SUV Bliss!

FINALLY we bought a car! It was getting so hard for me not to have one of my very own. We got a Mitsubishi Nativa (only made in Mexico and the Middle East) which is the same, I think, as a Montero. It's a handy little SUV similar to my 4Runner (which I miss terribly) and it's great to have a vehicle to lug stuff around in again. I missed lugging! Kel was definitely happy to see all the baby paraphernalia leave his car!

I immediately put on my Longhorn decal, but sadly haven't seen one anywhere else. I'm remaining positive. I did stalk some people that had a state of Texas sticker on their car. Kel thought I was crazy, but it's nice to know a few fellow Texans that can commiserate on the lack of good Mexican food. Seriously, Taco Bell is sounding like heaven right about now.

Anyway, back to the car...

Dubai's traffic system basically involves a bunch of speed cameras and the black point system which I included a few posts back. There's even a website where you can enter your license plate number to see your fines. (You don't have to pay them until you re-register your car the next year.) I decided to check out the website today to see what it said, not expecting to find anything because I've only had the car about a month. I was SHOCKED to see that I had a fine of 600 dirhams! It doesn't say what it's from, but since I received no black points I guess it was for speeding.

The max speed on the highways here is 120 km/h. In my car, I have a constant dinging when I speed above 120 which DOES NOT stop until I go 120 again. Unless I want to listen to DING, DING, DING, DING, DING, DING, DING, DING (you get the picture?), I rarely speed. However, there is no minimum speed and many of the highways are 2 lanes, which means you have trucks in the right lane travelling around 80 km/h and the crazies who go 180 km/h in the left lane. I'm stuck in the middle and constantly have to switch lanes. Occasionally, I have to endure the dinging so that I can pass the way overloaded truck and make it back around before the bright white Range Rover with completely blacked out, I mean, tinted windows threatens to run me off the road. I guess my stupid fine came during one of these moments. The date was April 27th...2 weeks after getting the car.

So pretty!

Hook em! I know, it needs a wash, but you try to keep it clean in a land of sand!

Grandma and Jo Anne check out Dubai

On the dunes while on the desert safari
At the Jumeirah Public Beach
Global Village in Dubai Land
Souk Madinat Jumeirah

While we were home for Christmas, my Grandma and great aunt, Jo Anne, came down from Washington to see Dylan (and maybe also me and the rest of the fam). While there, they decided to come and visit us in Dubai sometime in the next year.

They didn't wait long. I picked them up from the airport in early February (wearing jeans AND a pashmina in the cool 70 degree weather)!

In 2 weeks we covered the Arabian peninsula and even fit in some dune bashing. They picked up some great souvenirs, took a few pictures of Dubai and a LOT of pictures of Dylan.

Fuel efficiency? Must not have a 1 year old...

Planes will be now be flying slower for fuel efficiency. Great. Now my 17 hour flight with a toddler will be how long? And that's the direct flight...arrgh.

Standing Tall

I am continuously amazed at Dylan's development. It changes on a daily basis, literally. He finally learned to clap just before his 11 month birthday. The day before he wasn't doing it and then the next day Kel started clapping and Dylan did it too. Of course now he does it all the time...while I change his diaper, when I tell him no, and when he's eating.

Now he's pulling up (which he's been doing since around 8 months) and letting go of the piece of furniture and is standing unaided. How long until the first steps?? Maybe he's waiting to unveil the coup de grace when the grandparents are here. Just a few more days!

He has a little push toy that he races around like Andretti. He gets pretty upset when he runs into an obstacle and tries to lift the toy.

Dylan has now had haircut number 2 and he's not even 1! I would have loved to let it grow and have a big cut around his birthday, but he was starting to look like a 15 year old garage band drummer. No thanks!

Dylan's friend, Maximillian - a rare bit of sharing

Gnawing on his crib

Dubai Divas Dinner Club

I miss my Houston dinner club so much I decided to start my own here with some of my new friends. Here it will be a very transient group - the nature of the city. Our first dinner was an Arabic menu and the ladies stepped up and did a great job on the food! Some of the names were hard to pronounce, but we had no problem devouring everything!

We had hummus, Prawns in biz'har spices with spicy yellow rice, Fattoush, Tabbouleh, Freekeh risotto with green herbs and broad beans, and mou'hallab'ia. I think the favorite was the freekeh which is like a barley grain. It was cooked like a risotto and extremely tasty! The mou'hallab'ia is a type of custard made with rose water. Yum!

The girls (from left) Tracy, Janice, Heather, Susan, Krissy, Carla, and Laura

Freekah Risotto with Broad beans - Susan's dish

Easter Brunch at the Polo Club

We celebrated Easter with a brunch at the Polo Club with four other couples plus kids. The food was relatively decent, but a bit overpriced because of the holiday. We enjoyed seeing the green of the polo field and despite the overwhelming amount of flies, had a good time. They had an Easter egg hunt, jumpy thing, face painting, and even a girl in bunny ears (apparently I'm the only one who raised an eyebrow).

Seriously, this is the widest expanse of grass in the UAE!

Dylan and Daddy

Our friends, Jay, McKayla, and Heather

Our friends, Brian and Amber

Daily Dubai Driving Disasters

DDDD #1
This is on the main highway, Sheikh Zayed, not too far from Mall of the Emirates.
I didn't take this picture, so I'm not sure how the car ended up underneath the SUV.




DDDD #2

On my way to the grocery store in our neighborhood I see this....





I curse myself because it's the one time I didn't have the camera on me. Obviously you can tell I turned right around and went back and got it! However, in typical Krissy fashion, I failed to turn it on before I left and when I arrived back at the scene, my camera flashed "change batteries" and went black. Again, I turned around and went back, grabbed the baby out of his seat, replaced the batteries, and learning from my mistake, turned the camera on. Now I'm juggling the baby and camera and locking the door and trying to yank the strap from his mouth since he thinks the camera is his new toy. Back in the seat and back around the corner. As if that's not enough, I'm also battling sunset which is insanely early here! No daylight savings. I hit the speedbumps at 80km and only hear a slight scrape. I get back and quickly run/leap through the weird looking aloe vera/cactus stuff so I can get the shot before the sun sets.

Passing is rampant here...even I'm an occasional passer, especially when people take the bumps extremely slow. I think this guy should probably rethink his passing strategy because he must think the oncoming traffic is just a minor inconvenience. Either that or he had a crazy vendetta against the landscaping.



DDDD #3
There's one way to get out of our neighborhood and it involves a gargantuan roundabout. When we first moved here, there were flashing yellow lights at the entrance to the roundabout, but not long after they were changed to typical green, yellow, red stoplights. We thought this was a good idea because trying to get into some roundabouts with the flashing yellow can be a bit dicey. This was logic speaking and logic and Dubai do not coexist. The light at the Ranches roundabout takes a full 5 minutes to go through a cycle. It's unfortunate that I've had a plethora of opportunities to time this.

There is ONE lane of paved road leading to the main exit for our development. However, most people make another lane on the semi-improved shoulder. Fine. It's only a bit bumpy and it turns into two lanes when you get closer to the roundabout so people just extend the 2nd lane back from where it really begins. No big deal. Next to the improvised 2nd lane is where construction (really, construction in Dubai?) is taking place to turn the roundabout into an interchange so there are barricades, sand piles, and flags everywhere. But, this doesn't stop the crazy people. A barricade is just a warning that you should put the car in 4 wheel drive. People will drive around the folks in the improvised 2nd lane and cruise right on up to where the 2 lanes are both paved. We don't let them in :)

But, a while back, the traffic was so heavy to get out (we'd sat through 2 cycles and were in our 3rd and it was looking doubtful that we'd make it through) that we started seeing cars driving past where the 2nd lane was and continuing through the sand trying to get to the very front of the line. What the sorry, impatient bastards didn't realize was that the impassable barricade continued along the edge of the 2nd lane and basically encompasses the roundabout (like a guardrail). So in the pictures below all these cars drove all the way down to the front and had to turn around! This is them driving back...hee hee. You can see the barricade in the pictures.





Since there are so many issues with driving, the UAE Ministry of the Interior has come up with a list of fines and black points for certain offenses. If you receive 12 black points within a year, your license is revoked. Here are a few samples...


Driving a vehicle without number plates 24 black points
Causing death of others 12 black points
Falling or leaking load 12 black points
Running away from a traffic policeman 12 black points
Using horn in a disturbing way 2 black points


They've got their priorities straight.