Flat Makenna's Report from Dubai - Part 1

So after a long trip, I finally arrived in Dubai a couple of weeks ago and I have been staying with Camille and Michael. I have had a few run-ins with Kitty so far but everything else has been really good. I have been enjoying the great weather and getting a pretty good tan so you may not recognize me when I get back. I will only be out here for a little bit longer but I wanted to post some photos of where I have been so far. I miss everyone back home, I wish you could all be here with me.

I went to Satwa for the morning to do some shopping and see the mosque.

During a trip to the Ibn Batutta mall, we ran into this character trying to impersonate Sneezy, Dopey, or one of the other seven dwarfs. BTW, ask Camille about the monkey when you get a chance.

I decided to watch the skiers at Ski Dubai inside the Mall of the Emirates for a little bit after some shopping.

So for some reason Michael decided to jump in on my photo shoot of Ski Dubai. What is going on with his hair?

I decided to take a walk along the Dubai Marina. This is taken from Camille and Michael's building with the yacht club and some of the towers in the background.

Here is a shot of Camille and I out on the edge of the Palm Jumeriah over looking the Dubai Marina, that is where Camille and Michael live.

I decided to go out to the top of the Jumeriah Palm to see the Atlantis Hotel .

A good spot for lunch at the Jumeriah Madinat over looking the dhow boats.

Just a little shopping at the Jumeriah Madinat. I wonder if this rug is big enough for my place?

We thought about taking a canal ride through the Madinat but there was a minimum height requirement; the same reason I don't go to Disneyland.

Here I am strolling through the Madinat with the Burj Al Arab in the background.

I spent some time laying out on the beach and collecting seashells with the Burj Al Arab in the background. Big kiss to everyone back home, I'll be home soon.

CATCHING UP

It's been far too long since we have posted anything new. I wanted to post a few older photos that never got put up before.

ANNIVERSARY CRUISE

So for our third anniversary, we went on a dinner cruise along Dubai Creek on one of the Dhows.

Here's our dhow boat.

Number 3.

Up on top, we had a great view of the city as we kicked back and enjoyed the weather.

Inside the dhow they had a buffet of traditional Arabic food.

Bedtime!

YOUTH CONFERENCE

As part of our church callings, Camille and I were on the hook to attend the youth conference in Abu Dhabi for most of the youth in the stakes. The kids came from Qatar, Dubai, Sharjah, Oman, and Yemen. All of the kids and leaders stayed in the villa that the Abu Dhabi ward uses for their meetings and it was quite the event. I think that they had around 90 youth that attended for the 3 days and 2 nights. There wasn't too much that was picture worth but we took a few shots at the fireside in the desert.

Hey, what do you know.... more sand!

Everyone is gather around for the start of the fireside.

"Camille!........ I don't think the mall is that direction!"

SKI DUBAI

This is a shot of us at the bottom of the hill. The bunny hill is behind us and fortunately we didn't need to spend any time there. The bottom two rows of windows in the back are restaurants in the mall and the top ones are hotel rooms with a good view of the slope. We had to pay extra for the matching outfits....... as any normal person would.

Here's Camille showing off the one and only ski lift.

Camille and one of her friends here are headed to the lift. The windows in the background look out into the mall.

A couple of the Aussies I work with. This is a good shot of the slope from the bottom. The slope hangs a left at the end and goes up about the same distance to the top. It was good fun. We'll have to do it again when it is 100 degrees outside this summer.

My Biggest Fear

So there are very few things in life that I totally fear; being tickled, getting mistaken for a member of the Taliban, getting gum on my shoe, the CAT!..... just to name a few. Now granted there are a few other things that I would fear if the odds were better that it could actually become a reality. Like having to fly the space shuttle to an asteroid millions of miles away with a nuclear bomb to save Earth and only having 24 hours to figure it out. OK, so in my mind that's still has a decent chance of happening but there are many others that I would consider more remote and it helps me sleep at night knowing that I don't have to worry about it.

So a few days ago, I was given 24 hours notice that I would have to confront a fear that was buried so deep down that I hardly knew how to react. I'm talking about stuff that they don't even dare make movies about. I spent every bit of effort over those 24 hours to talk my way out of it. I mean, send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck out there, they have experience with this whole space ship to asteroid and big boom thing.... I've seen them do it! I had every bit of statistical data and a life time of insignificant experiences all pointing to others that would be far more appropriate for the task at hand. But in the end, nothing could help my case. Call it a cruel experiment that could only result in a horrible disaster or worse. Now maybe it could be considered one of those pivotal stages in a marriage where the relationship is tested to its limit and the fellow husbands out there can vouch for how well those turn out.

OK, so after being in Dubai for almost 5 months now, Camille was pushed to the point of desperation with her hair. Her interaction with the salons here in Dubai has been anything but positive so she swore off going to any hair stylist here in the middle east. So what is plan B...... that's right...... the clueless bloke that she's married to. Please keep in mind ladies, this is what not to do. At this stage, it was either a trip to New York City for her or I was going to have to go where no engineer has ever gone before. To top it off, this wasn't just going to be a trim, oh no, it was time for an entirely different hair style that would take her somewhere that she could never get back from. I felt surprisingly more comfortable with my calculator in my pocket but I was still beside myself.

I remember very little of the whole ordeal; just random flashes of the scissors and comb, my feet standing in a pool of long, dark hair. I have been waking up the past few nights in a cold sweat, clinging to my alarm clock. Obviously the most important thing is that Camille is still pretending that she likes the cut but I figure it can't last much longer.

All the evidence she'll ever need of spousal abuse.


All smiles, so far so good.

Desert People

So we were invited a couple of weeks ago to go out to the desert with some families from the ward. We packed up some sandwiches for lunch and spent most of the day in an area east of Dubai known as Fossil Rock. The Martins have a couple of quads that they brought out so we had a bunch of fun riding those around and also doing a little sand boarding. A big thanks to the Martins for sharing their toys and also to the Bates and Clasons for good company.


So here was our caravan into the desert. Our Lancer should be in this shot but Camille doubted it's capabilities in the sand and held me back from tearing through the dunes. I think she needs a refresher on our desert car videos, a '77 Thunderbird never looked so unstoppable.

Everyone is hanging out on top of the dune with the camels in the background just doing their thing.

Here's a shot of the sand sled (they also had a sand board) that was really fun to head down the dunes on; walking back wasn't much fun though.

For some reason, these kids just loved rolling around in the sand. The little one-year-old in this shot was going nonstop the whole time we were there.

Here's a shot of camp from the nearby hill that I rode up on.

So this is Fossil Rock. It looks pretty weird, kind of like frozen mud

More camels... they really are everywhere. Camille keeps threatening to take one home and you always have to take her half seriously on things like that.

OK, kitty has been complaining that she's not on here enough so here it is; just don't tell Camille because she is always looking for evidence that I don't hate the cat.

Life in the Desert

We've finally gotten into the swing of things and actually got to spend some time in the desert. We went on a desert safari with the company, "Arabian Nights "and we had a wonderful time. The picture posted above is of us when we started our tour in the desert.

This picture is one that we shot threw the window of our vehicle. It's a beautiful picture of the desert.



This is a picture of the Arabian Night vehicles driving us through the desert. This was the only picture I could get that was clear. Most of the dunes we went on where so big and so bumpy I couldn't get a clear picture. This part was so much fun, I can't believe we didn't roll our vehicle. Our driver Mohammed has been a driver for 21 years, and is crazy insain when he's driving. We watched all the cars follow one another through the dunes, then their was us! Mohammed took us places that no one else on the tour got to see. Our vehicle definatly had the most fun!


They dropped us off in the middle of no where for the sunset. It's was an amazing site to see!Look an actual picture with both of us in it! I'm glad I won't have to photo shop Michael into this one.Look another picture with both of us in it. This is Nippy the camel. He was given his name by me after he tried to bite me several times. Good thing Nippy had a sock around his mouth!This was my first experience with a real camel. I was so excited....then Nippy tried to bite me. Bad Nippy!!!Ok...This poor falcon had a helmet on that covered his eye, he look retarded! Our group had issues with him having to wear the helmet. We talked about freeing him when no one was looking. Maybe next time!This was at the end of our night, we had a belly dancer dance for us while we were eating dinner. She would pull random guys up on stage to get them to dance with her. I was secretly hoping she'd pull Michael up, but it never happened. Maybe next time too.

Dubai Christmas

I thought that I should quickly post some photos of our Christmas Day. I woke up yesterday for work and there was a thick fog over the entire city. I thought that it may have just been around the marina where we live but I drove through it the entire way to work, which is quite a ways out in the desert. At some parts there was about 50 yards of visibility so it made driving on the freeway interesting; luckily there were no accidents. So I guess that this the Dubai version of a white Christmas. Of course I still had the A/C on as I drove, I think it got up to 80 degrees today.

The fog was back again this morning for my drive to work; yes, that's right, I had to work on Christmas Day, what a bummer. I left at noon so it wasn't too bad. I guess that I'd rather have the 6 days of holiday over here in December versus 1 back home so I can't complain. I was really surprised how many of the Muslims and Hindus at my work came in and wished me a Merry Christmas, in fact, no one over here even uses the stupid 'Happy Holidays' line. I had to laugh also because those same guys at my work convinced us the bosses to let us leave early for Christmas. I kept wanting to say, 'wait a minute, none of you even celebrate Christmas' but I wasn't complaining. So much for being offensive to other faiths.

O.K., here's a few of our photos. We are planning some big trips this year and we just bought a ton of stuff so we felt like a small Christmas was in order.

Here's our little tree.



Fancy Feast for Kitty!



A little cat nip always does the trick.



Very nice!



Hand lotion! Some people get everything.



So the only thing I wanted for Christmas was a set of these traditional Pakistan clothes (Paki pajamas). All of the Pakis wear them here and they look so comfortable. Camille was able to run them down for me so here is my best modeling work. I have to admit that they are more comfortable than I had imagined. These are worn by the Pakis to work, shopping, walks on the beach, and everywhere else. I hope to get plenty of use out of these but don't tell Camille.


There's even a pocket.... what more could you ask for.