It's raining in the desert

For the past few days there has been forecast of rain - will it? Won't it? It hasn't rained since the beginning of the year in Dubai.

Ominous clouds have passed over and I've thought "ooh it just might!". Then the blue sky has returned.

This morning as we stepped outside everything seemed a little fresher. The ground was wet! It had rained!

There was much excitement at the school park. "Did you see the ground? It rained!" The kids were moaning about how cold it was, you know being just 26 degrees and all.

The traffic reported giggled as she said traffic was slow on a major arterial due to a puddle. Is there anywhere else in the world where a puddle would be a traffic hotspot?

I didn't actually see any rain fall from the sky, but it is nice to see some clouds. The cloudless sunny blue gets a little tiresome.

Who knows when we'll see rain again.

It's time to celebrate

You would be hard pressed to find a more multicultural city than Dubai. With so many cultures and religions in the one place, there are a plethora of celebrations and festivals. Wonderfully, Dubai seems to embrace them all. Since we arrived, there's barely been a week where there hasn't been some kind of holiday.

While the UAE is an Islamic country, people are free to practice their religion of choice. Islamic holidays are the official holidays and recently we've been given days off for Eid and this weekend for Hirji, which is Islamic new year. I must admit, I was fairly ignorant about Islam before moving here, I knew about Ramadan but that was about it. 

Whilst other holidays aren't officially celebrated, they are nonetheless celebrated with gusto. 

A few weeks ago, Halloween took over the stores here, there were decorations and displays. If you didn't know better you'd have thought  you were in the good old US of A. Last week, people were celebrating Guy Fawkes Night. On the weekend, the supermarket had displays for Diwali (the biggest Hindu festival of the year) as well as American Thanksgiving. This week, I popped into IKEA and it looked like Rudolph has vomited all over the place – there were trees, wreaths and baubles galore. 

For every holiday, the kids' school decorate their entrance way and incorporate the holiday into their learning. Yesterday there were flowers and lights for Diwali, a few weeks ago there was a massive display for Eid. I love that the girls are getting such a broad insight into other cultures and religions. Hell, I love that I'm getting this insight too. 

It's not just the schools, yesterday even Skip's work brought in a feast of Indian food served by waiters for all the staff to celebrate Diwali. Last night, feeling a little poorly, I went to bed early, but I could hear the Diwali fireworks and could smell the heady scent of incense and smiled. 

I think Skip is hoping that there'll be schooners and 2-up on ANZAC Day, somehow I think that will be pushing it! 

In any case, I can't wait to discover what we'll be celebrating next week!

Goosey's Diwali creation.

Recalibrate

The past week, the cracks of a long school term, moving to a new country and the lack of support are starting to become very present. 

I feel very, very tired. I feel like I've been "on" for months, no time just to sit back. 

I have had the hardest week I've ever had with Goosey this week. Every. single. thing. is an argument. Whether it's getting dressed, eating dinner, going to the park, choosing a book, whatever, it turns into a monumental argument. I know that she's tired – at school five days a week is a lot for such a little person. I know that she's had massive change. I know that she's utterly exhausted and needs a break. It doesn't make the crying and arguing and the defiance any easier to cope with. The defiance, oh the defiance! She's so stubborn. I know that part of it is breaking free of the rules of school too. But my artillery is run dry. 

I think we're all looking forward to Christmas, to having some time off from school, to having some grandmothers visit. 

It's been constant with the kids since we've been here and there have been a lot of nightime shenanighans too. As much as I love them, they're doing my head in at the moment. To be honest, I think I'm doing their head in too. At home, when things got like this they could visit their grandmothers, be spoilt for an afternoon or even a night. Skip and I could have some peace. The kids could have a break from cranky parents. We'd all be refreshed. 

Skip, feeling the tension, came home and surprised me with a restaurant and a babysitter booked for tomorrow night. I can't wait. It's so needed. Just not to be 'Mum' for a few hours. 

If you're a mum, what do you do to have a break?

When you take a wrong turn and end up in another country

We've been in Dubai for three months now and starting to transition from the moving/setting up stage to the exploration stage (as a good friend of mine put it). Yesterday, we decided it was well time we got out of town and started exploring our surroundings.

After getting some advice and pouring over maps, we decided that just a short trip up the coast was what we needed. Not too far and we could get our bearings. We packed for a day out and set off early.
We headed north through Dubai and Sharjah and then we missed our turn off and then we missed our plan B and found ourselves headed in completely the wrong direction. We saw a sigh for Hatta and we remembered that Carly from Confessions of a 30-something Woman had said it was a nice place to visit.

So we turned the steering wheel in that direction and soon we're driving through peachy-red sand dunes, cascading across the horizon. Dotted with campsite and dirt bikes, quad bikes and dune buggies going up and over the dunes.

Before long we arrived at a border checkpoint, we were going into Oman! Thankfully we had our passports, although the yellow-toothed border soldier was happy to just shake the kids' hands. Amazed that we'd taken a wrong turn and ended up in another country, we headed on our way and soon enough we were at another checkpoint and back in the UAE.

The scenery suddenly changed, the soft, silky dunes became rugged mountains and jagged rocked spilled along the side of the road. We arrived in Hatta, the temperature noticeably cooler and lovely breeze blew. The biggest attraction in town – the Heritage Village was shut until afternoon, so we set off for a local resort, where the kids ran and climbed hills. We soaked in the countryside, it was so nice to be away from the traffic and the skyscrapers. We found an old fort tower and Goosey was convinced Rapunzel lived and she yelled out "Let down your hair!" until her voice was hoarse.

Ready for lunch, the only place open was a greasy chicken joint, so we quickly ate and decided to head for home. Back through the mountains, a quick 20kms through Oman, through the sand dunes. The girls shrieked when they saw camels on the side of the road. The got even more excited when we christened our 4WD and took it for a slippy drive on the hot sand.

Soon we could see the towering Burj Khalifa in the distance and we were back on busy Sheik Zayed Rd.

It was so nice to experience something more of this country than just Dubai and has gotten us excited to experience more. As an Australian, it's still so amazing to take a short drive, take a wrong turn and unexpectedly end up in another country!

Lawrence of Arabia-type country

The changing landscape, rocky and sparse.

The sunny view from the top of hill.

The town of Hatta

"Rapunzel! Let down your hair!"

Like sands through the hour glass...

Many years ago, before we were married and before we had kids, Skip and I went on a camping holiday to Fraser Island with some friends. For those of you who don't know, Fraser Island is in Queensland, Australia and is the largest sand island in the world.

On our first night, suffering hideous sunburn and feeling queasy from drinking cheap sparkling in the sun, Skip announced that he really hated sand. For the next few years, this became a bit of a joke in our circle of friends - going to the world's largest sand island for a holiday when you hated sand.

Now, we're living in the desert and I have to confess – I hate sand. At first glance, Dubai looks like a city you don't feel like you're in the desert. Then you only have to drive a short distance and there are rolling sand dunes and there is absolutely no doubt that you're in the desert.

Even in the centre of Dubai you'll find a decent amount of sand – vacant blocks of land, car parks, just walking along the street. I've seen two cars get so bogged in our school car park that they've had to be towed out – up the wheel arches bogged in sand. So the prolific 4WD does come in handy here, even if you don't go out dune bashing.

The thing about the sand is, it's everywhere. I sweep and sweep up mounds (and I mean mounds) of sand every day from our apartment (and we're high up). Every surface gets a light dusting of sand in it. Our balcony ends up with a grimy mixture of sand all over it. After I bath the kids there is a substantial amount of sand left in the tub. I'm constantly emptying my and the kids shoes of sand. And it's different sand to Australia, it's fine almost silt-like sand and it sticks like concrete to your skin.

I spend my life feeling like I just got dumped at Manly beach and every crevice of my world is filled with, yes, sand.

Yes, we live in the desert.

Preferential treatment

Before I came to Dubai I was regaled with tales from many people who'd lived here about the rudeness of people, of people pushing in, of a general disregard of others. I prepared myself, I gave myself pep talks about being assertive (which I'm not) and then I arrived and had the exact opposite experience.

I had people hold doors open for me, Emirati ladies let me go ahead of them in queues, Emirati men would tell off people who attempted to push in, I've been pulled out of queues and given preferential treatment, cars stop and let me cross the street, people generally go out of their way for me. So, what made me so special? The kids. The fact that I had a baby or the girls with me. Children are 'it' here and mothers are special.

I must admit some days I feel like I'm pushing around a rock star as Darbs constantly gets waved to, hellos yelled out. I'll be standing somewhere and I'll suddenly look around and all the staff in a shop or restaurant have come out and are pulling faces at Darbs to make him laugh. Even the people who seemingly ignore us will stop and let us go ahead. It's so different to Australia, where generally when you take kids anywhere you're looked upon as being a bit of nuisance or nothing special.

I have to say, it's nice when the baby is screaming and people let you go ahead at the supermarket rather than just tsk and roll their eyes at you. It's lovely when people hold a door open when you're trying to negotiate a pram through instead of letting it slam on you.

I don't think I'm special because I have kids, but it's nice to get a little bit of help while out and about.

This is part of Dubai life that I really do enjoy.

Just say bidet, bidet and how ya going?

Dubai bathrooms are a little different to your average Australian bathroom. For one thing, every bathroom has a bidet or at the very least a hose. From the day we landed this has provided so much entertainment for our Darbs. The second you hear him go quiet or suddenly disappear you know exactly where he is.

At first, he'd just turn it on and splash the water, now he's perfected the art of spraying the whole bathroom and everyone in it. It's at just the right height for him. It's even more entertaining to him if one of his sisters happen to be on the toilet.

Thankfully the girls stay well away from the bidet after a nasty incident involving one girl trying to help the other clean up after using the toilet. Let's just say it wasn't pretty for anyone.

As Goose piped up and said to me the other day: "We don't like the bum wash, do we mum? We like toilet paper."

Here's Darbs in his favourite spot in the house:

"I'm not doing anything, I swear."

"But if I get my thumb just so, I can spray everything."

"Yeah, OK, it's awesome."