Thursday, February 14, 2008

10 days in Dubai

Logged on this evening from the hotel and the edit page came up completely in Arabic - Blogger being too smart for its own good. After a detour via French, I'm back in Anglais (Royaume-Uni).

The last few days, the weather has really warmed up here. Newspaper articles about infants crying from the cold because of an unseasonal 5 degrees C have ceased, as has the run on gas heaters. We were all cowering under an umbrella in the 25 degrees sun at 1 p.m. today, and it threatens to get to 30 soon.

Given the reputation of Dubai as a holiday getaway, I'm surprised at how expensive it is. A week or ten days at the beach doing the sights, with good meals and a bit of shopping thrown in could easily set you back a four figure sum. This is further validated by the number of really smart cars on the road - plenty of Porsches and Ferraris, while every other regular car is a Toyota.

Needless to say, our accommodation is considerably cheaper, and we take the hotel bus to and from work every day.