Dubai

The fly over at the Arabian Ranches has just been opened.

juhee!

Like back home, here in Dubai, you have the choice between prepaid and postpaid services.

As most people I'm a Wasel (prepaid) customer, as the communication prices are the same, but you don't have the monthly fees as a postpaid customer.

Well that's how it would be back home.....here even having a prepaid service you have to pay a yearly fee of Dhs 100.- to keep phone service alive.

So let me rephrase....your "monthly fees" as a Wasel customer are lower than those of a postpaid one.

Yesterday at a gas station in Dubai.

I bought some water and gum at the gas station store, while stopping for gas.

The amount was 8 Dhs 50 fils. Now the cashier didn't have the exact change and wanted to offer me for the 50 fils some candy.

Because this happens more and more, and I'm just sick of getting candy (I don't even like) instead of the money, I told him, I didn't want the candy but the money.

So he said he would give me 2 dhs....if I could give him 50 fils. Well I didn't have 50 fils...but I could have offered him some candy instead! (of course this didn't cross my mind until later.)

Or even better, next time I will pay in candy altogether...it seems like it is a common currency here in Dubai.

Have you ever stopped at a gas station for a refill with just a credit card on you?

Well it happened to me today... and I had to find out, that you can't pay here with credit cards anymore. Cash only.

I still got some gas.... but I did have to sign a form AND leave me drivers license there as well.

In the afternoon I had to go back to pay my bill and to get my license back.

Such a modern city and you can't pay with your credit card at a gas station...and not to imagine if I had an issue with the police and would have been fined for not having my drivers license on me.

Baaaaddddd.

The kids just had their last school day last Thursday and a lot of people are now heading home for the summer.

As I will stay here, I do get to hear a lot: "see you next year". 

?!?

It seems like the Dubai year ends in June and begins in September.

Well then.... see you next year!

As I couldn't have wrote it better ;o) let me just quote Raphael Fiore from the newspaper "blick".

....

Doch heute war alles anders: Die heroischen Spanier bestimmten das
Spieltempo, die ultradefensiven Italiener reagierten nur. Am Ende wäre
diese Feigling-Taktik auch beinahe aufgegangen, denn die Squadra
Azzurra rettete sich tatsächlich in ein Penalty-Schiessen.

.....

120 Minuten waren gespielt und nun kam es am verfluchten 22. Juni zum
Penaltyschiessen. Doch nicht den Spaniern zitterten die Knie, sondern
den ideenlosen Anti-Offensivfussballer aus Italien. Am Ende gewann die
junge Truppe (Durchschnitt 26 Jahre) aus Spanien die
Elfmeter-Glückslotterie hochverdient mit 4:2.

....

Die letzten Spektakel-Miesmacher sind draussen und Donadoni ist wohl
seinen Job los. Der bis 2010 dotierte Vertrag des 44-Jährigen verliert
nämlich seine Gültigkeit, wenn die Squadra Azzurra das Halbfinale nicht
erreicht. Diese Klausel ist nun Tatsache und deshalb heisst es:
«Arrivederci Donadoni», grösstenteils auch wegen Null-Tore Toni!

ALLEZ LES BLEUS!!!

Through our "little" community there is a main access road going through, where you have a lot of speed bumps and the speed limit is 40 kmh, where you have nice palm trees planted in the middle and a lot of cross walks for pedestrians.

Or I better should say, there was.

We were away for 3 weeks and on our return we had to find out, that there soon will be no more quite neighbourhood road, but a HIGHWAY going through the community!!!!!!

This means, no more shopping by foot, as the shopping mall is on the other side of the road.

NO COMMENT on that one!

At the moment I'm back home on holiday and I was enjoying my time here until today, when the Dubai reality caught up with me, before even being back.

Our rent is up mid July again and guess what.... yes the landlord called my husband today (actually it was his son who called) and they want us out. AGAIN!!! But this time the story is, that they have some cousins coming to Dubai and that their house (actually they have more than one, so I guess their houses) is (are) not big enough for all of them and now the landlord wants to move in "our" villa. 

Rent committee here we come! Again!

What a wonderful City.....

Compared to Dubai (UAE) Muscat (Oman) is much smaller, much cosier and there a lot less tourist roaming the streets.

The locals are very friendly and very interested in the visitors to their country. There is always a smile, a wave or even they come up and ask some questions.

It's very pleasant to stroll through markets or walk down the beach and watch the locals play football on a Friday afternoon. (The great thing is, the beaches are public area, even in front of the big hotels and there is soo much animation at sunset, its unbelievable).

Should you every get a chance to visit it.....don't miss it! It's a great place.

Yesterday we had this big explosion in the Al Quoz Area here in Dubai, which left us without water.

But it wasn't a water shortage which was the cause, but that the water pipes got damaged and left 80% of the people living in the Springs with no water

Even today... we are still "dry".

Besides that we smell pretty good, the dirty dishes are accumulating in the kitchen we also can not flush the toilets. And you can not imagine what that means! It's just disgusting.

We just called Dewa again to get an update of the situation, and apparently the pipes are fixed and water should be back in about 30min.

Let's pray that those are "regular" 30 minutes and not "Dubai" 30 minutes.

The morning was as usual until I got under the shower and realized....there is no water!

What would it be this time? Well anyway, before calling Dewa, we decided to wait for a while and see if it would return by "itself".

Around 09:15 I heard the news: apparently there was an explosion in a firework-factory in Al Quoz and now a huge fire was blazing over there.

This explains why we had the water shortage....the firemen were using it to put the fire out.

But does this mean, that every time there is a bigger fire, we will be without water?

When renting in Dubai, every year around the rent renewal you ask yourself the same question "do we stay another year, or do we leave". (as you have to pay the rent for one year in advance)

As we had some major changes this year, we decided to stay another 2-3 years and therefor were also thinking about buying a place. It's just too much of a hassle every year not to know if your rent contract will be renewed and if it will be renewed, will the new rent be within the 5% rent cap. (well there is the rent committee and we used them last year, but even though we won, I'm not keen to have to go through this procedure another time!)

So we contacted "better homes" (a real estate agency) and started to look at properties.

And then yesterday, we thought we hit the jackpot! The villa was great size, had a nice floor plan, good location, reasonable price and we were the first one's to visit! Of course we knew we had to act fast and told the agent, that we would take it.
First we were told by the agent, that she would call in the office and reserve the villa for us, as there was another couple visiting the house right after us. So we would make sure, it would be "reserved" for us.

It is really almost unbelievable the price increases we had beginning of this year. A lot of things went up about 25 - 100%.
And if you think this is a lot, then hold on!

My friend was charged, in a small restaurant in the Springs Town Center (nothing fancy at all, but more of a family place...or WAS more of a family place),
Dhs 30.00 (around CHF 10.-) for a tall black coffee. (it used to be Dhs 13.00)
That's an increase of a whooping 130%!

Apparently the haven't raised their prices in two years and this was justification enough to charge this horrendous price. I don't think you will find a lot of places in Switzerland, who will charge you this kind of money for a simple black coffee. Well maybe a five star hotel!

R: "Smoking or non-smoking?"

G: "Smoking please"

R: "So you would like to sit on the terrace then?"

G: "Oh, the terrace will be open today?" (For add. information: Weather today: Very windy->Sandstorm, 18C)

R: "Non Madame, it's too windy. Therefor I can only give you a non-smoking table"

G: ???????????