Baby Bash & Bangle.

On Sunday, Baby O turned 1 and I went along to his birthday party to celebrate with all his little friends. There were lots of cute babies and toddlers there, I wish I remembered to bring my camera! It was really nice to see all the kids playing with each other and also get to meet with and talk to lots of mothers.

Baby O's Mum did such a great job with making the cake and all the delicious food for the party. Gypsy Boy, who adores Baby O [I honestly don't know who wouldn't - he is the most gorgeous baby I've ever seen!], was meant to join us in the evening but couldn't make it as he had to spend the day working in Bahrain.

I was enjoying myself so much, I didn't notice how late it was and only just made it home 10 minutes before Gypsy Boy did! We took Gypsy Dog for a long walk and caught up on our day apart before he surprised me with a beautiful gold bangle he bought at Bahrain airport!

Waiting.

Gypsy Boy comes home today! He's only been away two days in Bahrain for work, but I'm really not used to him being the one going away and me staying home. It used to be the other way around when I was working, and both Gypsy Dog and I have missed him heaps even though it's just been a couple of days.

Anyhow, he is on his way home now and Gypsy Dog and I are anxiously waiting!

I'm baa-ack!

Ok, so I know I've been AWOL from blogging over the last 6 weeks or so, but I've had a valid excuse. I've been feeling very under the weather over the last month, and I'm still not quite over it.

Nevertheless, while I've not been snug under the covers in bed (or veg-ed out on the couch) feeling like absolute hell, I've been pretty busy. So here is an update of what's been happening in a Gypsy Girl's world:

1. Completed Arabic Language Course for beginners
2. Worked from home on proofing some exciting new travel guides soon to be realeased!
3. Finally got an iPod
4. Found out some very, very exciting news

More on all of this later...

Big clean up.

Gypsy Boy's brother left Dubai last Friday after a 2-week stay with us. The last six weeks or so have been an extremely busy one for us, with the festive season, entertaining visitors, and farewelling friends. During this time, we've had the foldable beds out in the lounge and some of the furniture rearranged to accommodate.

...aboard an abra...

We've also had friends leave Dubai and thus, inherited an array of household goods, food, and pot plants! I haven't really had the chance to sort through all these treasures so they've been sitting in a big pile in a corner. Add to this another pile of 'stuff' that we're storing for another friend, and you can imagine why our place looks like a tornado has just been through it!

...Farewell Joy & James...

At times like these, I really wish I have access to an online auction system like TradeMe. Of course, then we'd also need a reliable and efficient postal system as well. So it looks like I'll most likely resort to putting up a classified ad on an expat forum and giving the rest of the stuff we don't need or want to a friend who is in the process of setting up home here.

There you have it, my list of what's been keeping me busy, excuses for why I haven't been posting on here and why I haven't been replying to [m]any emails. I promise I'll try to get to emails this week in between cleaning, laundry and sorting out stuff. In the meantime, here are some of the latest photos.

...at Hatta...

...at Hatta Fort Hotel...

Farewells.

My aunt and uncle left for the airport early this morning, after a 2-week stay with us in Dubai. It's been a year since I last saw them, and it was really good having them here over Christmas and showing them what life in Dubai is like.

We both went back to bed after they left, and when I woke up later this morning, the house felt a little empty! Funny how I always feel this whenever I've had visitors come to stay.

What's worse is I've lost my best friend in Dubai. 2 days ago, we went to say goodbye to Joy and James as they return to Ireland after living in Dubai for a year. Joy had saved up all her bits and pieces which she thought I might like and I've spent some of this morning going through the bags and bags she's left me! It's like a second Christmas because I've found some real treasures like a fondue set, books, flasks, a chiller bag, and many more things!

I've got to get back to sorting out my 'treasures' and also get onto lots of cleaning before our next visitor arrives next week - Gypsy Boy's brother!

Busy.

I've been a little busy of late with my aunt and uncle visiting from Malaysia. To those of you who've sent me emails or left comments on this blog, I'm sorry I haven't been very diligent in replying. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I'm thinking of all of you, but just have not had the chance to respond!

I'm expecting that this will be the case until Christmas is over, so I'll take the opportunity now to wish all of you a very Happy and Blessed Christmas!

Oh no!

Gypsy Boy has just had a car accident. I don't have all the details as yet, but it is one of my worst fears here in Dubai. All I can say is thank God, it's not serious. As far as I know, Gypsy Boy said he was at fault and hit another car in front of him.

Where many nationalities and driving styles come together, coupled with high speeds, Dubai is home to the most dangerous roads in the world. There is an extremely high accident rate and death toll, and it's not unusual to feel like you are in a bumper car when on the roads. Of course, the objective is not to 'bump'. However with speed limits of up to 120kph and cars zooming at 160kph at times, often not bothering to indicate or even look before changing 5 lanes in one swoop, minor and horrific accidents are not uncommon.

In the case of an accident, no matter how minor, one has to always call the police. If it's minor you can move your car to the side of the road out of traffic's way, however you should not leave the scene of the accident before the cops arrive to assess the situation. We've been told that the cops will then decide who is at fault and hand out a red card and green card with a report that you take to your respective insurers and panelbeaters.

I guess I will find out more from Gypsy Boy himself later today. Sigh.

The last 10 days.

I've been a bit slack with posting lately partly due to laziness, lack of motivation to post, and I guess it's been a little busier than normal.

The most exciting thing I guess was throwing a surprise party for Gypsy Boy's Birthday over the weekend, and getting my first piece of work completed.

Gypsy Boy's little party was fun, thanks to all our friends who came over to celebrate, and special thanks to Joy who helped so much with shopping, preparation and organising all the balloons! For some reason, I didn't take any photos which is a real shame so I'll have to post some when I get the photos from Joy that she took with her camera.

I also got delivered my first piece of work last week, and as it was urgent, I found myself working hard to get it finished by the deadline. I was pleased to find that it's not far from the sort of work I had to do as part of my previous role in NZ, and I really enjoyed it as well as being able to work from the comforts of home!

Today, I'm digging up some of our old winter clothes and starting to pack for our trip to Brussels and Istanbul. I can't believe we leave tomorrow already!

Oh, and as I type it's raining outside! I thought I could smell the rain, so I ran out to the balcony with Gypsy Dog at my heels to find grey skies and a light but constant drizzle. I haven't seen the rain in Dubai since January!

Where's home?

It's coming up to a year that we've left New Zealand and made Dubai our home. After a year of being away from work, family and friends, I have to say that a little homesickness is kicking in...

Spring in NZ is one of my favourite times of the year. The weather starts to warm up, Christmas is around the corner, and nature is at its best. I have a soft spot for tree lined avenues and there aren't too many of these here in Dubai. I miss the green of Victoria Park, I can just see the new leaves forming on the winter-bare branches of trees around Wellesley Street, and I especially miss the drives down my favourite tree lined avenue - Franklin Road.

It's also coming up to 18 years that my family left Malaysia to make New Zealand home. While I was quite young and spent most of my life and formative years in Auckland NZ, I do miss the familiarity of family that are still in Malaysia, the shopping, and of course the food!

We had a friend over for dinner a couple of nights ago, who'd grown up in Pakistan, studied in the US and spent almost half his life there before recently moving to Dubai. When I asked him where home is, he couldn't say for sure. He suggested that perhaps home is where ones mother is.

If that is the case, then home for me is Melbourne, Australia. Now, that doesn't really work because whilst I've been there dozens of times to visit, I've never lived in the home my immediate family are currently residing in nor have I spent enough time in Melbourne to say I've lived in this city.

If home is really where the heart is, where's home if your roots are deep and widespread?

Skeletons in the closet?

While I've only been blogging for less than a year, I've been a fervent reader of blogs for the last five years. There seems to be an addictive quality to reading up about the lives and daily or weekly rants of [sometimes] complete strangers.

What's interesting is the online friendships that eventuate within the blogging community. I know of instances where physical meetings with fellow bloggers have been arranged and taken place! While I have not [yet] partaken in any of these, I would imagine it would be kind of funny meeting up with people you know so much about and yet, probably so little. I guess it would be sort of like meeting up with a pen pal - do these still exist?

Some time ago, I stumbled upon Gypsy Boy's ex-girlfriend's blog. A surge of anxiety ran through my veins as I pored over the extremely articulate posts. Apart from it being a really interesting web log, the fact that Gypsy Boy once had a relationship with this woman drew me to find out more about her.

If you came across the blog of your partner's ex, would you not do the same?

PS. No, I didn't find any skeletons in the closet [...and not that I was looking!]

Out and about

Over the last couple of days [Eid], the streets were really quiet and the shopping malls have been absolutely packed! There was a festive feeling in the air that reminded me of Christmas as friends and families meet up to wish each other a Happy Eid and bring one another gifts. It was lovely to see children dressed up in their brand new outfits while the adults paraded in their 'Sunday bests'.

The Gypsy Family didn't get up to much over these last 2 days. The most exciting things of note would be:

1) Our trip to Al Ain. We enjoyed the drive there with chiseled and rolling sand dunes along the motorway and the mountainscape backdrop, but to be honest we didn't find much to do in Al Ain.

2) Booking our flights to Brussels. Unfortunately the flights via Greece were fully booked, but we managed to get a very good deal on Turkish Airways with a stopover in Istanbul on the way back. We've heard lots about how beautiful Istanbul is, so we're looking forward to our trip next month!

3) Meeting up with a Malaysian couple. We haven't really met many Malaysians here, especially not ones our age. So, it was fun meeting up with A & S for dinner and hear words like "cin cai" and the good old "lah" peppered into sentences!

Temporariness.

In all the cities I've visited and lived in, I've found none seemingly to be as impermanent as life in Dubai. Everything in every sense is temporary. Overnight, new roads are built, old roads are blocked and buildings erected. Expats make up 80-90% of the population and it is a place where quite simply people come and go.

It's strange to think that in our short 11 months here, we've had our share of farewells already. Most recently last month, our friends who came to Dubai on a dance contract left to go home to NZ and now we've just had news that 3 of our close friends will be leaving at the end of the year.

Saying goodbye to good friends is not the easiest thing to do, but it was amazing anyway that we were able to get together with old Kiwi friends and hang out in Dubai in the first place as well as forge new friendships with the most interesting people from places I'd never even heard of [Limavady being one of them]!

So, thank you to all of you for the fun and wonderful moments we've shared in this land we temporarily call home.

Ditzy moments.

Today, Joy and I had our weekly lunch date except since it's Ramadan and from our previous experience, we were expecting all the eateries to be shut, so we planned to have our own lunch at home then meet up at the mall and watch a movie.

It turned out that neither of us managed to have lunch and as we both felt a bit peckish we thought we'd scoot next door to the Kempinski Hotel and see what we could find. During Ramadan, most eateries shut during the day, but hotels will usually have at least 1 restaurant open for its guests. We ended up finding Sezzam discreetly open and hidden behind heavy black curtains. We both had a drink and a baked potato each which was really scrummy.

...vs...

We'd planned to watch Take the Lead, but somehow I ended up getting us tickets to Talladega Nights instead! Hah! Both of us sat in the theatre waiting for Antonio Banderas to show up and for the dancing to begin. Of course, that didn't happen. Anyway, we both ended up laughing so hard our cheeks hurt because the movie was hillariously funny and also at ourselves for ending up at the wrong show. We loved Will Ferrell in Talladega Nights though but I still can't believe I got the wrong tickets. Duh!

Ramadan: Week 2

More random thoughts and experiences so far in our second week of Ramadan:

• After that mad rush grocery shopping at our local Carrefour 2 weekends ago, we tried shopping after iftar. This worked out well in that it was much quieter, but the shelves were also much emptier. No chicken breast (again!), no asparagus, very limited range and choice of fresh herbs and vegetables that I usually pick up too. Might have to try doing a mid-week shop during the day this week.
  
• Switched from my usual chewing gum to Smints - much more discreet.
  
• Lunch at home before heading out to meet friends rather than going out for lunch.

Yesterday evening while walking Gypsy Dog [around iftar time], I bumped into one of our Arab neighbours that has a Bichon Frisé. He was with a friend carrying grocery bags, obviously heading home to prepare for iftar. I found the conversation that followed rather amusing:

Neighbour: Hi! How are you? How is Gypsy Dog?
Me: Hi! We're fine! How are you? How is Brandy (the name of his Bichon Frisé)?
Neighbour: Good. Are you fasting?
Me: No, no...
Neighbour: Why?
Me: *Speechless and confused look* Um... why...?
Neighbour: *Grins* You should, it's very healthy for you.
Me: *giggle* Ok. I will give it a try...
Neighbour: Ok, see you later... and remember to fast - it's healthy!
Me: Ok. See ya later, bye!

Mmmm, nice rides

As we left our apartment to go out for dinner tonight, it was hard to miss the very shiny black Corvette parked next to us in the basement carpark. What's interesting is yesterday, there was a sparkling white Hummer parked in that same spot! Very preeeetty. We think they're new in the building as our previous carpark neighbours drove a white Landcruiser. Of course, they could've upgraded...

Anyway, we ended up at Gazebo for dinner - our favourite Indian restaurant. We like the excellent service and fabulous food at reasonable prices. In fact, the grub's so good we think it's probably the best North Indian food we've ever had. We decided to go for the lobster kurma, melt-in-your-mouth chicken, popadums, okra with tomato based curry, rice and garlic naan. I guess you can say that it was another case of our eyes were bigger than our stomachs [although we did eat it all]!

So, on the way home we stopped at the lights and a red Lamborghini pulls up next to us. Who are these people?!

Change.

I've been thinking about changing the name of this blog for some time. Really, it's been ever since my dear 80-something-year-old Grandmother checked it out for the first time at an internet cafe in Malaysia (really!), and thought it was something incredibly rude. Hee hee!

Anyway, the title has changed but the URL [www.adventuresindubai.blogspot.com] is still the same.

Thanks.

To all of you who sent me Birthday wishes last month, it was really neat getting to read all your emails and messages! I had a wooooonderful day in Paris. Still sorting out the gazillion photos we took, amongst other things, so once that's done I'll post some on here.

BTB

Back to Blogging after 2 weeks of having MIL stay, and a whole week suffering the effects of food poisoning!!

This is the 3rd time I've had food poisoning in the 6 months we have been in DXB, all from dining out on chicken. The first 2 times were a lot milder, but last week really put me out, and I can only put it down to 1 of 3 reasons:

a) I'm getting a weak stomach [due to lack of exposure to outside bacteria] from eating home cooked food 90% of the time

b) Some really suspect hygiene/food storage/preparation standards - especially in 40 degree heat

c) Rotten luck!

Cheers!

To purchase alcohol in Dubai, you need to have an alcohol licence. The process was actually easier than we thought! We simply had to drop by any of the MMI outlets [there's even one in our local mall!], fill out a form and we were away laughing. There is a charge of 150dhs, but we got the cost back in vouchers, so it really cost us nothing at all...

You can get just about everything at MMI - a good range of beers, liquor and wines from all regions. We are having a fine time sampling lovely Californian, and European wines. Simply divine!

Mini Baby Boom

Yesterday, I became an aunty again! My cousin in NZ had her first baby and it's a boy.

Looks like there's a baby bug and it's spreading! We just got news a few days ago that yet another friend is expecting - that makes the 9th couple having a wee 'un this year in our circle of family and friends.