Liquid Sunshine in Dubai

I saw the first signs of the changing season here with a small rainstorm today.  Dubai has two seasons; a really hot and humid summer and a mild summer. We were in the Ibn Batutta mall having lunch at the Lime Tree cafe (our favorite restaurant so far) when the previously impotent cloud cover opened up a bit and showered the open terrace with a refreshing light shower. The cloud cover has been a bit threatening over the past few days but this is the first official wet spot I’ve noticed. I hear that early next year to expect a few heavy downpours that will flood the poorly engineered street culverts and identify all the holes in the roofs on the uppermost floors of most buildings.

Christmas Tree

You wouldn’t think that there would be any hint of Christmas here in a country where Allah has the upper hand over God, but you couldn’t be more wrong than Daylight’s Saving Time or skin care for men.

In a country whose national pastime is mall cruising and shopping, what better way to get the tourists and 85% of the non-local population to add to the GNP during the month of December than to pander the commercial side of Christmas.

If the idea of a young girl dressed in the traditional black abaya with her head covered in a black scarf sitting on Santa’s lap seems just plain wrong you have to remember that Father Christmas is just a pagan tradition, along with the Christmas tree, gift giving, hiding your brooms and the Festivus pole. These traditions do not conflict with Islam whatsoever.

Santa in Sandyland

You won’t, however, see any Nativity scenes or shop closures on the 25th. In fact, today is just another working day like all others and after opening our presents this morning, we are going off to the Marina Mall to do more shopping. Merry Christmas from the UAE!

The Infamous Tree

Not to be outdone by the gold vending machine, the Emirates Palace has again proven that its public relations budget is well worth the allocated funds and again sparked world attention by erecting the world’s most expensive Christmas tree. The appropriately named “$11 million Christmas Tree” has been criticized by many as a grotesque display of wealth during tough economic times, but regardless what you think of the concept, the Emirates Palace has succeeded. Marketing mission accomplished.

I went to see what all the fuss was about last night and the experience was a bit of an anticlimax. Yes the tree is beautiful and very tall, well decorated with traditional ornaments and a bevy of beautifully wrapped fake presents at the base of the tree. The source of the extreme price tag is not immediately apparent until you get up close and personal with the branches of the once living pine. Well, you can’t actually get that close as security is tight and the circular railing surrounding this icon of UAE excessiveness is well beyond  two arm’s lengths and your average forty-something’s focal length. I had to use my camera’s zoom lens to get a good view of the controversial ornaments.

Mere baubles adorn the tree.

Big deal! It’s just a normal (tall) Christmas tree with a bunch of expensive necklaces hung out on the branches. It’s not like $11 million was spent on the tree. 99% of the visible value in front of your eyes will be returned to the donating jewelers store front window after Christmas. I look at the situation as a Green environmentally friendly display case, a unique and creative way to get public exposure to some beautiful original designer trinkets and another marketing hole-in-one for the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi.

Camel Beauty Contest

Nearly 20,000 camels from the UAE and other Gulf Arab countries have converged on Abu Dhabi’s western region for one of the world’s biggest camel beauty contests involving prizes worth nearly Dh35 million ($9.5 million).

The camels have been brought from various parts of the UAE as well as neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and other Gulf nations for the week-long beauty competition in the western town of Dhafra.

The contest, which started on Thursday, will stretch until next Friday and officials described it as one of the largest camel beauty pageant in the world in terms of the value of prizes and number of camels.

More than 800 camel owners from the UAE and other regional nations are participating in the event, which is sponsored by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince and deputy supreme commander of the UAE armed forces. It is organised by the Culture and Heritage Authority.

Although I was not able to make it to this year’s pagent, this is something I am putting on my “to-do” list for 2011.

Flag of Portugal

Portugal has four distinct and noticeable seasons. The UAE has two; unbearable summer and normal summer.

Both countries enjoy a confusing, inefficient bureaucracy, long queues in public buildings, and government employees that aren’t paid enough to care but with enough power to ruin your day.

English is a second language in Portugal and is spoken well enough to be understood. English is an official language in the UAE and is unintelligible coming out of the mouths of the service sector population.

Food in Portuguese restaurants is unbelievably delicious, not expensive, but most of the cuisine is pretty much the same thing from restaurant to restaurant. Food in UAE restaurants is unbelievably varied, a bit expensive but disappointingly tasteless (unless you opt for the really expensive restaurants).

Portuguese drivers are really horrible and you have to drive extremely defensive on the roads. UAE drivers make the Portuguese look like driving instructors.

Flag of the United Arab Emirates

Both the Portuguese and the Emirati are the nicest people you will ever meet.

Public urinating is a national pastime in Portugal and a jailable offense in the UAE.

Taxis in both countries are not expensive. You can get across Lisbon for about $10 and Abu Dhabi for about $7.

Fresh water in Portugal comes out of the skies, is collected in lakes, streams and wells and is relatively cheap to purchase, unless you have a furo, then it is free. Fresh water in the UAE comes from the ocean, is desalinated in large factories that burn oil to process the salt water, and delivered to your faucet at about half the price it costs to make it, unless you are an Emirati where it is subsidized  further and costs even less.

When it rains in Portugal the streets drain quickly due to the spaces between the calçadas and the accurate engineering of the slope of the road down to the storm drain. When it rains in the UAE, which is about two days a year, most buildings leak and the roads flood as no one engineers rain into their construction projects.

Drive 10 minutes north of the Algarvian coastline and you are in the agricultural, green countryside. Drive 10 minutes south of the UAE coastline and you see nothing but sand and camels.

If given a choice, the Portuguese walk rather than drive. In the UAE no one walks.

Portugal enjoys freedom of the press. The UAE does too, as long as they like what you print.

Combine cruising down main street on a  Saturday night in the 1970′s with the Fourth of July, add a dash of innocent Halloween pranking and you have the 2010 UAE national day celebration.  No alcohol allowed and you have good clean fun in an amazing environment.