Archive for August, 2009

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Oliver

August 13, 2009

UnsuspectingI took this picture sneakily imagining it having one of those nature channel narratives about the Daddybird in his natural habitat. Little did he know what was in store for him within the  hour.

We were joined by our friend Mali, with the intention of walking over to Al Muteena street for some chicken shwarma for dinner. However, on the way we encountered a stray kitten that changed all the plans. He was too friendly and too young for me to just put him down and walk away. So, we took him back to the apartment and Paul & Mali made an emergency run to the store for litter and food. We did eventually get our shwarma, too.

So, this is Oliver. Even though he’s white, he is a camoflage cat on our marble floors. CamoflageCatI have managed to get one head on view. It is blurry, because he is always in motion. The video will take a little longer to put together.
OliverAs for Kazul’s question about losing hair with the seasons. That will stop now that he has become an indoor cat. With regular meals he should be filling out a little and putting on more hair. I am interested to see just how much hair.

He purrs a lot and Mali says he purrs like a Vespa scooter. He talks a lot too, as you will hear in the video later. He’s been good and took to using a litter box right away.

I can’t wait until he sleeps through the night. Ha!

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First box

August 11, 2009

box1Our first box shipped from the States arrived. As you can see it is mostly intact, but there is not a square corner on it. I swear that this was a brand new box when I packed it. Only two items were broken and only in small ways that don’t effect their function. This is the first internationally delivered box I’ve seen that wasn’t torn, so I think we got lucky. It was opened for inspection, I suspect only because I had a small metal tin with sewing supplies inside it and the xray couldn’t penetrate that.
box2

So, now we have drapery hooks, YEAH!, and DVDs for entertainment, YEAH!

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Anniversary

August 10, 2009

One year ago today we arrived in Dubai. I don’t have anything profound to say and we don’t have any special celebration plans. I think we’ve been celebrating this for a year now on a daily basis.

How about a Metro construction comparison? This is last year:Metro4And this is the current view:Metro8-09
Metro8-09aThe gaping holes are gone. The metro line is scheduled to open in March 2010. I don’t know if the street will be repaved and opened before or after that. The construction noise is minimal now. Apparently, the majority of the activity is underground now.

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New store

August 9, 2009

We were pleased to discover that a Carrefour Express grocery store opened just a block away from our apartment while we were gone. Yeah!

What was in the “ethnic foods” section?

DelMonteWhy tomato paste, of course.

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Idyllic view

August 9, 2009

FelthamBogThis is in Feltham, the neighborhood near Heathrow where we stayed before leaving. It’s not as idyllic as it looks in this picture because you can’t see the rubbish floating in this pond. Sometimes illusion is a good thing.

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Heathrow

August 8, 2009

BritAirBus1We had a unique experience at Heathrow. When we arrived at our gate, we found not a plane, but buses. We were all loaded onto buses and then driven a significant distance to the plane. This confused several of the young children in the crowd. I heard them saying to their parents, “I thought we were going on a plane.”

BritAirBus2

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Arrival

August 7, 2009

We arrived around 10:35 pm on Thursday night. It was 98F and, amazingly, not humid. It was quite mild in comparison to our arrival last year when we arrived about the same time and it was brutally hot and humid.

On our way from the gate to baggage claim, there is a place where you can take the elevator or escalator. Last year, there was a large crowd waiting for the elevators and our guide who had greeted us at the gate and was escorting us through the arrival process was rather put out that we did not aggressively push our way into the elevator. This year there were only a few people waiting for the elevator, a few women and a young family. When it came, I was standing closest to it, so I stepped in first. The father of the family was quite put out by this and said, “EXCUSE ME. We… these ladies were waiting the longest.” Clearly he is a newbie. He is still operating under the rules of politeness from whatever country he is from. Ha, he will learn. I held the door and everyone, but Daddybird was able to get into the elevator, so it all worked out. Daddybird took the escalator and met me at the bottom. We had a good chuckle about the newbie and his “EXCUSE ME!”

There was a long wait through Passport Control, but other than that, no difficulties. We took a taxi home. The smallest bill we had for paying the taxi was a 50 dirham. The fare came to 32.50 and the driver did not have the right bills to make change. The security guard in our building had seen us arrive and come out to help with our baggage, so the driver asked him if he had change. He did not, so the security guard went across the street to the store to get change. This proves, without a doubt, that we are back in Dubai.

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Traveling again

August 5, 2009

Wednesday morning we start back to Dubai. We will travel by bus and three trains back to London and stay in a hotel near the airport. Then, Thursday, we fly back to Dubai. So, comes to a close our sojourn. Our too, too long sojourn.

I’d start a list here of what I have learned, but I think I will need to do some ruminating on that subject to do it justice. Maybe after I’ve had a few nights of consistent sleep in one time zone.

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Banksy

August 4, 2009

[First let me say that these pictures may give you trouble and not load quickly or completely. Try refreshing your browser screen or click on the spot where the picture should be to get it to appear.]

So, we got up early (actually didn’t sleep much due to noise from the disco night club somewhere near the hotel and when that died down the seagulls began screaming), checked out of the hotel and walked down to the museum.

We got in line at about 8:40 am and we entered the museum about 10:15 am.

BanksyExhibitSign

I’ll post just a few of the works we found the most poignant or amusing. The exhibit included original paintings:

BanksyAnarchistsMother

BanksyRickshaw
Sculptures:
BanksyShoppingVenus
And animatronics:
BanksyChickMcNuggetsOne of Banksy’s main targets is McDonalds. These chicken McNuggets were animated and drinking out of the BBQ sauce cup. Kinda creepy.
BanksyJaguar1We approached this from the back and it looked like a very realistic Jaguar twitching it’s tail. However, from the front…
BanksyJaguar2
It is actually a fur jacket.

Banksy also likes to take paintings or prints by other artists, usually of idyllic scenes and add his own touch to them. These were sprinkled throughout the normal museum displays, so it was like hunting for Easter eggs.
BanksySmokeBreak
BanksyUfo
When we left, this was the line of people waiting to go in.
BanksyQueSunday
We exited the museum a little after noon. The last bus from Hereford to Hay-on-Wye was at about 4 pm. It was clear we weren’t going to make it, no matter how good the train connections were. Had we gotten any sleep in the Clifton Hotel, I might have suggested we stay another night, but it was noisy, shabby and overpriced. So, we headed for the train and Hereford. We did indeed miss the bus. There was another one listed on the bus stop sign, but further investigation showed that it only went to the edge of Hereford, not to Hay. So, we approached a taxi at the train station and inquired if he would take us to Hay and how much would it likely be. It was affordable, so we had a nice taxi ride home.

So, what seemed might be an exercise in futility worked out rather nicely, on the whole.

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Bristol

August 3, 2009

Saturday we took the bus and three trains in order to reach Bristol with the intention of seeing the Banksy art exhibit. We left Hay-on-Wye at 10 am and reached Bristol, checked into the hotel and walked to the museum 5 hours later. We had fairly good connections between the bus and each of the trains.

Bristol Temple Mead train station

Bristol Temple Mead train station

Here is our hotel – the Clifton Hotel (the neighborhood is called Clifton).

Clifton Hotel, Bristol

Clifton Hotel, Bristol

Across the street from our hotel –

St Paul's Church, Clifton

St Paul's Church, Clifton

We walked a short distance to the museum.

a street in Bristol

a street in Bristol

We arrived to find this line of people waiting to get into the museum.

People in line to see the Banksy exhibit

People in line to see the Banksy exhibit

The museum closed at 5 pm. They stopped allowing people to join the line at 3 pm. It was just a few minutes after 3 pm. So, we were out of luck for getting in on Saturday. We had to travel (5 hours) back to Hay-on-Wye the next day, so it appeared that we might have come all this way for nothing. The museum was to open at 10 am the next morning and they advised us that people started lining up around 8:30 am. That was going to make it a very close call.

I’ll tell you the rest of the story tomorrow. It’s cruel, I know.