Southern Kentucky (sans the signs in Arab) and the statement session can only be described as the film "Lost in Translation" - in overdrive! Day 4 - Sipping tea (which tasted like milky coffee) we prepared for Hunter's interrogation. It should have been a plain statement giving episode but by default, the Arab language sounds like people are angry and spit at you. So naturally we expected no less than fingernail pulling and electric shock treatments.

We obviously did not get off to a good start by not having Hunter's passport - hey, it was a statement about a stolen bike, not arrivals at terminal 3! The officer was clearly irritated over that because he couldn't spell Hunter's name in Arabic. The he started asking questions about the bike and the place where it was stolen, while he wrote down all the answers on a plain piece of paper. After half an hour he took the paper and started typing all of the info into the PC.

Aric had strongly advised Hunter to tell the truth - meaning the whole incident about the young lovers and the narrow escape over the balcony, etc. I strongly advised Hunter to lie, knowing that if he didn't get arrested for trespassing and parking his bike at an empty home, he would surely be arrested and possibly deported for being alone with a female in a home with no supervision. Aric saw the point and yielded! So, Hunter sat there and fabricated a new story (even though we had been consistent in telling the original story 4 times previously - but I was counting on Saddam not understanding that 100%).

The official statement reads in Arabic that Hunter was visiting Amru, a friend of his, whose telephone number he can't remember, whose last name he can't remember and whose house number he forgot. But he was there for 2 hours before both he and Amru went to another friend's house in Meadows 3, house number 12, no specifics if this friend was a male or female. And in the meantime his bike got stolen. Yep, sounds good to me! Aric turned more and more red faced as the story unfolded and sounded more and more outlandish. But the officer wrote it all down. I tried to look completely disinterested in case they analyzed body language and strange ticks! I'm not really a good liar, but Hunter has several Oscar nominations in his past! Must have been the fake nerd glasses he wore!

It wasn't until the officer asked Hunter, if he thought it was a mistake to park the bike at the empty house, that I woke up and started protesting. Aric and I were both on the edge of our seats telling Hunter to answer that question with a "no". The officer was clearly confused and looked at Aric and I like we were two mad laywers from "Boston Legal". At this point we were about an hour and a half into the visit and I for one had lost all patience. My brother Mark and I were supposed to cook Enchiladas for the whole family and here I was - stuck in a Mayberry trailer with Barney Fife!

On the way there, Aric had specifically warned us to stay calm no matter what. I have a history of saying some less than desirable words to police officers, both in Chicago and Disney World, so Aric reminded me that we were in a 'not so tolerable country'. All Aric's warnings fell on deaf ears, as I looked straight at the officer, pointed my finger (another big no-no) and told him that if he thought he could get away with accusing my son of being a criminal, he had another thing coming! My voice may have gotten a bit louder because I noticed that all eyes in the room were on me. Aric sent me dagger looks but I was not to be stopped. The officer told me that I must have misunderstood his question and then he asked again, "wasn't it wrong and an error to park the bike at an empty house who wasn't his?" OK MISTER - there is NO misunderstanding. I told Hunter to say NO. Hunter calmly said "no, the house was empty so I didn't see the mistake?" (Yes, score one to the Aults).

Less than 30 seconds later Saddam entered the room and asked what the problem was. I told him I was tired of the interrogation like scenario and asked how long we would need to go through this to get a statement for the insurance company.

Saddam then said, look, it is a crime to go in to a property even though it is empty, as there is an owner - somewhere. I told him this was ridiculous to which he answered, OK "so if you have an empty home and you are somewhere else in the world, I can park my car in your driveway?" I was so fed up with him that I cynically said "yes, if you pay me enough" - then shook my head. He was clearly not amused and I knew I would get nowhere with him. Short of telling him to F*** off, I threw the papers on the desk and said I was done with them, I would wait outside.

Aric and Hunter came out 30 mintues later. I was on pins and needles! Aric told me that after I left, he asked the officer and Saddam "are you happy now, you have upset a woman, do you feel good?" Then he pointed to a big poster, which advertised e-complaints, and said to the guy in charge: "I'm going to file a complaint over how we are treated, because if you were in our country you would never ever be treated like this" - good for you Aric! Let's not bring up Quantanamo Bay and all the Arabs detained there. Just for better effect he asked Saddam to write his name down so he could spell it right in the complaint. The guy said he didn't understand much English (even though he had no language problems earlier - and he arrogantly said "here we speak Arabic" to which Aric said, yeah? well I'm an expat here and I speak English! Apparently the major arrived at that point and assured Aric that the case would be finalized, Aric could pick up the statement the next morning and just in case of any issues he gave his personal mobile number.

We had a good dinner, albeit late. The next day (day 5) Aric went to pick up the statement and to nobody's surprise, the guy there could not find the documents. He couldn't find anything in the computer either because he couldn't spell Hunter's name in Arabic. Maybe they should try filing cases in English!!?? Aric was then told to come back at 10pm when the same shift office was present. Aric told them - politely, with grinding teeth - after going into a complete hissy fit - that they could file the case in a dark place, he was done with them. He told me to send the insurance papers without the police report; it was not worth any more aggrevation to wait for the report.

The following morning (day 6) I received a call from Jebel Ali mobile park, from a Captain "I- can't-remember-his-name-but-it-was-something-Arabic" asking why Mr. Aric had not picked up the document the night before. Are you kidding me??? I told the guy we had been trying for days to get the statement and that we were out of patience. The Captain said it was very unfortunate Mr. Aric got so angry the day before - there were procedures and we must understand that! I felt like telling him where he could stuff his procedures, but instead I went to the police station and miraculously walked out with a letter, in Arabic and with a lot of stamps, and one word in English: "Specialized" - the name of Hunter's bike.

What the rest of the letter said is a mystery. Probably read that Hunter's mom is a lunatic.

The Captain told me they have 4 shifts and it doesn't take an MIT student to calculate that the officers work 6 hours a day.... they clearly suffer from case overloads!! No wonder Mohammed doesn't know what Abdullah does, or Rashid is unaware of where Omar files his cases.

I would hate to know what people do when there is a real crime in Dubai!

Kids, kids, kids...and Slim

We interrupt the Fairy Tale about the young love birds and the stolen silver horse, to bring you a family update.

Mark (Pia's brother) and his wife Tina, kids Oliver and Josefine, visited for 2 weeks in July. It was a full house and a fabulous time with Aquaventure days, camel hunting (for pictures), shopping, shopping, pool, boat, sun and a bit more shopping. Friday brunches, dinners and a salsa nite also became part of the agenda for Mark and Tina.

Slim has never had so much play time as he did these past two weeks - Josefine made sure he didn't rest. Just when it looked to became a little too much screaming and moodiness from Josefine, Pia took Aidan and Hunter and headed to Copenhagen - out of the sandbox - for 7 weeks. While Mark, Tina and the kids stayed with Slim and Aric and had a couple of days in Atlantis and swimming with the dolphins.

They arrived back in Copenhagen last night tired but full of fantastic holiday memories. Aric will stay behind in the dust until August 24, when he joins us in Denmark for a well deserved holiday in the much cooler North.

The twelve days of police station visits (episode 2 of the "Stolen Bike")

It would be another 4 days before the journey to Jebel Ali (translated: Ali Mountain) because in-between, Aric and I spent a long weekend with several other Cisco couples in Ras Al Khamiah, relaxing, boating and golfing (men) and Spa-ing (women). I felt this was highly needed after the nightmare of having to deal with Dubai CSI, Khadaffi and Saddam all in one afternoon.

Aric volunteered to go with me to the police station to file a report. This was a great idea because women are not seen as the major force in "getting things done" in Dubai.

We arrived (day 1) at the shack representing the police station. Inside was a make-shift counter where we told the duty officer that we wanted to file a stolen bike report. He told us to speak with the Sergeant Director (I think this was Kaddafi’s younger brother) and while we waited to be invited into his office, we sat on the bench facing several Indian detainees daisy chained together in handcuffs. Of course I wondered what crime they had committed (maybe one was a gardener who had taken a silver bike??) - they all looked a bit lost but appeared happy as soon as they were unlocked and allowed to go outside for a "fresh air" break (as if 115 Fahrenheit could be considered fresh air). It was just like a dog kennel where the animals are taken out for a potty trip! Well, that’s blog story for another day. Back to our fairy tale about the lost silver bike.
Aric and I finally got to talk to the guy we thought was quite high on the totem pole. Kaddafi junior asked us why we were there. After another attempt to explain that we just wanted to file a report, so we could get the insurance claim submitted, he told us we needed to come back at 10pm when the next shift captain would be on duty. This made no sense (and both of us made sure to communicate that). Kaddafi junior told us that he only spoke very little and very bad English (no sh*t Sherlock) – so we asked to speak to the guy who appeared to have taken on-line language courses at Cambridge, colonel Abdullah something. We know he’s a colonel because Aric and he had a 30 minute conversation about rank and what the various tinsel stuff on their uniform represented. One star, you are “nothing” – two stars you are a little more….one star, a falcon and a set of crossed swords and you have about 40 years in service and still remember when oil was still a black sticky substance that came out of the sand. We wanted to talk to the guy with the falcon and swords, definitely!

Sadly he told us the same thing. “We have 4 shifts and the guy who worked on your case has not put anything in the system yet (after 2 weeks) so we cannot help you! Please come back at 10pm and speak to Captain Omar Bin Rashabaha-bla-bla-bla”! We left after an hour and a half – confused, mad and with no copy of the police report.

At 10pm that evening I called the station. I asked for Captain Omar Bla bla bla (thinking he was actually the Saddam cop who was at the scene with CSI Dubai). “No this is MAJOR Omar Bin Rasha bla-bla-bla – I am a MAJOR not a Captain. Oh boy! I asked him what he had on his shoulders – he told me he had a flag, two falcons, four swords, six stars and partridge in a pear tree! Apologizing profusely, I told him that Colonel Abdullah had told me he was a captain (always blame the other guy!!)

Anyway the Major turned out to be a nice guy even though he never gave me a case number – because as he explained, which makes TOTAL sense - the guy on the third shift had locked the cabinet and he had no access! Of course not! Silly me! So Major Omar Bin Rasha Bla-bla-bla invited me back the next day – with the wee lad - to give a statement (the fourth verbal statement but who’s counting). I couldn’t wait! I told Aric I wanted to put my best dress on because the Major had personally invited me to come and be confused yet again.

The next day (day 2), La Familia sat in the special office where tea was served to the officers and guests and we had the pleasure of Hunter being interrogated.

Episode 3 will follow very soon.

Dubai Police - To Serve, Protect, and generally Confuse You!

Once upon a time, in a sandbox far, far away, there was a wee skinny lad (aka Hunter) who loved a young beautiful maiden (aka Chelsea). They saw eachother every day at school but her parents (aka the Korean monsters) were very protective, so the two young lovebirds needed to keep their relationship a secret and found it hard to see eachother often. After many months of agony, the young maiden's father (who had previously forbidden her to see any young man who did not have squinted eyes or owned a noodle factory) decided the family should move back to Korea before Chelsea lost her heritage and traditions for good.



On one very hot Thursday a few weeks ago, the wee lad risked a heat stroke & bicycled all the way from his home in the Marina, to the young maiden's residence in the Meadows division. Her family lived there with her aunt until they were to leave Dubai. The family was out for the day but just to be on the safe side, the wee lad parked his bicycle well hidden, behind the garden wall of an empty neighbor home, locked and leaned it up against a tree.



Three hours later, the young couple heard the family return so the wee lad climbed - Hollywood Style - out of the window, onto the balcony and jumped down one story to the hot ground, sneaked around the front and bolted across the street to the empty house. Only with great despair to find his silver Specialized Hardrock mountain horse was gone!! Odin and Thor have mercy on the poor soul who had walked off with the pauper's bike!!
He summoned not only the Nordic Gods but the gate security people, who with bobbling heads told him that some random gardener probably took it, lock and all, so he could get around to more jobs in father neigborhoods.

The wee lad sought the console of his parents. His mother is a cracker at practical things and she immediately contacted the insurance company, downloaded the forms on-line and proceeded to fill out the 5 pages of seemingly tedious information. At one point she came upon "number of police report / case". OK, no big deal thought the mother. She called the non-emergency number listed in the "Contact us" section of the Dubai police website. "Madam please dial the emergency number 999" - but, eh, this is not an emergency!?! "It's OK madam, please call them and they will handle". Ok, ok, ok the mother thought with a bobbling head.

After dialing 999 and getting a female operator on the line, the mother was informed that they would send a patrol car to the site of the crime. Oh no, no...we don't live there - gasped the mother. Ok, we will have someone call you back. An hour later a police officer (?) called the mother and asked what jewelry was missing? HUH?? No - the mother explained her wee lad's bike had been stolen from the Meadows. The officer asked what house? So the mother explained, Meadows 3, street 6, house no. 45. OK we will send a car. NO! NO! We don't live there. We live in the Marina, the mother again gasped. "Madam, why the bike in Meadows?"

Starting to break a sweat (though inside in the A/C, the mother started to explain the whole fairytale of the wee lad and the maiden....only to realize the person at the other end understaood 10% of the tale. OK, we will send a car. Arrgghh!!
After 3 hours of phone tag, the mother collected her wits. Told the wee lad they had no option but to drive over to Meadows to meet the car that was being sent.

The wee lad and his mother sat in their airconditioned car for 40 minutes while waiting for the Dubai police. Finally a car approached. It wasn't Starsky and Hutch, nor Miami Vice. Let's just say the officers reminded the mother of Col. Khadaffi and his young gopher. The odd couple walked around the front of the empty home as if the silver bike would all of a sudden miraculously appear. Going through the whole story of the young love birds for a third time, only to get a blank look from Col. Khadaffi, the mother thought - (insert large text cloud above her head here) Sigh, I'm getting nowhere....they are focused on why the bike was parked across the street. We have to get them re-focused on the crime at hand!

Always action oriented, the mother snapped the Colonel back into focus - "hey, Khadaffi....look it: the bike was taken, lock and all, and is probably in Sharja by now, having been transported with 50 other poor bikes, stuffed like sardines in a people-trafficking manner, in a hot container accross the border. Do you think you can write a report, provide me with the copy and we can all get out of the 48 C friggin sauna??" Madam, we don't write reports. We are emergency patrol for highway only (WHAT?? Why the hell (she didn't say that out loud as swearing is a deportable offense) did you come here then ??

Khadaffi and his cohort discussed something in Arabic for quite a while. In the meantime the Indian Royal Guard from the gate house had arrived and were talking to Hunter about how a gardener had probably taken the bi.....yeah yeah, we know that part of the story already - let's fast forward to where you help us get a piece of green paper (you never want the pink copy as it means you are the guilty party) so we can get the hell out of dodge. Ok, ok, ok...."Madam the officer tells me you have to wait for the Captain" WHAAAT????? The mother asked the Indian gate keeper if the Sheikh would come too? The Indian clearly didn't get it, so she thought - right, better zip it now. Yep, sure enough, Khadaffi confirmed that the Captain and the CSI Dubai team would need to come and fingerprint the scene and take photos. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? The mother asked, with a stiff and very forced smile, how they thought they would lift prints from the bark of a tree? "Madam, the team is very professional and this is protocol"....PROTOCOL?? How about protocol-ing a piece of green paper right into my hands as this is now getting to be a farce.

So the wee lad and his - by now - fuming mother, entered their cold vehicle only to wait for the captain for another 45 minutes. The mother doesn't smoke, but she sure felt like a cigarette at this point - followed by a rather large Martini to calm her Scandinavian Viking temper.

Finally a second white and green car drove up. This time we expected Gary Sinise and his furrowed brow to appear. Nope, no such luck - Saddam Hussein himself stepped out of the vehicle, with a full army uniform, lots of gold and colors on his chest and a cap that would make the Paris catwalk fashionistas jealous. Looking very stern, he gazed at the mother and son with a contemptuos stare that pierced the windshield in her Toyota Prado. Never one to be intimidated for long, the mother hopped out of her car and introduced herself to Saddam. Hmmnn, hello - was his muddled reply. "Your bike stolen here" he asked Hunter and pointed to the tree. "yes" replied Hunter. "Why you park bike here? Not your house!" No, the house is empty said Hunter proceeding to explain that his girlfriend's parents could not know he was visiting. Saddam ignored him and sternly said, "but someone own the house, this is not legal, a crime, to put your bike here". Uh oh, - the mother quickly acknowledged that "yes, we fully understand - you are right your almighty male chauvenistic dictator" (OK that wasn't said out loud due to the previously explained fear of deportation) - "but you see: the house is emp.... - HOW YOU KNOW THIS HOUSE EMPTY - Saddam rudely interrupted her....SOMEONE OWN IT! Sh*t!! The mother and Hunter quickly glanced at eachother. She looked at Saddam and told him with a sweet smile - that "yes, we understand, this lad is only 15 years old and slightly stupid and lovesick, so he wasn't thinking straight and if you can be so kind as to provide a teeny weeny report, we will be out of hair as quick as you can say Allah".

His mouth must have been dry because otherwise the mother was certain that spit would have landed on her while he said: "GO TO JEBEL ALI" - having lost the battle but NOT the war, the mother and the wee lad got into the car and drove off - FUMING and asking Allah to hail down all sorts of grasshoppers onto Saddam and Khadaffi the same afternoon.

Exhausted, hot, sweaty and very confused - the mother and the wee lad returned to their penthouse and pondered what lay in store for them in Jebel Ali.

....To be continued....very soon....like tomorrow....stay tuned!!

One-armed Lifeguard

X-treme sports have always been an element in our family activities and for some lucky reason (knock on wood) neither one of the kids have experienced any broken limbs yet. The Dad holds the record for that and does not look as if he is going to relinquish that title.

Within the last month, however, Aidan has practiced a 360 turn on his snow board. He can do it on the water on the surf board, but so far at Ski Dubai it has amounted to a bruised rib and recently a dislocated shoulder. Amazingly, Aquaventure still employs him. He directs the "lazy river" traffic or controls the conveyer belt for the slides and that way he has plenty of time to check out the babes and chat them up!

We don't yet know if he needs surgery. The doctor has to check him again in 3 weeks and then decide. The bone on top of his shoulder does stick up at a rather weird angle so I am pretty sure Aidan will need at least some cosmetic correction. It got him out of the last few days of school and earned him some sympathy from one of the cute Danish girls in his year. They have agreed to meet up when we go to Denmark later in July.

Mark (Pia's brother), his wife Tina and the kids, Oliver and Josefine, arrive tomorrow morning for a 2 week holiday. They couldn't have selected a hotter time to visit but that didn't seem to stop them. It is 45-47 C during the day and 30 C at night (approx 105 F and low of 85'ish). We spend a lot of time indoor in the AC, and then go out for walks and swim in the pool when the sun goes down.

We have another sandstorm at the moment so visibility is low and it is blocking a lot of the sun, but the 80% humidity is still difficult to deal with.

Looking forward to spend most of the summer working in Denmark and cooling off with friends.

H20, water, Aqua.....venture

About 70% of Earth's surface is covered with water and most of that is the ocean. A tiny percentage is directed in to Atlantis Palm, large Aquaventure waterpark where Aidan has scored a lifeguard job for the summer. School ends on June 23rd but our son has already taken it upon himself to sign up for as many hours as he can get and as such....school is left well behind. Fortunately his final exams are over and books handed in - the last 1-2 weeks would just have been spent revising and reviewing for next year and finalizing the CAS sheets (Creativity, Activity and Service) the student have to do in order to graduate high school.

A very jealous little brother is left behind every morning at 7am when the older, toned, tanned and vigorous boy leaves wearing sunglasses and his whistle. Hunter is not old enough yet to work there but we are certain he will follow in his brothers flip-flops next summer.

The school and Aidan's teachers are so impressed with his initiative to pursue the job which includes 4 days of intense life-saving training, that qualifies for CAS credits, they have asked him to talk to the instructor to find out if it is possible to start this course as part of the school curriculum, giving other students an opportunity to learn these skills.

It's as if Aidan has already left home for his own life's adventure. He's pulling double shifts 7am to 2pm, then again 6pm to midnight, as the waterpark has introduced "evening cool down" hours. Who wouldn't go for this? He gets fed 3 times a day in the Atlantis cafeteria, which has world renowned chefs! My food bill has been reduced by several hundred dirhams :)

There are other perks too. Yesterday Aidan came home and very nonchalantly told Aric: "Dad, so there was this chick checking me out today, looking real hot, with management and a huge bodyguard by her side. So, I take a closer look and it's Paris Hilton"!!

(Paris is in Dubai this week - why, we aren't really sure....self promotion?)

OMG! Paris you little tart! You better stay away from my boy or you will find yourself going into the Shark tank, rather than through it, on the way down the slide.

There is no problem in the self-confidence department of this Ault boy! That goes for both boys in fact, as Hunter is convinced his 26 year-old Spanish teacher (another "hottie" according to male teen sources) is checking him out during class and is "way into him"! SIGH!!!

We were graced with a visit a few weeks ago from Uncle Rick, aka Big Rick, aka "bitch", aka Rick Austin, Aric's best friend from college. Taking a long weekend get-away, he enjoyed the decadence of Dubai's night-life with us. We also took advantage of the rest of the water surrounding Dubai to do lots of wake-surfing and wake-boarding. It was a really nice visit and the whole family enjoyed his presence. Hopefully the rest of the Austin family will join next time!

Lost in Translation!

William Glasser said that:

We learn…
10% of what we read,
20% of what we hear,
30% of what we see
40% of what we both see and hear,
70% of what is discussed with others
80% of what we experience personally
and
90% of what we teach someone else.

With that formula in mind, I get about 38.7% of what transpires in Dubai!

It's all about how you communicate....I should know! I hold a degree in Speech Communications and with a gazillion years in International Relations and "working across culture" courses behind me I ought to be an expert in communicating and understanding.

Daily things seem to get lost in translation. Take my dog for example! At 11 months, Slim doesn't seem to know his own name. He pretty much answers to every name the boys choose to call him at the moment: Slimothy, boy, little critter, baby, puppy, ugly-face and a variety of other non-Slim names. Then again, he was born in Russia, so maybe his real name is Vladimir and he is thinking "don't these people get it??

Along the road to the boys' school, there is a sign which reads "we apologize for inconvenient landscaping" - THANK YOU FOR APOLOGIZING! Frankly I have been absolutely disgusted and very inconvenienced by all those damn colorful flowers, shrubs and bushes around the clover-leaf exits and would much rather look at bare sand piles along the roads!

On the radio there has recently been a commercial playing 5-6 times a day about road safety and how to prevent accidents. The announcer is Arab and goes on talking about statistics and that "most accidents are caused by fast speeding - and would people please consider slower speeding?" - personally I am not sure that slow speeding would solve the problem! Speeding is just that right? Speeding...i.e. going too fast? Maybe it's just me.

When you get a ticket in Dubai - be it speeding or parking, and no police has been involved (such as with speed cameras and an over-zealous parking officer) you don't have to pay the fine. Well you have 15 days to pay, but if you don't, it only accrues a few extra dollars per year. Many people never pay until they renew their registration after 12 months and find out they can't renew until they settle their outstanding fines. That's sort of normal here. So we know that we have 3-4 parking tickets between us (we know because we have the piece of paper which has a whole lot of Arabic written on it but nothing in English to tell you why you got the fine and how much it is for). So we throw these in a pile in the office.

Once I took a right turn in a round-about, even though a policeman was directing traffic and had stopped my lane from going. I was late for school run so I decided to ignore him. In my rear-view mirror I saw him take down my license plate so I figured "OK, that's going to cost" - but since we have no clue where to pay, or show up in court, we sort of ignore these incidents too. The only thing we would NEVER ignore is an accident, as you can't get your car repaired until you have a police report, so you are pretty much forced to stay and wait for the cops.

You can input your license plate number in the police website system and see what fines you have outstanding. Aric and I have been a little hesitant - why tarnish our happy life with bad news? I was finally compelled to look when Aric came home with yet another parking ticket. To my surprise - Aric only had 2 unpaid tickets. A third ticket was not in even the system - wonder where that went? Maybe it received clemency because of the economic recession.

When I typed in my license plate number I almost fell off my chair. The expected ticket, for ignoring the policeman at the round-about, was not there - BUT I had 98 unpaid fines for SALIK (toll). I was completely paralyzed. Each salik was 50 dirhams so the total was well over 4900 dirhams ($1330 US) with penalties. Normally, when you have a SALIK tag, the tolls are 4 dirhams each. I do have a tag, which I bought in October 08 and which I thought Aric topped up for me. So I called the Road and Transport Authority office to ask why I was being fined. I told them all the evidence I had of buying the tag and activating it. He asked me if I had an account number and PIN. "No"! Well that was sent to me via SMS he said. I responded that I'd never received any SMS. He told me 98 texts had been sent to me since October. I was baffled. Turns out they sent the texts to 050-603-5953 not 056- .... so it was their fault of recording the wrong mobile number in their system. Wow - was I relieved. I now had to just go to the RTA office and fill out a dispute claim form and then it would all be fixed. Sounded easy enough!

Aidan and I drove to the nearest RTA building. We took a number (like in the post office) and low and behold, we were the next ones up at counter 4, number 695. There was no 694 person at the counter and the RTA man was just sitting there babbling on his cell phone. And babbling, and babbling. Finally I made eye contact with him and gently waved the number so he could see we were actually next - you don't want to mess with Emirati public servants. They hold the power, man! He babbled a bit more - probably with his wife about what was on for dinner. And since I was a woman and an ex-pat, surely he saw no reason to speed up the process. Finally he finished his call and waved us over. Fully dressed in the dish-dash with scarf and robe and prayer beads, he listened to my explanation of why I had not paid toll for 8 months. Well, nobody asked me! He asked me if I didn't find it strange that I never got an SMS. I said it wasn't my fault they recorded the wrong number and then I pointed out that they had my email AND postal address so surely they could have sent me a letter once they realized I didn't respond to the SMS. He mumbled something in Arabic (I am sure it qualified as swear words).

He then made me go to the coin operated copy machine (did I ever mention we don't pay income tax, but that everything else makes up for that in nickels and dimes?) and make two copies of all docs plus my drivers license plus the car registration card. Then he stamped them 7 times - and I feel very priviledged because the more stamps the more important and official it is! Now we wait 14 days, then call the RTA and give them the case number and then we pray to Allah that the system has erased the 98 x 50 and charged me 98 x 4. He recommended that I top up my tag. Naturally!! Of course it is not possible to top up at the actual RTA office (where they are responsible for toll) - no, that would be too logical. You top up at any gas station by buying a scratch card like it was a lotto card - and then you get the honor of calling in the serial number on your mobile phone at prime rates. Well, I'm topped up and now go through the toll gates with a clear conscience (and a big smile).

I've been looking for a good place to get my hair cut. For five years in England I only had one person, Nicki, cut my hair. I don't like change so I have been holding off, but truly it isn't economical to fly to England every time I need a haircut. With places like "Moulin Rouge" and "Desire Salon" in our neighborhood, I was wondering whether I could get a 'cut and blowdry' or if the 'blow' in places with such names meant something along the lines of a Gentlemen's club!
Finally I worked up the courage to enter a salon called Eric Zeller - that sounded foreign and Mod, a bit Swiss, which I took to mean precise edges! Maria from Ukraine greeted me and at first I was sceptic...so many articles in the news about prostitutes from Russia and former USSR. But she was dressed like a normal hairdresser so I figured I was in good hands. I plan to go back for a trim in July!

While Aric and I was in Spain, I figured I could use a few highlights. So I went to the hotel salon and asked to be "a little blonder" - "Si, si blanco"! NO, NO! Not white...B L O N D E R!! Si, Blanco! I gave up, my Spanish has known better days. I showed her a picture in a magazine of Madonna (without the dark roots) and prayed that I wouldn't come out platin blond like Paris Hilton. I think it was a success.